A few weeks ago I took Eastern & Western Techniques in Trimming, a graduate class at Hood College. It was co-taught by my professor Joyce Michaud and potter Kristen Muller. It was a very intense and demanding weekend class. To be honest I wasn’t looking forward to the class, but at the same time I knew I really needed to take this class. For such a long time trimming was my least favorite parts of making pots. Why did I dislike trimming? Well, I can easily recall hundreds if not thousands of pots that I ruined over the years while attempting to trim feet onto them. At the start of the class I expressed my frustrations about trimming to Kristen and she replied by saying “in order to make good work, you first have to make bad work.” I spent a majority of the class ruining a lot of pots. At the end of the class I did have a few pots that were very well trimmed, but most importantly I left the class with a much better understanding of the trimming process and a clearer vision of the types of feet I want my pots to have.
With all the snow we received this past week I got to spend most of my week in the studio. I wanted to spend my unexpected studio time further exploring trimming. On my first day in the studio I threw about 60 various sized bowls to work with. Throughout the next few days I tried to come up with as many different trimmed feet as I could. Here are some of the feet that I came up with:
