Last Summer, our teen potters embarked on an unusual group project inspired by an equally unusual find in our pottery rooms… V Hawyard, marketing coordinator at the centre went to speak to them to find out more ahead of the piece being displayed in the Coffee Bar as part of an exhibition curated by tutor and art psychotherapist Belinda Hunt, who leads the teens pottery session on Thursday afternoons.
It all started when the teens arrived one afternoon to find a very large and very mysterious pot left by the wheels with a note offering it to anyone willing to give it a good home and take care of it. Feeling drawn to the piece but unable to pay for the weight of clay individually, the teens came the the conclusion that if they grouped together, they would be able to afford it and could work together to decorate it.
Like many workshops at QPAC, teens pottery is one where participants tend to bring their own ideas and pursue their own goals, so the prospect of working together on a shared project was rather new to the group, and posed its own challenges along the way. In particular, the teens realised that they would need to collaborate to decide how to decorate the pot. They settled on each formulating an idea and either explaining or drawing it, so that they could all talk about the different options. After a number of rounds of this voting and discussing, they finally settled on the idea of the Four Seasons, inspired by a maple leaf sprig that had been attached to the pot when originally found. So then the work could begin!
But tragedy struck when the unwieldy pot broke in two as the teens were working on it. This could have spelled an end to the project, but rather than abandoning it, they decided instead to keep and clean up the two halves and formulate a new solution to decorating. Still keen on the four seasons idea, they kept it as the theme for the bottom of the pot, which had now become much more plant-pot-esque with a wide open top and gently flared shape. The top on the other hand had retained the original pot’s twisted, curving handles and strong shoulders – resembling an old archeological find, the teens thought. Inspired by a love of history and some research on ancient pottery, the top therefore became the remnants of a greek amphora, with geometic patterns and symbolic elements etched into the glassy blue-glazed surface.
Despite a tight time constraint – the pot needed to be finished two firings and the detailed glazing process within around 6 weeks before Summer started – and the need to stabilise the pot both before and after it broke, the teens pulled the project off incredibly, and have been able to see the result of all their work this term when they could finally see the pieces out of the kiln. In asking about how the group has changed since the beginning of the process, it is clear that the teens are a lot more comfortable interacting with one another and have, in many cases, become friends. They also revealed how the class has overall become a much more positive and bubbly environment with more talking and much less isolation. They are even thinking about working on another group project in the future, this time making something of their own from scratch!
It will be exciting to see where all of this leads them, but before they embark on new projects, they will be showcasing the results of this one from 24 Nov to 13 Dec in the Coffee Bar – be sure to pop in and have a look. The teens hope that anyone who sees the pieces they have made will like them and feel inspired to get creating too!
