Transcendence and Throwing

I wanted to write about a particular kind of experience of pottery making. I sensed that there was something important about it, but describing it in an orthodox way through writing seemed inadequate. I wanted to write about a state of transcendence associated with ‘throwing’[i] on the potter’s wheel.

By chance I went to a lecture and also read a book, and some of the same ideas occurred in both. From the book I began to understand more about the way the structure of language will determine the concepts that it expresses.

“European languages stress the notion of syntax, which is the ordering of words in a sentence… The typical European sentence consists of a noun and a predicate. You cannot have a sentence without either and, for that matter, a complete thought.”

“A Blackfoot speaker on the other hand, does not carry around an inventory of words. What he carries around is an inventory of sounds. If one can borrow from chemistry the ‘periodic table of the elements’, one can imagine a periodic table of sounds that are used to construct words. Figuratively speaking, experiencing means running alongside a happening and describing it”.

In the Blackfoot mind, everything is in a state of flux; on one level this relates to the cosmos, and at another level it relates to human consciousness. The Blackfoot thinker does not put himself at the centre of the thinking, but instead regards himself as part of the constant movement that is the nature of the universe. Consider the following two sentences: ‘He was singing’, and ‘Some singing was happening’. The first sentence, with its European thought pattern puts ‘he’ at the centre and ‘singing’ as part of a finite event: the song was soon over. In the second sentence, ‘singing’ is central and is part of a notion of constant flux. (Peat 2005) The Blackfoot is indeed “running alongside a happening” of singing, and describing the experience in the context of both his immediate surroundings, and also the world in flux and chaos.

The following description of throwing on the potter’s wheel attempts to distance the ‘I’ from that process, and to understand the feeling of disassociation that is akin to ‘running alongside a happening and describing it’.

At this point the wheel gathers momentum as though it knows that it must. Both hands grasp the clay, which changes from an uncontrolled lump, and organizes itself into a symmetrical dome. At this stage the structure of the clay is changing; the clay particles, which are disc shaped, are lining themselves up in circular and cylindrical patterns with their centre at the centre of the wheel. At the micro level these changes occur and are unseen; however the potter can feel those changes through his hands. The clay draws itself up and then returns to the original dome shape on the wheel head, and that happens again and again until the particles are properly arranged and ready for the task to be done. The wheel slows down and energy is conserved. The spinning dome of clay opens in the centre and the beginning inside of the pot is formed. That central void expands and the walls of the pot become thinner and taller. Now the wheel moves more and more slowly, allowing the twisted steel wire to slip between the clay and the wheel head. The pot is removed but the wheel still revolves and then it receives the next piece of clay. At this point the wheel gathers momentum as though it knows that it must, and it does all of the above time after time after time after time.

If the above passage was read slowly, the time taken to read it could conform to the time taken for the action to happen. The wheel is moving without stopping as this repetition takes place, and it is surely the case that the constant movement, albeit with changes of momentum, contributes to the altered state of mind that can be induced. Other factors, which contribute to the experience of working in this way, are isolation from the rest of the world by working in gloomy conditions, and a spotlight that illuminates only the wheel head. Certain kinds of recorded classical music can also play a part, but the most important auditory experience is the rhythmic noise from the working of the wheel; the repetitive use of the treadle and the sound of the clay being banged onto the wheel-head, to be followed by the scraping noise as the wire is pulled under the finished pot. Under certain conditions, the beginning pot can also give off a sound, because as the shape grows and develops a hollow interior, it catches ambient sound, which resonates as the form grows. This is reminiscent of the sound of the sea, which can apparently come from the interior of a seashell, although in this case the pitch of the sound can be perceived to shift as the form grows.

Repetition throwing can be tedious and tiring, so anything that removes the drudgery and fatigue is important to the potter. Later, when the work is completed, I can look at what I have made – maybe two hundred bowls arranged in columns of ten. No two pieces are identical, but for all practical purposes they are all the same. I prepared two hundred balls of clay, each one weighed on the scales, and I end up with two hundred bowls. Nothing went wrong. If each one took a minute to make, then the task lasted for over three hours, during which time the treadle operated wheel[ii] never stopped. There is a joke about potters having a left leg, which is more developed than the right. Other potters work like Stakhanovites – I once watched as seven flowerpots were made in one minute, every minute for an hour

