Clay is the source of life on this planet. The first DNA was formed in the crystals of clay. 

Paulus Berenson

I love playing with Clay.

Last Summer I signed up for a clay class at our local community college.

A tile maker who lives in my area was offering a class in making large 

hand built pottery that could be created in pieces.  

The studio at the college is clean, well equipped and fun to work in.

The instructor turned out to be very attached to those tiles he makes

and kept showing slide shows of his work and tiles from his travels in

other parts of the world.  Although this was interesting it wasn't making

large hand built pieces.  So I made a project for myself and worked on

it all Summer, it was creating and making chairs out of clay.  Because I

was new to the studio it took me awhile to figure out the clay body.  The

instructor had suggested a 50/50 white clay body which I quickly found

warped.  My chairs had backs that were, in some cases, not upright.  I

actually didn't mind I felt like they were more expressive of the postures

of those 'imaginary' humans who would sit in them.  Well if they were 

Lilliputian sized.

After firing I began to discover what the studio had to offer for glazing,

some glazes worked well for me and others were disappointing.  I found

that I really enjoyed working with stains and using glaze pencils to draw

on my pieces. 

When the opportunity to sign up for the Fall semester I decided to take

the plunge.  I am now building clay houses and hope to photograph them

soon and put some pictures up here on my new blog.