Few things come more naturally to us than doing, or making, things with our hands, and that's essentially what distinguishes us humans from other species. Coming courtesy of our opposable thumbs, the ability to grasp, manipulate, or create objects from scratch is what has brought us where we are today, as our manual and intellectual evolution went, rather fittingly, hand in hand. Now, some two million years since that lucky modification, and over 30,000 since the crafting of the earliest known ceramic artifacts — the Gravettian figurines — clay work is enjoying a renaissance, with classes of all kinds springing across the world. Being fascinated with it myself, I couldn't help but wonder: where are the best London pottery courses, and who are the people behind them?
That's right, I didn't want to learn about the best London pottery courses per se, but was especially interested in discovering new and established, small-scale and larger platforms whose vision pairs high-quality ceramics training with community-building initiatives and a year-long engagement in the social life of the area they are part of. Why is that? Because, much like the first exemplars of this art, which reproduced the human form for ritualistic purposes, pottery has always been about people — whether because of how it enables us to mold into shape items that will later become an integral part of our everyday life, or because of the unique level of introspection, focus, and creativity one can achieve while practicing it.