I know that the experience of this approach to throwing alters my mind in some way. I am certainly fully aware of what is going on, but not in the way that I normally am. I don’t feel tired, although the energy that has been expended is considerable, and in the normal way of things would indeed be tiring. At its most exhilarating, there is a strong feeling of accomplishment and sometimes even a reluctance to stop. The experience of the work has induced the feeling of well being which may last for some hours. This state of awareness may be akin to the sort of ‘highway hypnosis’ described by Marcuse (1966:200), which can be experienced with disastrous effect by motorists. The three factors which could induce ‘highway hypnosis’ are also present when working on the potter’s wheel in the way that I have described; they are fixed staring at a constant point ahead (vision), the unvaried hum of the engine/wheel (audition), and constant posture (kinaesthesia). When specific auditory, kinaesthetic and visual stimuli are all present, to the exclusion of other stimuli, there is then the potential for a self-induced hypnotic state. This may also be identical, or similar, to what happens to the brain during transcendental meditation, when;

“A person allows his mind to experience a relaxed and enjoyable state which draws his attention inward. He experiences a state in which the mind becomes very quiet, but extraordinarily alert. Though sense impressions, feelings or thoughts may be present during TM, meditators report brief or sometimes extended periods of ‘blank awareness,’ ‘being awake inside with nothing going on,’ ‘not being asleep, but not being aware of anything in particular’”.

However there is a clear distinction between the adverse effects of highway hypnosis, the sought for effect of transcendental meditation, and the more prosaic use of an altered state of mind to ensure the efficient making of pottery.

I have described the conditions under which the work can go very well indeed, but on other occasions the work goes badly. Like many work activities the preparation is all-important; if the clay is too hard, or too soft, or has not been properly wedged, then the experience can be miserable. Karla Needleman describes just how bad that feeling can be;

“My daughter’s class in elementary school had somehow acquired a potter’s wheel, and the teacher, hearing that one of her students’ mothers knew pottery, called and asked me to come in to demonstrate and to work with clay with the class. I was happy to do it. The kids were about ten years old and there was something I wanted to find out, although I wasn’t very sure what it was. There was a great deal of clay in lumps in plastic bags, all of it too hard to work with on the wheel. There was no wedging table of course – I improvised with the back of a piece of oilcloth laid on a table and tried to get enough water into the clay to make it usable. The water made the clay slide around on the cloth and there was no wire to cut the ball of clay with. The table was the wrong height. All those eyes watching me! The children were quiet and I talked too much.

I took the clay, poorly wedged, to the kick wheel. I had brought a needle, a small sponge, and a rib with me, and the teacher had given me a bowl of water. The wheel was all right, a little small but nicely made. The clay was still far too hard and the room was over heated. The wheel didn’t have as much weight in the flywheel as it might have, so I had to do a lot of kicking, and my fine pose as an adult and an experienced potter was shaken by the difficulties, minor though they were, of the situation. I was nervous. Perspiration dripped down my face as I struggled to center the clay, gathered on the tip of my nose, and dropped into the clay. I had known as soon as I came in and saw how hard the clay was that I was going to have trouble, but I hadn’t shared my problem with the children and then, immediately after, it was too late, I was committed within myself to keeping up a front, a competence I didn’t feel.”

So, throwing can be liberating and euphoric, or just embarrassing drudgery. That experience, whether good or bad, is in the mind. But what is happening in the body? My left leg has to be stretched to its full extent to crank the treadle throughout the process, the wooden seat is hard and uncomfortable, my right leg is drawn up high and my foot rests on part of the machine. I am hunched over the wheel and my arms and shoulders are continually being exercised. It takes considerable strength to control an irregular lump of clay with the wheel at full speed. My body is twisted and my spine is bent. It is no wonder after forty years of doing this kind of work that I have to make regular visits to my osteopath. He tells me that the vertebrae in my lower back do not articulate properly and that my spine is twisted on its axis; this affects my posture, particularly in the upper chest region, and creates tension on the left side of my neck; this reduces the flow of blood to my head and is the cause of almost constant low grade headaches. As I work I am unaware of this effect upon my body, it is only later that I am reminded of the abuse that my body has been subjected to.

As I work I need to give very little attention to what I am doing. If I do think very carefully, I find that the pieces of pottery that are produced are stilted and awkward; things occasionally go wrong, and there are visible differences between the pots, which are supposed to be the same.

When things go well however my hands ‘know’ what to do by ‘remembering’ all of the previous occasions when they were required to do similar work. The memory held by the hands is a powerful memory. I once worked with a carpenter who was renovating part of my house, I would try to think ahead and ask him how various tasks would be accomplished; invariably he would just shake his head and tell me that he would know what to do when it had to be done. His hands would know. Similarly Catherine David has written that she will never forget,

“…JP’s emotion when, returning to his childhood home, he prepared to turn the handle of the French doors leading to the terrace. The bolt was stuck, just as it used to be twenty years earlier, and as he turned the handle he found himself avoiding a small protruding nail that had remained there all this time.”

Recently I experienced this memory of the hands when I needed to make some lidded jars in a particular way. It was many years since I had made similar pieces, and I couldn’t exactly remember how they should be made. However at the right time, it was as though the pots made themselves.

