Pottery

For lack of stamina to go mall-walking-gawking again and since we aren’t exactly foodies as we worry too much about cholesterol, my husband and I decided to join a pottery workshop on a weekend.
We went to this place I had heard about many times and after researching on whether they were robbing us by asking for a lot of money for just a 2 hour session and realizing every other pottery class was costlier, we let our cash flow.
It was a tiny room in a large building with 2 clearly artistic people already with their hands muddy and 2 trainers. Thankfully, another younger but less clueless couple also joined along with an older couple who brought their kid along (who featured on their instagram page because she was clearly cuter than all of us adults). So I felt relatively calm about being the ‘median’ with respect to age.
We started with ‘Wheel throwing’ where the trainer helped us mould the clay into a tiny bowl/ pot on a spinning wheel. Some of our attempts were utter failures but there is something about the clay going round and round that reminds one of lives spiralling out of control yet shaping us into who we ought to be. After this philosophical awakening and making some tiny pot-like things in the process, we set off for the next part – Hand building. Contrary to what the name suggests, we didn’t build hands but used our hands to build relatively drier clay into whatever the hell we wanted. As a romantic, I moulded the clay into a heart-shaped vessel and my artistic husband who was clearly more invested and better at this clay stuff than me, made a magic lamp that would make Aladdin exclaim – Whoa!
Anyway, my husband had a good time reminiscing his childhood days where he had been involved in beginner-level clay art. While I had only played with the clay that my SUPW (Socially Useful and Productive Work) teacher brought to class once which was basically precious commodity, I resorted to thinking about Harappa and Mohenjodaro as the trainer had informed us that we were working with Terracotta clay.
Before leaving, I overheard the artistic person number 1, who had made a very beautiful blue jar, say that she finds pottery therapeutic and does not want to put a deadline on it, when asked by the trainer by when she would be able to complete some other pieces. It was nice to see how art helps people deal with their emotions and brings in clarity of thought and priorities. The artists’ community is underpaid and overlooked because everyone just has to have a fancy job if they have to pay the rent in big cities. So, I guess it was worth it to spend some of that corporate money for a small amount of time to learn something, discover myself and also have some fun.
We finished the session and went dabba-hunting because we needed to take some of our masterpieces back to our tiny apartment. As we had arrived in splendor on our humble eco-friendly vehicle, if the clay pots had to survive, they had to be secured tight. We found a perfect tiny store right in front of our eyes and even asked for spare newspaper to cover the art. And when we got everything that we asked for, Taylor Swift was smiling at us from the old newspaper saying her concerts were a safe space. Which made me realise, all art is supposed to make one feel safe, at home and included/ heard/ visible. Maybe pottery isn’t exactly my artform, but writing is. And for my hubby who thoroughly enjoyed the session – a blast from his extracurricular-filled past – he also is an artist, maybe not with clay per se but with music (guitar cutie, he plays it groovy! – Hannah Montana fans assemble!). And that mutual love for art and each other made our Sunday a very happy and bright day indeed.