Teaching the Teachers

It was a great Friday night at Sara Yama Studios. 16 teachers, parents and kids came in from one of the elementary schools I teach at for a pottery lesson. I never turn down a chance to be at the studio so I volunteered my time and limited knowledge to help out :)

First Arai Sensei gave a demonstration on how to make a simple cup, bowl and plate on the wheel. He made it look so easy! He was literally finished in 2 mins tops.


Since there are only 6 wheels not everyone could make something at once, so each person got a piece of clay, which they split in two. (One for the wheel, one for hand building something) Actually they clay split in half was just enough to make a medium sized tea cup on the wheel, I mean JUST enough. I wasn't really used to using such a small amount of clay on the wheel, especially one with lots of sand in it. (Everyone used shiro shigaraki aka white shigaraki) So my skin got pretty beat up on the wheel. The small amount of sandy clay with stainless steel wasn't a good combo, especially since I was trying to teach 3-4 people at once.


But everyone (including myself) really enjoyed it! I had a great time getting to know my teachers better and actually teach them something :) (They're always teaching me hehe)








The best part was teaching the kids. They had a good time and were actually better than the adults! The only difficult part was teaching them in Japanese! My brain was pretty tired afterwards. But each one will take home a nice handmade cup and plate :)








Here is one of the younger kids. He really wanted me to take his picture with his pieces. He was really wonderful on the wheel, it was his first time but he was a natural! I told him he should think about studying pottery in the future hehe.








Overall it was a great experience. I had the chance to see what it would be like teaching pottery and I must admit I would not mind doing this as a job! It's very tiring but very fun and rewarding :) Sadly the teachers only do this once a year >< But I'm trying to convince my other 2 schools to do it as well ;)

Until next time, with love from Sara Yama!