It is hard to give a complete lab report for my group as this lab was more of an individual journey than usual, but I will report on my experience with the clay and what I gathered from both the zoom and class today.
The rough measurements that Kelly gave us were difficult to go by because we didn’t have a lot, or any, previous experiences with pottery. I know I struggled with the natural instinct to make my clay too dry. When Kelly gave us the tip to wrap a coil of clay around our finger and measure the moistness based on the amount of cracks, I was surprised to see how off I was! I was working with two other students (not in group E), but they also struggled with finding the right consistency at first.
Hopefully I used enough grog, but we won’t truly know how the temper step worked until it either blows up or doesn’t. I was interested in how much like baking this step felt. Jake commented this in class today, but I had the same thoughts about how picking up the grog felt like flour or sugar on a baked good.
The formation was a mess! I restarted my pots three times. I had big dreams for the shape of my clay and I never worked them into reality, it was also really hard to ask questions because my hands were absolutely covered in clay. Others asked questions though, and I got the sense that people struggled with this as well. Kelly had us try to add an extra coil on to make a strong shaped lip, but mine just made my wall weaker because the thickness was wrong. Spencer, my actual group mate, also talked about the difficulty of making a well proportioned shape. The two non-group member students I was working with struggled with coil thickness too and one even had to restart their pot at this stage.
Our pots have been drying outside in partial shade/sunlight and they feel much harder than expected already. They felt hard after four hours, to the point I could pick them up and tap on them.
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