Viva Brighton Issue #43 September 2016

WE TRY...
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Throwing pots
At Shoreham Pottery
‘What are the therapeutic benefits of throwing a pot?’
I type into Google as I reflect on an utterly absorbing
hour spent at Shoreham Pottery. Our September issue
being all about learning stuff, we thought we’d better
at least try to pick up a new skill, so Rebecca and I had
embarked on a private throwing lesson, taught by Alice
Maplesden. Alice co-runs the pottery with her business
partner Katy Harris, and together they’ve created an
inviting atmosphere of artistic endeavour tinged with
creative chaos.
The lesson starts with a deceptively effortless demonstration
by Alice, deftly conjuring up a shapely pot
whilst imparting easy-to-follow instructions. Very
quickly we’re each crouching over our own wheels,
arms braced, applying equal parts brute force and
dogged determination in a bid to centre our pieces of
clay, which are spinning giddily out of control. Next
we use our cupped hands to repeatedly raise and flatten
the clay until the once-unruly mess is an orderly disc
about an inch high. Thumbs pressed into the spinning
centre create a tentative dent, which widens to
transform the disc into a vessel, and we tease the walls
upwards and outwards with growing confidence. It’s
wonderfully tactile and deeply satisfying, and very soon
we both have highly respectable, if somewhat chunky,
first attempts to marvel at.
First pots set aside, we begin again. Alice instructs
us that it’s important to get our pots to the desired
height before allowing them to get too wide and - as
if to prove the point - the rim of my flamboyantly
flared bowl collapses. No matter. I start again, this
time following the fundamental rules of engagement,
squeezing the clay into a taller tower before ‘drawing
the profile with my hands’. It’s a triumph of sorts -
probably unremarkable to the untrained eye - but it
has pleasingly thin walls that might actually break if
dropped. I undercut the base and, wetting the wheel,
use a wire to slice and ‘float’ the pot to freedom. By
the fourth attempt I’m able to remember the correct
sequence and achieve an Alibaba-esque honey-pot,
whilst Rebecca pulls off a highly passable plate.
Quite unexpectedly the lesson becomes one of those
rare experiences when your brain is so utterly taken up
by something other than your daily routine that you
come out as refreshed as if you’d been on a mini-break.
The hour quickly passes with much tongue-lolling
concentration and very little chatter, just the occasional
pointer from Alice about the speed of the wheel or the
position of the hands, and a congratulatory murmur
each time a pot is placed on the plank to air dry.
So what are the therapeutic benefits of throwing a pot?
They are many and varied, and include not only the
satisfaction that comes with learning a new skill, but
having somewhere to keep your honey, too.
Lizzie Lower
Shoreham Pottery offer classes, workshops and private
tuition options for adults and children. Tarmount Studios,
Shoreham-by-Sea, shorehampottery.com
Photos by Lizzie Lower
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