Working on a potter’s wheel should be a smooth continuous motion – the work is demanding but must not appear to be so. When an innocent observer says, “doesn’t he make it look easy”, that should not be taken as a compliment.

Fig.1. Wheel-made ceramic object. Fireclay.[iii] Geoffrey Kay. 30 cms diameter. 1965.

The object shown in fig 1 appears like a piece of archaeology from my own past. The interest for me is that it represents a period of time before I knew how to work on a potter’s wheel ‘properly’. If I had been a student of Kenneth Beittel I would have been required to learn in a very particular way. Beittel’s requirement of his beginning graduate ceramics students is that twenty-two pieces should be completed by the end of the first semester; of these, ten should be completed bowls, ten should be completed forms that are more closed than open, and two should be pinched, coiled or slab built forms. In the Japanese tradition that he espouses it would be usual for the apprentice potter to think nothing of spending five or more years making pottery, before a single piece might be worthy of taking to completion. Beittel explains that he is not so stringent with his students, because the cultural context has changed (ie he is working within the American university system), and also because much can be learned from flawed pieces. (Beittel 2000:43)

That however was not the way in which I learned to make pots on the wheel. I took the opportunity, as can be seen in the example in fig 1, to use the wheel in a personal and inept way. By using clay, fireclay, that was totally unsuitable for throwing, I invented some strategies for making things on the wheel that did not depend upon traditional craft skills. I relished the torn ragged edges and the rough texture that were achieved when the spinning clay was interfered with by my hands and an assortment of tools, and I remember making dozens of similar pieces at the time. With the benefit of hindsight, this approach probably indicated a certain contempt for traditional craft skills that I may have felt at the time. However it did allow me to experience the complete process of making on the wheel and seeing something through to completion. I now have a greater understanding of the importance of this experience of the completeness of a process.

By the time I completed the three-year course that I had embarked upon, my throwing skills had improved dramatically. The pots in fig 2 demonstrate how I had developed a technique of constructing thrown shapes at the turning stage. This allowed me to make large pieces, which would otherwise have been impossible for me to achieve at the time. Indeed those shapes could only be made by using that technique. I remember that this way of making pottery was validated for me at the time as I became more aware of the work of the potter and sculptor, Hans Coper, whose work invariably was achieved by constructing in this way.

Subsequently I had two poor learning experiences in other fields of interest: I couldn’t progress beyond week six of a Tai Chi course, because I had had to miss the session in week five, and I never learned to play the banjo because my teacher was so intolerant of the way in which I attempted the first bars of ‘Cripple Creek’. In both cases I was being taught in a strictly sequential manner, which meant that I couldn’t progress to the next part of the action until I had successfully achieved the first. When I became a teacher of pottery I gave much though to how I wanted my students to learn, based upon both good and bad experiences of being taught.

When I first began to teach others how to throw I was keen to pass on the skills that I had acquired. I deliberately broke down the whole process into separate parts, and then explained and demonstrated each of those in turn. My students were invariably enthusiastic and persistent, but I noticed how many of them were unable to make real progress and ultimately were frustrated by their lack of ability. This tended to reinforce the mystique of throwing as an extraordinarily difficult technique to acquire, and they usually moved on to coiling and slab building, content that they had at least given it a try.

At some point in my early teaching career, I became aware of the theory, which underpinned Gestalt psychology. Gestalt had been developed by Max Wertheimer (1883 – 1943) and others (Boeree 2005), and depended upon understanding a perceptual pattern or structure, which possessed qualities as a whole that could not be described as merely the sum of its parts.

At that point I changed my teaching of the technique of throwing, so that initially I demonstrated the complete process of centring, throwing and removing the completed piece from the wheel-head. I wanted my students to have a complete mental picture of the whole process that they were aspiring to, and not to regard that process as a series of separate manoeuvres. Later we could concentrate upon those parts of the process where they were having less success, but that initial shift in the way in which the process was presented seemed to make a significant difference to the progress of many of my students.

Amateur potters frequently relate how relaxing they find the process to be. Like many craft activities it is absorbing and perceived to be worthwhile. However professional potters do not regard the work they do as relaxing or therapeutic, because for them the constraints of time, and efficiency of making, override any of those considerations.

In this article I have attempted to draw attention to the way in which a specific altered state of mind can be equally beneficial, although for different reasons, for both amateur and professional potters. I would be pleased to hear from others with similar experience.

Words describe the process of throwing in a poor sort of way; have I succeeded in ‘running alongside a happening and describing the experience’?

[i] Throwing: making pots on a wheel.

[ii] A kick wheel or treadle wheel is manually operated, many potter’s wheels are electrically powered.

[iii] Fireclay is associated with coal seams and is usually used for brick making or refractory products, it is conventionally unsuited for throwing.