POTTERY CLASSES

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32384, 25 August 1970, Page 2

POTTERY CLASSES

When the Mount Pleasant Potters decided to hold pottery classes for children during the August school holidays they envisaged two classes of 10. But such was the appeal of pottery that many children who applied had to be turned down. Seventyfive applications were received—and 25 were picked at random.

Yesterday, the Form I and □ pupils had their first dsy’s potting. Concentration was Intense as they began to get the feel of working with the clay. Each child was allowed to decide what he or she ; wanted tn make—everything from vases tnd cpffee mugs to a chess set Sending the children off to classes in the school holidays seems to be the answer to many a mother’s problems. Pottery certainly won out over the usual holiday activities among the boys and girls yesterday afternoon. The girls said they would have been “just reading," and most of the boys would have been out fishing. Pottery was better by far, and not a bit like school. “No maths,” said one girl. “They are doing just what they want to do. I don’t tell them what to make, they decide themselves,” said the tutor, Mr A E. Tyson. “Look at that one, thinking away

tike mad. She’s designing a wall plaque."

Mr Tyson found the boys usually inclined to something practical and sculpturedlike one salt-and-pepper set. The girls like something more ornamental. “It’s all an exercise in imagination," Mid Mr Tyson. ‘‘And who knows, some of

these children may be our good potters of the future.” Mr Tyson—who was doing temporary duty as tutor yesterday while his wife attended the spinning day at Rakaia—is the originator of the scheme. He decided that school-holiday classes would be a good way of filling the group’s rooms at the time when the resident potters are not working there. The children will have four classes, each of two hours, during the holidays. Their finished work will be set up in a display at school when the new term begins.

The photograph above shows Mr Tyson explaining a point of technique to some of the afternoon class. From left: Tracey Bimler, Jeffrey Smith, Kieran P. Fitzgerald, Peter Tomkins, Jonathan Sowden, and Philip Henderson.