Throwing Off the Hump

 "OK.  Today we are going to throw off the hump.  You'll need five pounds of clay."  My fellow students grimaced.  I frowned.  

It's a challenge enough to learn how to make (throw) a pot on the wheel with say one or two pounds of clay and a flat surface.  The normal way.  Try managing 1/2 a ton of clay whizzing around the wheel-head while pinching, stretching, shaping a smaller one-pound piece at the apex.  That takes an enormous amount of intimidating skill.  Or balls.  A must-have mastery if you are a production potter crafting mug after identical mug to sale at the local art fair. For the retired some-time ceramic artist wannabe?  A dream.  

Emily, the ceramics instructor, whammed five pounds of brown clay down onto the potter's wheel.  "No need to center the whole thing.  Just the part you are going to be working with.  Just make sure the top pound or so isn't wobbly."  

For an anal person such as myself, throwing off the hump feels like you are asking me to medal in an Olympic's swim competition without ever being coached. Without nose plugs.  Naked.  But I am living a new life these days.  I turned to my fellow potter, a heavy-set woman with gray hair who hand builds everything because even pulling up a one pound pot on the wheel is beyond her skill or desire or imagination. To throw off the hump would happen for her in another lifetime on Venus.  "I am just doing shit these days."  I announced.  My potter mates laughed.  Hand-building woman wiggled her eye brows. Surprised to hear the words making their own way out of my mouth, I laughed as well.  

When instruction was over, I sliced off a five pound slab of clay.  Hauled it over to the wedging board and mushed it around until it was a proper con-shaped ball, perfect for the wheel.  Back at my potters wheel I took both hands and slammed that ball of clay the size of my head onto my bat.  The bat is a wooden disc that attaches to the potters wheel.  

Normally, to center clay I completely lay over it like I'm going to embrace it or bring it close to my heart.  I push down on the clay with my right hand and in on my left.  My elbows are at my sides and I brace my core.  I breathe in and say a little prayer to the mud Gods.  Braced, relaxed, pushing.  It's a magical process when it works.  Since I only needed a pound of clay to make the lemon squeezer, my goal was to center just that top poundage of the spinning mountain of mud.  

I turned on the wheel.  I pushed my foot down on the pedal.   The wheel started revolving with the gusto of a caged bird set free.  I wet my hands and placed them confidently on the lump of clay the size of a mountain I'd have to hire a sherpa and use oxygen to climb.  Beneath my hands that massive lump of clay wiggled and whipped around the wheel like an off-kilter, drunken potter on a merry-go-round.  

Pay it no mind I mumbled to myself.  My fellow students laughed. I laughed.  I was the only one of us seven moderately-skilled ceramics students attempting to "throw off the hump."  

I called Emily over for guidance as I grimaced at the mass of clay I was working.  The lower part was an oval shooting around clockwise while the top part was steady and centered.  "You are right on there.  Just worry about the top part."  

And so I did.  I pushed the dizzying, lopsided bottom section from my mind.   I focused my hands and skill and whole being at the top part of the mound which I centered and then managed to manipulate into a cute little, somewhat phallic-looking lemon squeezer.  

The wonders of clay. It reflects my life these days.  Just do that shit.  And be patient.  And, centered.  Have balls.  And most importantly, let the drunken sailor, who might be just beneath me, do what he must.  I only need to focus on what's important to me.