Looking back over the years it’s always interesting to see pathways emerge. Those we took and those we didn’t. Are our paths predestined? Probably not but I believe we are drawn in specific directions. We might, for example, have had to take a path that we wouldn’t have chosen, (which is what happened to me), only to find ourselves back on the original path years later. But every path brings learning and experiences. As a young person, not interested in academic work and therefore quite a ‘disappointment’ in an academic family (!), I was desperate to go to art school or, failing that, become a nanny. They say children will show you, quite early on, the direction they might take in life that will probably make them happiest and most fulfilled. Unfortunately though, as parents, we can have expectations of our kids that are different from theirs and end up pushing them in a direction that suits us, not them. In the end, my pleas fell on deaf ears. I was sent to secretarial college to learn to touch type and do shorthand and I hated it. I never mastered those ridiculous squiggles, but as it turned out I did go on to work in creative companies and that sustained me until I had my children (nanny) and picked up the clay (art).
The first week in September I walked through the doors of Richmond’s Adult Community College to join a ceramics class and learn lots of new things, but especially how to throw. Not quite art school but not a mile off. Yes, I'm already a potter, but I hand build my pieces and throwing on a wheel is a whole other business! I am in my sixties now, but I found myself drifting back in time as, quite unexpectedly, my 19-year-old self appeared. She had been waiting for this moment for a long time, and I have to say my heart sang and I felt very excited. I was shown around the studio, the huge kiln room, the glaze room, the wheels, the big drawers full of tools, shelves loaded with examples of glaze results, the office with clay, masks and tools for sale. It was recommended I start with Flek clay, quite rough and gritty but good for a beginner who has never really thrown before other than a few stabs at it on a couple of weekend courses which had been so ‘hands on’ by the tutors that I never felt anything I had made was actually mine.
I was given a demonstration and then left to give it a go on my own and told to ‘have a play’. I sat there for a moment to gather myself in, trying to quell my rising fear of inevitable failure, like so many of us I had forgotten how to play. I switched on the wheel, put my wet hands on the lump of clay and pressed down on the controls with my foot – the wheel began to spin as I attempted to centre the clay quite unsuccessfully at first but well enough to stick in my thumbs and make a clumpy bowl of sorts. I’m now in my fifth week and improving, but what’s most exciting is that I am finally on a pathway I had always wanted to tread. Here I am, kind of ‘at art college’ which was my dream. I feel 19 again, learning to throw with all the time in the world, and the results don’t matter and yes, I am playing, and I love it.