No Prep – producing pottery a detail-oriented endeavor

https://vimeo.com/1036779726?share=copy#t=0 No Prep by Bryan 'Dub' Axelson When I was told that my next No Prep task would be throwing pots, I got a little excited. I mean, I have a little frustration that needed to be let out, and sometimes breaking things is the way to do that. I was excited to throw pots and watch them break! Then I was informed what that actually meant was I was going to be doing pottery at Tire City Potters.   I was pretty excited about that too.  I met Shishir Chokshi, owner of Tire City Potters, and he told me I was going to be making a clay angel for Christmas. Awesome! Not actually throwing pots – which seemed hard – but I saw one they made and thought it would look great sitting on the cabinet in the dining room.   Of course, mine didn’t necessarily turn out as nice as the example they showed me. I didn’t use the traditional pottery wheel. Shishir told me that the room where the wheel was would be pretty cold, and it was already cold enough outside, so we just started with a pre-made clay cone. I was going to add the head of the angel, the wings, and the halo. I was also going to decorate it however I wanted to. I have never worked with actual clay before. I was told that doing Play-Doh with my daughter at the kitchen counter didn’t count.   Shishir began to show me how to roll the clay to make the head. The process was a little similar to making Play-Doh balls. However, Shishir told me to make sure that the head was perfectly round and smooth with no air pockets, otherwise the head would blow up in the kiln. We can’t have an angel’s head blow up at Christmas. I knew I had to be careful.  I got the clay ball for the head exactly right and then came the time to attach the head to the angel’s clay cone body. Shishir said the best way was to lick the clay and stick it on.   Well, he is a professional, and if he says lick the clay, I guess I’ll add clay licking to my resume. I know what you’re thinking at this point. No, it didn’t taste weird. Honestly, it didn’t really have much of a taste at all.  Once the head was attached, Shishir told me to start designing the cone of the angel’s body. He said that I could do whatever I wanted. I decided to do sort of a flowy pattern on the cone, like a dress or gown for the angel. Shishir handed me a bunch of tools and knives to use to make the pattern. I felt like I was performing surgery, using the tools to make precise marks without cutting too deep into the clay.   Bryan 'Dub' Axelson attaches custom wings to his pottery angel. I would use one tool for a little bit, then switch to another and back again until I got the design just the way I wanted it.   Next, it was time to add the wings. Shishir told me to draw out the wings the way I wanted them to look. Full transparency - I don’t have any artistic talent. These were about to be some jacked up wings. I drew out the best set of wings I could muster and then we cut them out of clay.   I added a design to the wings and then it was time to attach them. We used a watery clay called slick. What, I wondered, happened to licking the clay? I guess licking the clay would be a one-time thing. That’s fine, I guess. I don’t want to be known as a clay licker.  Soon, I had the halo attached, and boom, we had ourselves an angel. I thought I was done, but Shishir informed me that the project wasn’t complete until I’d signed my work. I’ve got to be honest, I felt a little like Bob Ross when I did it, but I signed it BA ’24  Angel accomplished. Just like with my previous tasks, working with clay was more involved than I thought it would be. Now when I see pottery, I’ll have a whole new appreciation for it, because I know how much work went into making it.  Thanks to Shishir Chokshi and the fine folk at Tire City Potters for helping me with this, because I definitely had No Prep.  It is said that we all have an angel inside us. Bryan 'Dub' Axelson set his free - with No Prep.