When God Tests Us by Fire

In my sophomore year of college, I took a pottery class. I liked to take at least one creative class per semester to help blow of some steam and provide some sort of therapeutic break from essay writing and book reading, but mostly I took that class because it included a unit on throwing pottery. In other words, there was a large part of the semester that involved sitting at a pottery wheel, and that seemed like it would be a fun experience. Except there’s a lot of technique that goes into that. You have to get a hang for the right amount of moisture in the clay. Make the clay too dry and the clay won’t submit to the shape you’re trying to mold; too wet and it will be a sloppy, muddy mess that will either take forever to dry out or prove itself utterly impossible to mold into anything. There’s a learning curve to actually throwing the clay: where to put it on the wheel, how much clay to use if you’re just starting out, the methods of making the clay workable, how much height, depth, or thickness to make a good ceramic piece.