These past two weeks in pottery, we have been going back to the wheel. I haven’t been on the wheel in almost a year and it was hard trying to get back into the groove of things. To prepare ourselves, we watched a video on a famous potter from Minnesota, Warren Makenzie. He recently passed away but did ceramics into his 90’s which gave me a new perspective on my work. Makenzie’s pieces aren’t perfect, some even aren’t 100% symmetrical, but I still think they are beautiful. It showed me that my work doesn’t have to be perfect, the mistakes give the work style and personality. On the first few days I was unsuccessful in making pots. I could get the form centered but i couldn’t bring up the form properly. I would lose control and the forms would become too top heavy and fall off. Opening the form was difficult, but it was most difficult on the kickwheel. I went on the kickwheel for one day to try and fix my centering issues which I did eventually correct, but openeing the form was harder on the kickwheel because I was trying to go too fast. I appreciate workers on the kickwheel for their bravery and their ability to multitask. I do not however think that the kickwheel is for me. I had to re- learn how to trim my forms but once I did it a few times, I began to get the hang of it again. I will note however that the bottoms of both forms that I created are extremely thin. I was fearful that they wouldn’t make it off of the wheel. In the drying process I have had trouble with my forms cracking and I am accrediting this to my thin walls. Next week I will try to keep my walls thicker and can maybe trim them once leather hard.