The Scholar: Jack Williamson

The Project: Sunday Night Dinner(ware)

The Essential Question: “For my ceramics project, my focus for the trimester was on making larger pieces that reminded me of home and of my family’s dinner table, and larger serving vessels. I wanted to pursue the ceramics project because I love ceramics and I’ve been doing it for six or seven years, and taking this class was the only way I could do another trimester of ceramics.”

Surprising Discovery: “I kind of knew this going in, but definitely learned that it’s very difficult to throw with a lot of clay. I learned a lot more skills needed to throw with more clay.”

Biggest Challenge: “It was kind of hard to do it in all that time, since my theme was larger pieces and larger serving vessels. I failed a lot and I had a lot of pieces that I got to as close as you can get to finishing, and then they fall apart at the last moment. So it was difficult to continue to do that.”

Tip for Future Scholars: “Definitely to stay on schedule and do work in the beginning of the trimester, because it all caught up to me at lot toward the end. Be consistent with working.”

Did you ever run into any creative blocks on the project? “I found myself making a lot of the same—similar—shapes, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but one way I kind of got through that was taking the time before to sketch out ideas that I have throughout the day.”