In September, we also signed up for the Introductory Ceramics Class at the SDCE Educational Cultural Complex (ECC) near National City, led by the very capable Pamela Kosminska for the past 25 years…

There were lots of older students who had been attending the class for years, and lots of great pottery going on… The class itself was a bit unstructured, and our ‘Wednesday PM’ or WPM group ended up missing some of the formal lessons due to illnesses, closures and other mishaps…

I typically used the class ‘recycled’ clay, and focused on the wheel and throwing… Progress has been slow, and I’m glad I had the classes in NY back in 2016/7… Lots of failed attempts, and at least one instance where the clay I used was not ‘Cone 10’ and all my pieces ended up melting in the kiln – fortunately not damaging others work…

The class allows / encourages donations of work to the ECC, which is eventually sold in November and funds raised for ongoing activity… I was happy to donate and give away most of my pieces, and helped with the sale (boxing / moving / setting up) as well as kiln loading / unloading / cleaning and some teaching…

Check out the pics here: