Week 1: Pinch pots

Last night was the first class of the new session at Beech Grove Clay Works. I had made the decision to alternate week by week between handbuilt and wheel thrown lessons, so I decided to start the session off with pinch pots. 

Pinch pot decorating. via Pinchpots blog

Pinch pots are such a deceptively simple technique, but the possibilities for what you can make with them are endless. (For you non-potters - a pinch pot is a pottery technique where you take a ball of clay and shape it into a simple bowl or cup shape with your thumb and fingers by pinching). I showed my students a brief slideshow of various things made from pinch pots, from textured rattles to coffee mugs, to give them an idea of the variety of things it's possible to make. Then they rolled out four 1lb balls of clay, and I showed them how to make a footed bowl, a handled mug, and large and small pinch pot birds. I turned my large bird into a rattle as well, since that seems to be an object that's really caught my attention lately. I think it was gratifying for them to have four completed objects by the end of class time. I really want to make more rattle sculptures! They're really stuck in my brain right now.

Father and son bird making team.

Little bowls

Cafe mugs, one turned into a creamer pitcher.

My bird rattle, and a bowl and mug with feet.

Not only did I have a really fun first class, but I also got to go out to lunch with my friend Kat and her boyfriend Mike yesterday, so I could give her the pink robo ninja jar that she bought. We went to Hotcake Emporium and had Black Forest pancakes. That has got to be the most decadent breakfast I've ever eaten in my life, but man was it delish!

Cherries, chocolate, and chocolate chips. I don't even know what the sweet white stuff was.  It was ridiculous, that's what.

I was tempted to order the Crepes Suzette, because my last name is french, and it's a damn shame that I've never even tried a crepe in my life. Besides, Cointreau sauce sounds both delicious and fancy, and I love things with booze in them. But when Kat ordered the Black Forest pancakes, my brain just exploded, and I got that instead.

Weird wall mural - there's an egg for a sun, but they're fishing for eggs?  Why is the chef pulling fishing nets with a redneck? Weird stuff.

So that has absolutely nothing to do with pottery. It was just delicious, and if you are in Indiana or you come to visit, you should go to the Hotcake Emporium. It's right there in the name. Emporium. They have everything, even waffles and french toast (though they called it Freedom toast, and we mock them openly for that.)

I forgot to bring Kat's robo ninja. We both decided that just gave us an excuse to meet up again for more pancakes.