Finding the Center

I've been trying to find an open studio where I can keep up my practice in pottery, and I've been ruminating over the whole process of "throwing" quite a bit lately, and over all of the similarities the it bears to my walk with God. By the way, I'm well aware of how often this comparison is made--I mean, we find it in the Bible itself! But oh well, I wanted to share my experience with the metaphor.

Last year I took a ceramics class at ACU. I should have taken it pass/fail--my mistake--but still, it was one of the classes that I most enjoyed adding to my transcript, despite the "B." We started out with handbuilding, rolling slabs, coiling little pots. That was all nice and very quaint, but I was anxious to graduate to the potter's wheel.

Finally, the day came, and it was spoiled almost immediately. I was terrible at it! The first step in the process is to literally throw your ball of clay onto the wheel, aiming for the center, hoping it will find its way there and stick itself good. I found myself blindly wielding my clay, afraid to watch lest my hand-eye coordination be proven any worse than it already was. After getting my first decently-centered-and-stuck piece of clay, I proceeded to center the clay. This is the part where the potter actually begins to spin the wheel and work with the clay, trying to form a nice dome of perfectly centered clay that is ready to move on to the next stage.

Centering is considered the most important step in this process, as well as the most difficult by many. It requires (especially for the beginner) a good deal of patience and strength. You will often discover if you stuck your clay well enough upon the first rotation of the wheel. If it has not adhered to the wheel adequately, it will be spun right off. This not-so-phenomal phenomena elicited many a "Son of a . . . !!" from me over the course of that semester. But once it has proven itself stuck, the potter begins by pressing in on the clay from opposite directions. I usually began with the heels of my palms, and as the clay began to soften and press itself inward, I would allow more of my hands to wrap around it. The potter then applies enough pressure to both sides to force the clay upwards, allowing it form a conical structure. Next, the potter uses the bottom of a fist to apply pressure on the top of the cone, while the other hand applies some pressure to the side of the cone, pushing the clay back down, allowing the hands to once again encircle it in order to form a dome.

The point of this step is the get the clay ready to be stretched and to find the perfect rotational center from which to form the vessel. During this step, the potter's hands are constantly on the clay, hardly leaving but to retrieve some moisture, some nourishment, if you will, to keep it from becoming too dry. Its hard on the clay, and often times, frustrating. When watching a demonstration, it is the most boring part to watch, and when it is performed by a very experienced potter, it can go by pretty quickly. But that does not make it unimportant. Without a well-centered piece of clay, the vessel will not succeed. The rotational pull will be too much for the clay to sustain as the potter tries to stretch it and mold it into the shape he has planned for it. Finding the center makes all the difference in the world.