Every two years, we have invited a local island potter to come and play with our Spring Leaves kids. Nancy Silo has been working with clay since the 1970’s, and her enthusiasm for sharing her skills with our group is always a special treat for us. This year, Nancy led us through the steps of making bowls in a very surprising and delightful way. Photos taken by Kenta Kikuchi beautifully illustrate the two days we spent working on them- first decorating and shaping, and a few weeks later when we glazed the bisque fired bowls.
After rolling out a flat piece of circular clay, the kids decorated their clay with a variety of stamping materials, as well as freehand drawing into the clay. Then Nancy demonstrated a very surprising and delightful way of making the flat clay into a bowl- by laying the slab on a piece of foam, placing a bowl on top of it (there were two sizes to choose from) and pressing down hard into the foam. When the bowl was released, the clay slab underneath had been pressed into a ripple edged bowl of varying depth.
A few weeks later, after Nancy took the bowls home and bisque fired them, the kids glazed them with a selection of glazes that Nancy brought in with samples of their finished colour and shine. When she returned a few weeks later after their last firing, we finally got to see the end result. Often with pottery, there is a bit of surprise all along the way, as the variations between the elements involved in the process take on their own actions and results. Thank you, Nancy! Thanks also to Kenta Kikuchi for taking and sharing the photographs.
Inspirational Village 