At Bard Graduate Center, students research human history through objects and explore the raw materials from which those objects were made. Materials Days take students to studios all over New York City for hands-on experiences under the guidance of experienced and welcoming artists. Over the years, students have learned to blow glass, dye textiles, and make paper.

Most recently, on a sunny day in March, a group of my fellow students and I visited BKLYN Clay in Tribeca for a ceramics Materials Day. The instructor, Emily Hoffman, welcomed us to the studio space that looked a lot like a warehouse of works made out of clay, fired and glazed in various colors, and artists working on big and small pieces on the wheel and other methods of clay molding. We slowly took our seats after putting on yellow and blue aprons to safeguard us from the mighty clay. A series of workstations were lined up for our group in a space that reminded me of a kitchen.

Hoffman slowly explained the wheel and other pieces of unfamiliar equipment in front of us with the patience of a skilled artist and a teacher. She demonstrated how to use the bat, the wheel, the splash pan, and a bucket filled with water and a sponge. She picked up a ball of rounded clay and threw it on the moving wheel. Centering the clay is the most important part of making ceramics, and we learned how this is often the hardest step for beginners. Hoffman showed us how to keep the wheel moving after centering the ball of clay on the bat and moving our hands at specific angles to shape the work. Through a series of questions and demonstrations, she got us all started with our work, our feet on the pedals and our bats on the wheels. We were all allowed access to as many balls of clay as we wanted, as most of us were beginners and she soon realized that we would need all the help we could get. She taught us how to use our fingers or a small sponge dipped in a bucket of water to mold the clay on the moving wheel. The process was challenging yet stimulating and extremely rewarding.

We learned that an intrinsic aspect of creating works with clay is the fact that clay can be used over and over as long as it is unfired. This quality of clay grounded my whole experience of working with it. My failed attempts at centering the clay on the moving bat ultimately led to making three pieces that I was quite proud of. All of us eventually made a few pieces of various shapes, sizes, widths, and heights. Many of them were crooked or unstable. I was quite concerned about them not being perfect in the way we hoped they would be. However, this prompted a short but insightful discussion among us in the studio space. Hoffman told us how works made out of clay have a set of aesthetic properties that lie in harmony with their kinetic properties. Ceramics with deformed edges or uneven surfaces are a sign of the creativity and intrinsic malleable qualities of clay. They reflect the process of learning an ancient skill.
Making my first cup and wobbly dishes, I found a new understanding of the countless pottery shards we encounter as students of history, archaeology, and art history. Throughout our study at BGC, we examine ceramics from all around the world with varied shapes, sizes, glazes, and even techniques. Often, we discuss the process of making and emphasize the makers and their skilled labor. The different techniques employed all over the world from Iran to China have fascinated me for a long time. However, I was able to gain a much closer and deeper understanding of the techniques by touching the clay and understanding the ways a pot is made and even unmade.

An added advantage of being a student at BGC is the opportunity to share classes and living spaces with artists who are talented makers and scholars in their own right. Through conversations within and outside the classroom, I have learned how to appreciate the labor, skill, and talent that goes into making the works of art that I study and write papers about. During the ceramics workshop, one of my classmates, a talented ceramics artist, helped me understand how different kinds of clay produce very different results when working with a wheel. She mentioned how local clay from her hometown felt much different than what we worked with at BKLYN Clay, and it changed the way she created her works. The process of learning how to work with a new material like clay was made much more interesting with added input from experienced classmates who created pathways of knowledge for me to explore.

After we made a few pieces and selected our final piece, Emily asked us all to choose the glaze color for our works. Cleaning up was another important part of the experience of working in the studio. We all cleaned our bats, workstations, and the buckets in the sink. As I poured the water from my bucket into the sink and watched my classmates deliberate over their glazes, I realized the enormity of an experience like this. The intensity of labor, skill, and creativity required to make a piece out of balls of clay was visible on all of our faces, and we were filled with joy and an urge to keep learning more.

After three weeks of waiting and anticipation, our creations made their way to BGC with shiny surfaces glazed in various shades. Seeing the glazes translated onto our pieces was an extraordinary feeling. At BGC, we study the world of material culture in classes all day, writing exams and papers about ceramics, pottery shards, and civilizations. And yet, this two-hour experience of creating tiny pieces to take home has transformed the way I will look at ceramic objects in my books forever.

—Nishtha Dani (MA ’25)