I started something new and exciting!
When a friend told me about a course in ceramics, I was sold right away. ok, it’s all in Swedish and I have to drive an hour to get there but on the other hand it’s great practice for my Swedish and it’s a beautiful road that brings me to this workspace.
We started with a technique that is probably one of the hardest that I’m going to learn this course: throwing.
Before you can start with any shape, you have to center this piece of stubborn clay that of course dances in all possible wrong directions 🙂
Secondly you have to create toe bottom and then start shaping the sides. Both of these I always make too heavy. One attempt to make a teacup turned out so graceless that it got the size of an egg-cup. Oops. That clearly needs more practice. But it’s fun. And it’s definitely ok to fail and to fail again.
The Swedish isn’t always easy. I like talking (although mostly not while working) but sometimes I just can’t say it in Swedish. Or I look like an idiot for not understanding something simple. It’s amazing to learn new words every week but frustrating at the same time for feeling so limited.
But other times it can be comical like when I got the instruction to use a ‘svamp’. I was standing in the middle of this ceramics workspace in the city and I had to use a mushroom?
Turns out they also say ‘svamp’ to a sponge. Now that made sense 🙂