Staying home with KANA
I’ve always been good with my hands… (not like that you dirty bastard) I mean, I’ve always been creative and able to design, build, mould things out of various materials, I blame (read: thank) the childhood dyslexia I suffered. Plus I enjoy making things, so much so that if I haven’t got some sort of project on the go I feel uneasy. I can’t just sit in front of the TV all night without making, fixing or painting something.
So when work asked me to try out an at home clay pottery course, I jumped at the chance. For someone who is easily bored, there’s nothing worse than being on lockdown with nothing to do, so what could be better than a course that is both creative and practical? Bring it on.
It’s easy to feel anxious in these uncertain times, and just because we’re at home doesn’t mean we’re all feeling chilled out and relaxed. At home courses can help distract for a few hours, maybe days, while learning a new skill, but sometimes we need more, I know I certainly do. Enter the Stay Home KANA Clay Club, an online pottery club that includes numerous classes to teach you everything about clay pottery, from total beginners to the more advanced.
For £35 you will receive a 3kg bag of stoneware clay and a box of eight starter tools, which includes everything you’ll need if you’re a beginner to clay pottery. Once you’ve received the box, you head over to the KANA website where you’ll find the first workshop, which is totally free. Workshop one is for beginners, and is split into four videos, the first being an introduction into clay making, the techniques and processes, the tools and how to air dry your clay. Once you’ve familiarized yourself with it, the second video teaches you how to do simple pinch pots, using only your hands as tools.
Ana (the teacher) starts off by teaching us about Clay Meditation, a process that helps you to take time out of your day and block out the world so you can fully relax and work with the clay. This is encouraged by the first exercise; making two small bowls using the hand-building technique, the first bowl is to be made with your eyes closed, so you can really feel the material, the second is with your eyes open, and fully concentrating on the clay.
I was sceptical at first, being someone that works with different materials, and have done some clay stuff in the past, my thought was “why am I closing my eyes to feel the clay?!”
But, in the spirit of actually trying out a course, and to make sure I could review it properly, I closed my eyes and got to touching...
As someone who never switches off, at first it felt odd to sit in my own house with my eyes closed like I was doing a shit re-enactment of Ghost. But turns out it was quite calming and by the third bowl, I was well on my way to becoming a fully fledged potter (not really, not even close…)
Ana talks you through each exercise, and encourages you to take your time with every piece, and not be upset if anything goes wrong or a piece doesn’t work out as you had hoped, it's all in the process of learning. Which is what is nicely different about this at home course, I didn’t feel under any pressure to make a masterpiece, or ‘complete’ the course, but simply to enjoy it.
The only drawback is that your pieces must be glazed and fired at a professional studio, and cannot be done at home. So for an additional price of £55 you can get the “Glaze and Fire” option, which means you can drop your work off at the KANA studio once they reopen for your pieces to be finished. This means that the Clay Club course isn’t fully ‘at home’, but the ethos of KANA is to relax, enjoy and get to know the process. So even if you can’t get to the studio to drop off your pieces, you can still enjoy learning the skills of working with clay, with encouragement from Ana to simply enjoy using your hands, creating shapes and hopefully some lovely bowls in due course - a welcome relief from these stressful times, plus something to keep my hands busy…