Hi, it's Chai!
If you thought this was going to be a how-to for centering clay, think again.
Although I can center clay pretty consistently on a wheel, I'm not going to share tips about it. There is no dearth of resources, workshops and live classes on this front (perhaps I'll put together a list of my favorite learning resources in a separate blog post!) from experts in both ceramics and the art of teaching it. Thus, rather than regurgitating what they've taught me, I will try to put a different "spin" on this and contribute some original content.
As a psychologist who plays with clay, I like to do some centering in my mind before I move onto centering on the wheel. It's a mindfulness technique that I practice with my students in counseling all the time, and everywhere. But first, let me back up and provide some context.
Why I started playing with clay
One of the main reasons I started playing with clay was to "take my mind off things". When I first began wheelthrowing, it was such a novel, challenging task. Grappling with the whirling lump of mud on my wheelhead consumed all my attention, and distracted me from the whirling thoughts in my head. Clay was such a rich, novel, multisensory experience, I had no choice but to be completely present, and so the studio was a shelter from regrets about the past, and anxiety about the future.
With practice though, muscle memory kicked in and things became a bit more effortless and automatic. Whereas at first I would even forget to breathe when pulling my walls up, in time I could listen to a song and sing along as I collared my clay into a bottle neck. Then, I could go through my grocery list while closing up a dome to make a lidded jar. Eventually, as I tried to join the inner and outer walls of a donut vase, my brain would be analyzing the internal and external factors that could be impacting a struggling student on my caseload (and of course, the donut would flop). When my thoughts started spinning concurrently with my pottery wheel, I realized I could not longer passively use pottery as"panacea" from my anxieties from work and life. Switching the pottery wheel on would not switch my rumination off.
A new way to start: Centering from 6
That is when I started incorporating a little ritual into the start of my studio sessions. When I get to the studio after a particularly harrowing day at work, or when there is upheaval in my personal life, I make sure to center myself with this ritual before I do any centering on the wheel. That way, I will be focused on my ceramics practice, and be satisfied with my makes that day, rather than mess things up because my mind is preoccupied and leave with yet another thing to add to the list of things that went wrong.
This little ritual of mine is a modification of the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique, which emphasizes awareness of your immediate environment, focusing on one sense at a time. There are some variations of the number of things you identify for each sense, as you can see in this video from Trauma Research UK:
The modified version I use with my counselling kids and myself, I like to call Center from Six. It has two slight differences from the commonly used 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique:
It starts with taking 6 deep breaths with eyes closed, before looking for 5 things you can see. I added this step because usually my students just names 5 things in sight rapid-fire ("book-window-shoe-pencil-desk!" in one breath) without really noticing. On the other hand, if they tune out sense of sight briefly and focus solely on the ebb and flow of their breath first, they truly see the space around them with fresh eyes when they open their eyes again. Deep breaths also activates the parasympathetic nervous system. While you can read entire psychology and scientific articles on this, in a nutshell, deep breaths tell our bodies that we are safe, we can rest, and there is no need for us to defend ourselves by a fight, flight, or freeze response.
An additional rule - when noticing 5 things you see, name a small detail about them. For instance, instead of "pencil", I might encourage a student to note that "this pencil has teethmarks near the end". Again, this encourages being truly observant, and looking at things, rather than just seeing them.
Suppose I get to the clay studio after a bad day at work (say, I get multiple referrals for assessment, the student I needed to test was absent, our IEP team is struggling to reach a consensus on what a student needs, and I couldn't finish a report due the next day because I had to de-escalate a child who was struggling with some big feelings...which could just be a regular day for some school psychologists, but you get the picture), this is what my Center from 6 might look like:
6 deep breaths...nice and slow, feeling my diaphragm move up and down
5 things I can see...
A red bucket with some of the words on it scratched off
Shadows of my pots on the wall
A smudge of dried clay on the wedging table (restless mind goes -"...people need to clean up after themselves...oops let me focus on my senses and not my thoughts...")
A blue vase that actually has shades of turquoise, navy and periwinkle in its glaze
Plastic wrap fluttering in the breeze
4 things I can hear (with my cochlear implants on, of course!)
The whirring of a pottery wheel
The door opening and shutting as other potters come in
The trickle of water at the sink
The traffic outside on the street
3 things I can feel/touch
The temperature of the water in my bucket
The dampness of my pots (restless mind again - "oh this one's leather hard! prime time for trimming, must get to this today...but before that let's finish checking in"
The warmth from sunlight streaming in from the window, or a kiln being fired in the studio
2 things I smell
Moldiness in my clay (LOL)
The scent of my hand cream (moisturize your hands potters!)
1 thing I can taste
...maybe gum, or maybe just noticing that my mouth is parched and I really need to rehydrate myself before rehydrating my pieces
At the end of this check-in, I'm usually a lot more situated in the studio than in my head, and ready to engage fully with the throwing, trimming, decorating, glazing or whatever is before me. Grounding with the senses in the studio is a very rich experience, and I sometimes like to do it halfway through my work if I notice my mind drifting. It always works because clay is such a multisensory experience - the grog in your clay, the weight of a tool in your hand, the many hues of clay and glaze etc.
There are times when I do this outside of the studio too. When I am feeling frazzled, it helps me find calm, and when I'm already relaxed, it helps me better appreciate my surroundings. Apart from the studio, one of my favorite places to do this is in nature, because it gives me a healthy dose of awe, which becomes inspiration for more ceramic pieces and also makes you feel more connected with the world - this could be an upcoming blog post too! For now though, I think I'm off to the studio to trim a couple vases!
Until next time, keep Chai-ing:)
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