Creativity with an old medium.

The medium of Clay is as old as the earth, you can’t get any older. Clay was used to make many functional objects associated with food preservation in the time of the Amerindians such as the monkey jars and coal pots.  Clay vessels such as deyas were made for religious rituals and ceremonies like Divali, the Festival of Light. Clay was also used as a binding material to construct tapia houses.

 

Creativity with a particular medium comes from an artist having a natural affinity or skill with that medium.  I am more creative with acrylics than water colours, I can use both but I am just much more comfortable and happy with acrylics. However I was taught to use all different types of medium to be able to teach technique to my students.

 Teaching is a two way street,  as a teacher I pass on knowledge and technique and students return the favour by responding to the teaching and surpassing my expectations.  One of my past students, Thomas Haskell came to visit my school last week, he was a student who I can say I taught him two dimensional art and I in turned learnt about three dimensional design from him. He definitely had a gift for working with clay; he started off working with polymer clay and is now most comfortable with different types of clay. Thomas is currently studying for his masters in ceramics at OCAD. 

Thomas’s visit was indeed a pleasure to see him passing on his creativity and skills to younger students. He worked on the potter’s wheel and the 4 and 5 year olds were enthralled in very much the same way as the 15 year olds later that day. You can always tell how skilled a craftsman is by how easy they make it look. Mastering a potter’s wheel takes a lot of practice especially when you want to create a unique piece of pottery.