Throwing from the mound is the technique by which ceramic artists produce a great number of pieces without ever having to stop, wedge, shape and recenter individual balls or cones of clay. The artist starts with what amounts to a mound—a few pounds of clay—and works only with the topmost section. Each new piece results in less and less material for the next. And eventually, the artist will run out of clay entirely and have to begin again, with another mound.

With careful planning or enough skill, the ceramicist will be able to produce an array of cups, bowls and whatever else comes to mind. Done too quickly and the quality will be poor, just as it would have been by another technique. Haphazardness produces a mess. Practice results in ease, composure. But still, the ceramic artist will always have to begin again, with another mound.

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Mr. Sebring first introduced me to “the magic show”. In his hands, something arose from nothing, in minutes, in seconds. The whole class would crowd around him, crouched over a wheel, and ooh and ahh accordingly. He retired the year after I began in ceramics, so I didn't get to know him well. But the enduring impression that I have from him is an ease and a candor—that, and a benign trickery when we began to pitch clay around the studio. Our clandestine acts of defiance would be discovered, he promised, because he had installed a hidden camera somewhere in the room. Despite his lightness, Mr. Sebring had created a virtual Panopticon. The clay-pitching soon stopped.

Mr. Nevin—Nevin—took a different approach. When I became the clay-throwing culprit in the absence of Mr. Sebring's all-seeing eye, Nevin pressed accountability. Someone, somewhere, has a picture of me perched atop the Art Department's industrial-sized ladder, with an extended pool rod and two lengths of PVC pipe duct-taped into one long arm and outstretched, poised to knock down the clumps of hard clay that I had thrown as high as I could up the building's exterior. I avoided a minor suspension and considered the feat clever at the time, but Nevin knew better. He watched over me to make sure that I wouldn't fall, but I took care of my own mess.

Early on, Nevin began to call me the “pot doctor”, as I tried to fix every wobble and twist on every pot that I saw, mine and other's—a recurrent theme in my life. Some things, he told me, do not need to be fixed. Twists will be twists, cracks will be cracks, and a broken pot will be a broken pot. Sometimes we just need to move on to the next thing.

In my last semester with him, I had waited until the final weeks to fire all my pots, gifts for teachers whom I would soon depart. The shelves fell in on top of each other in the kiln, and most of my pieces became piece, one stuck to another in the glaze firing. I lost most of my work. It wasn't Nevin's fault, but he apologized. He also offered his lesson: accidents happen, and we are disappointed. Things don't always work out as we expect them too, but things do work out. Like magic.

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I didn't like Nevin at all when I first met him. In fact, I sort of despised him. I first studied with him as my drawing teacher. I loved to draw, I thought—I thought—but he constrained me so. He didn't give me enough time to work on my pieces, to pour over the details, to obsess, to control, to...

Ceramics was a departure—gritty, dirty and real. If a piece didn't turn out as I hoped, I could drag my fingers through it and let it die. I could mash it down and turn it to nothing, and then I could lay out the remnants, let them dry for a day, and start over. Ceramics was as cathartic as awe-inspiring. Anything was possible with a clump of dirt. Tall, small, good, bad, vase, waste, it was still a clump of dirt—only then pretty dirt or dirty dirt. I could make a mess; I could make a cup. I could create something to eat out of, to fidget with, to hold in my hands. I could create something to share and give away.

Nevin became a good friend.

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The last time that I threw, I did so secretly, sneaking into the studio in the middle of the night when I knew that no one else would be around. As usual, I made bowls.

Years before, Kurt Weiser challenged me to throw a hundred bowls, so I did. I made bowl after bowl after bowl, throwing from the mound in rapid succession. I gave each bowl one minute to center, open, pull, shape and chop, and I laid out five bowls at a time to dry on a bat, which took take a day. It took me two more days to trim the feet for all of the pots, and after a firing and another two days of work I had them all glazed. A week passed before they were fired again and finished. I showed them to Kurt. Good work, he said. Now pick another shape and make another hundred pots.

Kurt was my teacher; I was a student. He was an artist, a dude. I brought my maniere bohem, and he brought process.

On one occasion, he glanced over as I sat in front of a wheel and threw. He asked what I was trying to make. I don't know, I said. I'm just letting the clay do whatever it wants. He said, the clay wants to be a pile of mud on the ground. It doesn't want to do anything. It doesn't want to be anything. It wants to be a mess. And that's where you come in.

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I imagine these men, my teachers, sitting side by side in the studio, divulging to one another the secrets of the universe—the potter's wheel and its cosmic spiral, and the nature of impermanence and change made visceral, artful, by skilled hands. Mr. Sebring would conjure up his magical vases; Nevin something practical; and Kurt would labor over the same piece for several weeks, glazing and firing, glazing and firing, glazing and firing. Each would have their technique, and each would have their way. But they would do as they do and make ceramics.

I would watch them for a time, because there is always a lot to learn. But then I would grab my tools and belt, roll up my sleeves, and go to that place where things are quiet. It's been a while, but I would pick a new shape and throw as quickly as I can, as best as I can, first one piece and then on to the next. And then to the next and the next, each off the mound and then the one after that, always starting over, over and over again.

-Ryan Riedel Genardini