A little over a month ago, I had the chance to get together with some other bloggers from across the state and experience making pottery– like for real pottery at Earthborn Studios.  With a wheel and all.  I wasn’t intimidated.  New social situation topped with demonstrating my lack of hand-eye coordination to the world?  Easy breezy rice and cheezy.

Turns out, though, mastering the wheel of death pottery wheel is more of a hand-eye-foot-soul task.  So, um, I didn’t excel.

But I did get this cool shot of me “throwing”:

I’m totally owning it.  Right?

This was actually how it went down:

Tena Payne (pictured above), owner and head pottress (if that’s not a word, it totally should be) was a wonderful hostess and excellent teacher.  She didn’t even banish me to the left-brain timeout room.  And she should’ve.  I was a hot mess with that wheel.

We got the chance to hand form a bowl out of clay.  That was definitely more my speed.  Mainly because it involved a lot of this:

Even with all the yacking and laughing, I turned out a pretty nifty bowl.

Turns out, throwing pottery doesn’t come with a spreadsheet, so I didn’t take to it immediately.  What I did get, after I was at it a while, is that it’s something you have to feel.  Given a few hours (without an audience of new blogger friends), I could totally get into it.  And I think it would be great fun to get some girlfriends together for a little pottery party.  They offer a Girls’ (or Guys’) Night Out for $35 a person (minimum of 6 people, bring your own drinks and snacks).

If your interested in a more serious undertaking, Cahaba Clayworks classes are six weeks long (meeting once weekly, from 6-8PM) and allow you unlimited use of the wheels for the duration of the class.  The cost of the classes is $150 and usually includes a $15 fee for materials.  But if you mention Bryants of Bham, Tena will waive the $15 fee!  I’m thinking someone on your Christmas list would love this!

As a thank you for visiting the studio and telling all of our readers about the cool stuff going on at Earthborn, we got one of these lovely olive oil dishes of our very own.

Aaaaannnddd, one to give away to our readers.

So leave a comment to be entered into the giveaway.  For extra entries, follow @BryantsofBham and @EarthbornStudio on Twitter.  Don’t forget to leave a separate comment for each entry!  We’ll draw for a winner on Friday, October 5th!