Shanghai workshop molds pottery artists

A student diligently applies glaze to her work.

Frey attends the Pottery Workshop every Tuesday morning, spending three to four hours using her hands to work the clay.

After five weeks of classes, she is looking forward to taking home the first bowl she made with her own hands as a special souvenir.

"I've enjoyed every minute at the workshop. It enabled me to make friends and learn to make ceramics, with the guidelines and suggestions from others," Frey says.

Also, she feels very comfortable in the workshop, which creates a classroom-like atmosphere in which people from different backgrounds gather diligently to create their works.

As a foreigner and a tourist, Frey has adopted pottery making to express ideas and thoughts about her new environment.

"I would like to try other methods very soon, such as casting to make ceramics, and hopefully I will leave with a whole case of my works by the end of our stay," Frey says.

Sharing the same passion, but a different motivation, Maggie Guo, a former clothes designer and now a housewife is trying to complete her "pottery dream".

"I meant to study pottery when I applied to university many years ago, but I was eventually offered a place in clothes design, which became my career," Guo says.

Now, after years of working as a designer, her heart is still set on learning pottery. She attends the workshop to finally realize the dream she had put on the shelf for so many years.

Normally, she spends over three hours a week in the workshop to create her works, which may take as long as a month to complete.

"I am always surprised and happy to see the final work, and it allows me to learn the real meaning of being an artist," Guo says.

She thinks more people should step into the world of pottery making to experience the magic of creativity with simple materials.