While I was at Peter’s Valley School of Craft, I learned how to make utilitarian pots with Robbie Lobell.  Last week I wrote my blog about Robbie and how amazing it was to work with her, but this week I am going to talk about the kinds of pots we made and how much I learned from this experience. Going into this class I did not know what to expect, especially because I don’t have as much experience with ceramic as other people do.

The first project we worked with was making a lidded casserole dish. Robbie was very thorough with her explanation on how the lid should feel and fit in the pot.
She showed us how to make a gallery in the pot. The gallery is where the lid sits, it is kind of like a ledge. The hardest part of making these is getting the lid to fit perfectly. When you throw a lid, you are actually throwing a small shallow bowl. You let the bowl get leather hard and then trim the bottom it it so it makes a dome. When Robbie was showing us how to make them she made it look really easy until it was our time to try.

Another thing she has us make was an altered loaf pan. When making these we actually threw the sides of the pan without a bottom. Then when we took it off the wheel head we made it square and then attached it to a slab. I would just like to use these for decoration or use them to store my make up in them for in my bathroom.

Then we could make any kind of handles that we wanted and any kind of style. When Robbie made her pieces, she makes everything so smooth because she is not the biggest fan of texture on her pieces. I can’t wait until I can start making more of these pots because I just enjoyed them so much. It was absolutely a great learning experience.