Breaking Bowls

I have bad luck with clay. I've been fortunate enough (depends on how you look at it) to take both sculpture and ceramics now, and to be tasked with forming all manner of obsurdities with my hands. Even my illustration class has forced me to confront my deepest fears and sculpt a maquette of polymer clay without regard to any distaste one might experience as a result of such actions. I discovered almost immediately a fact I probably should've known since childhood, that I have no aptitude with 3-dimensional artwork. Perhaps I was one of those kids more interested in eating the Play-doh than in molding a snake and spaghetti combo platter for two. This semester I undertook the daunting task of becoming a mediocre crafter of ceramic ornaments. The first task was by far the most difficult as is often the case with riddles and safe cracking. I had to learn to make a simple cylinder out of clay on the pottery wheel. It took most of the semester for me to master what my teacher could while blindfolded and being pelted by raisins and peanut brittle. After mastering, excuse me, after managing to consistently muster an acceptable cylinder on most attempts I was ready to start making my dreams come true, my ceramics dreams that is.

Each project was a different object, typically a dish that took a little practice to craft. Each class period we had an assignment due, we would gather around a table and present our work and then view the work of all our classmates. This humiliating ritual always enabled us to see who was the best in the class and naturally the worst as well. I'm happy to report that I wasn't the worst, because some people didn't turn anything in, but I was on the unfortunate end of things. One particular assignment was to craft 2 exquisite bowls. While this might seem straightforward, it was in fact very straightforward. I worked on my bowls a good amount of time and crafted what I felt were gorgeous bowls worthy of a royal breakfast of cereal or something fancy royalty eats from a bowl. As our ritual commenced I went to get my bowls from the damp room where they had been drying. I picked the best of them up and headed to the door and the bowl split in my hands and fell to the floor where it exploded with my heart and the hopes of a passing grade.


Fortunately my teacher was standing next to me when the tragedy occured so he was aware I had had a bowl ready to show. He asked perhaps a pointless question, "Was that your bowl?" I acknowledged that it had been. "Well that's not good. I guess you'll just have to make another one." was his reply. Distressed I went back to work trying to make another bowl as amazing as I had somehow done before. After several attempts and several days I produced another fine bowl that was worthy of the much sought after seal of approval I give myself on occasion. I set this masterpiece in the damp room to dry so I could present it to my teacher and the world. After a day of sweet talking and natural air drying, I took my bowl from the shelf to trim and put the final touches on it. After picking it up I heard a strange noise and saw what can be best described as a hole in the perfect plan. There was a small hole directly in the center of my bowl about the size of a dime. Yet another beautiful bowl disasterously destroyed right before my moistening eyes. I don't know what it's like to have a puppy run away from home, but I imagine the feeling is similar to mine in that moment. I knew I couldn't handle much more heart wrenching ceramic failures without turning into a math major.

I spent the rest of the semester practicing and hammering out dishware like a madman, but my luck with bowls was still distressing until the end. My final week of working with clay I focused all my energy on bowl making and determined to master this elusive and supposedly easy dish before leaving empty handed and swearing off cereal and soup forever. I'm not sure if it was all the practice, hard work, and determination, or if it was just the awkward kid in my class staring over my shoulder the entire time I was working but my luck changed and I proved everyone wrong and right, depending on which way they were betting. In the end I walked out of class feeling I had accomplished something,something great, and also with a truckload of ceramic dishes that I will never use. Sometimes you have to break a few bowls before you learn how to really make them, and to appreciate them when you finally do.