If your child comes to classes in our studio, you might have noticed that they're not bringing home a project every week. There's a very important reason for this: Art takes time.

One of the important lessons we learn while making art is to be patient, that problems sometimes take a few tries to figure out, and that results are not instant. Slow, thoughtful effort is praised in our classes, and if we see a student rushing through their work, we urge them to take a step back, think about what they could change or add: “When you think you're finished, add 3 more things.”

Sometimes, the process itself takes time. In the case of ceramics, pieces must be created, then left to fully air dry before they're sent to a kiln to be fired. Sometimes it can take several weeks before we get our pieces back - in the meantime, we'll just make new pieces! When the pieces come back from the kiln, they're still not finished, we have to glaze them and send them to the kiln once more. But once we get our finished pieces back, all of the waiting is worth it.

Because we want our students to have full ownership over their art, we also never make marks directly on their work - no “finishing” happens behind the scenes apart from framing or sealing works to protect them. Demonstrations are done in front of the class, so that our students may follow along, and we give guidance individually through demonstrating one-on-one, answering questions or asking questions of our own to prompt thoughtful decision-making.

Patience also comes in when we may do a repeat project. While we try to keep our projects new and fresh for our students who come back year after year, sometimes there's a project that gets repeated every year because it's just so good! We have new faces coming into the studio all the time, and even our longtime students will still benefit from a repeat project.

Our projects are process focused, rather than product focused, which means the same project can be done with completely different outcomes depending on decisions made in the process. For the same reason no two students' works look the same, two of the same project made at different points in time by the same person won't look the same. It can be really interesting to look back and see how the same project evolves and changes alongside the artist.

The Art of Slowing Down