Learning Outcome 01 – Identifying own strengths and develop areas for personal growth
In season 3 and for of my grade 11 I decided to engage with the need of finding a distraction from all the high school and exam stress which, usually, is increasing around this time of year. I thought that a perfect balance would be something artistic and creative, two skills that I rarely use in my everyday life. Since I am not particularly interested in drawing I thought that doing something hand-crafty like pottery would fit perfectly. I have only done it twice before when I was a young child so I thought that I could gain some further knowledge and practices.
Through the first few sessions of the pottery, I learned that the time spends there would be very free and creative. Nobody told us what to do, but the teachers were always there to help us. My first tries in pottery where rather try-outs like a cup and a bowl. However, even though these beginner objects I was able to learn a lot about different techniques and the way you work with clay. I had a lot of friends joining this activity with me so it was always a great joy to experience this together. But although I had a lot of success with my first objects I also had to encounter some downfalls. Some wrong techniques lead to the objects breaking, unuseful shapes and bumps and cracks along the way. Through the right education, however, I was able to redeem these mistakes through better techniques now being applied for all my future projects.
Throughout the coming sessions, I will try to further my horizon when it comes to different creative ideas of what to build, except for cups and bowls. I am gathering a lot of inspiring ideas from the internet, the different classrooms here in our art departments and ideas came up with by my friends and me. In the end, pottery really does allow me to explore my creative and artistic side which needed some challenges in order to fully come out. I am usually a very logical person, without many creative ideas but sharing this thinking and creative space with my friends allows me to improve these skills, learn from the others as well as spending some time off from our busy IB life.