Members Make Hand-Crafted Gifts for their Valentines

Several members of HVAA carpooled to Idyllwild Sunday, January 11, to play with clay. The off-site workshop, hosted by Mountain Pottery, included a presentation by Master Potter Art Tobias and a hands-on opportunity to create small Valentine’s Day gifts for family and friends.

Dr. Tobias gave a lecture on press molding, the process of pressing clay into a bisque or silicone mold to make raised-relief tiles, and discussed the ways the molds themselves are made. (He’d made his fair share of molds when living and working in Italy.) Turns out there’s more to it all than meets the eye.

Afterwards, the group used the simpler technique of rolling out slabs of clay, cutting out the pieces, and decorating them. They used sgraffito (scratching into clay), marbling, painting, and glazing to create their masterpieces. And then they had to leave them there to be fired. Alison Wieman, who headed up the expedition, returned to Mountain Pottery in early February to pick them up, just in time for Valentine’s Day.