In love with clay
saskia de rooy
Last week a colleague of mine wanted to know how to make a clay flute. She is about to teach in an art and music project on an elementary school so making an instrument seemed nice. We made a little lesson of it. After some technical things like making two pinch pots, a balloon with those, adding a nozzle the moment to get some sound when blown on was there. Physics for sure, and so much fun! When you have followed all the rules, done the do’s and left out the don’ts and you blow the nozzle and a sound arises, an earthy tone, sometimes with a lot of false air (sounds like the wind), that moment is magical. I love this about clay. We humans have been using it for thousands of years. To eat from, to store in, to make music with and sculptures. Ritual objects, sinks, toilets, eggshell porcelain teacups and toilet pots, we live in in and drive over it (brick), all with clay! An extra advantage is that it is earth and it will be earth. When it breaks you can fill the road with it or throw it in a ditch without trouble to human or animal. And yes, I like skull ocarina’s.
Raku fired skull ocarina