Learning to Improvise: A Side Benefit of Beginner Pottery Class
One of the most interesting aspects of making pottery is how often you find yourself in a situation where you have to make do with the resources you have around you, and how that ability to improvise can sometimes lead to magical results.
Ever tried using a cookie as a clay stamping? How about a 5-gallon bucket as a chuck for trimming? Or a paper towel as a rim forming, shammy replacement?
No idea what any of that means or how it has anything to do with making ceramics? Consider checking out our intro to pottery course! In just 8 weeks time, we’ll teach you all the basics of working with clay.
Why Improvisation Matters
According to the Covert Improv theater “Improvisation develops one’s creativity, mental flexibility and thinking skills in numerous ways.” When we improvise we are developing our imaginations, generating new ideas, and learning to trust ourselves.
When we improvise we are being spontaneous, and looking past preconceived ideas. While clay has been used for centuries to make pottery, there will always be room to improvise, and ultimately challenge how things are supposed to be done.
Yes, that means taking risks on a piece we may care about, but that is part of the pottery making process. As a good friend and mentor Carol Bell of Turk Hill Craft School would say “Don’t get attached, it’s just mud.”
Paul Soldner, A Visitor, and an Orange Tree
Pictured: Paul Soldner, Teapot, n.d., stoneware, assembled: 10 1/2 x 10 x 6 3/4 in. (26.7 x 25.4 x 17.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Theodore Cohen in memory of his mother and her sisters: Rose Melmon Cohen, Blanche Melmon, Mary Melmon Greenberg and Fanny Melmon Liberman, 1998.122.22A-B
In our intro course we cover the basics of trimming clay pots. During that week we cover everything from how trim tools work, to techniques for defining footrings. But one of our favorite things we share is a fun little anecdote we found about noted ceramic artist and educator Paul Soldner (1921-2011).
If you don’t know who Soldner was, we suggest you look him up. Not only did he help define what some call “American Raku”, he made one-of-a-kind forms, built nearly indestructible clay mixing equipment, and founded the Anderson Ranch Center.
Below is the excerpt from the Oral history interview with Paul Soldner, 2003 April 27-28. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
"Then there was a visitor who showed up one day at school, a Japanese potter. I had a woman in my class, Helen Andreson, who was a sister, I believe, or niece, of Laura Andreson, who was teaching pottery at UCLA. She came to my class and she said, "Well, Paul, I think he's a potter; he doesn't look like one, but Laura said if I could use him today, she didn't need him." And I said, "Well, bring him in."
Pictured: Bizen Ware Square Plate, 1986, Kanashige Michiaki (Japanese, 1934–1995)/ An example of Bizen ware from the Art Institute of Chicago.
He was dressed in black suit and tie and couldn't speak any English, and I spoke no Japanese, but I got a ball of clay and I held it and offered it to him. So he took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves and indicated I should sit down at the wheel, and he sat on the other side and indicated that he wanted me to kick it and make it go faster or shake his head no to slow it down. And so he started throwing, just little sake bottles and little objects that, here I was involved with doing massive stuff, and I thought, "Well, this is some kind of funny potter." And besides, he didn't seem to have much control; he wobbled all over the place.
And I kind of dismissed him. In the afternoon things had dried out enough that they were ready to trim the foot, and he really blew my mind, because instead of putting it back on the wheel and trimming it the way I was taught, he broke off a branch from an orange tree in front of the school and he just used that branch, a broken stub, to kind of make a foot, sort of. Never saw anybody do that and that was terrible. I mean, really it was.
So after he left, I was confused. Why in the world was he here and why did she send him over? But through the weeks following that, I discovered I couldn't keep my eyes off of them. Every time I'd walk past them, it was like they'd reach out and say, hey, look at me. And I couldn't put it together. Eventually I saw Laura and I said, "What in the world was that about?" And she said, "Oh, didn't you know? That was Kaneshige. He's a living national treasure in Japan of Bizen tradition." And I said to myself, and I got him for free? Well, that influenced my work tremendously, got much, much looser, a lot more exploratory…”
The Greats All Improvise
Mozart and Beethoven not only improvised variations on popular themes of the day, they documented and saved their improvisations for later study. When a play goes wrong superstar quarterbacks scramble while their receivers get open. Celebrity chefs on tv shows make due with foreign ingredients.
Soldner is considered by many to be genre defining in the ceramics world, and in just one short afternoon his idea of what was right and wrong was challenged, and his work influenced by a simple tree branch and some improvisation. How cool is that?
Classical musicians, sporting legends, iron chef’s, and national treasures of the Japanese Bizen tradition, no matter their speciality, they all improvise. Because they can, and because they know when and where they should.
When to Improvise with Clay
Improvisation isn't always a good idea, especially when you're just learning how to throw on the wheel, or hand build with clay. In those moments it’s best to learn and listen from your instructor—after all, learning from a skilled teacher is one of the biggest benefits of taking a beginner pottery class.
But as you gain more experience and better understand clay and all of its many quirks, you'll learn where and when you can and cannot take improvisational risks.
Clay will stretch, pieces will crack, the wheel will spin, glazes will flow—it's all part of the chemistry and science of pottery. Take time to understand how and why these things work like the do in an intro to pottery course, and you’ll soon find the gray areas where improvisation is possible, spontaneity works, and your creativity can truly flourish.
Sure it’s easy to hyper focus on following the rules, and creating “the correct” shape or form, because by default our minds want to stick to what we know or believe to be an ultimate truth. But sometimes, if we go off book like that Japanese potter did with Paul Soldner all those years ago, we might just make something more beautiful than we could have imagined, and share something more impactful with the world than we ever thought possible.
I for one can’t wait to try trimming my next wheel thrown piece with a tree branch.
Looking for more reasons to take a beginner pottery class?
Classes are a great way to learn a new hobby, relieve stress, and recover from burnout from a busy day job. If you are looking for more reasons to take a class Check out our blog article 5 Signs you should take a pottery class or send us a message.
