My ceramics teacher is in his late 60's, I think. Certainly older than 64. Maybe even in his 70's.

He's in very good shape. Thin, tall enough to be tall without being excessively so, still stands up straight.

His skin is remarkably tan considering the usual winter-time wear on the coloring of us white-folks. I reckon people start to stay a little bit more the same color year-round the older they get.

And this remarkably tan skin sticks against his bones and veins like good plastic wrap on a chicken nugget platter that's been heated up. (Don't get this? Heat up something heatable with some plastic wrap on it and just see how much closer the wrap sticks to what it's on. Sometimes, at the restaurant I used to work in where this was common practice, we'd end up practically laminating the wrap to the food and have to start again. Overcooking is not our friend.)

He's got these flat, thin little fingers.. you almost expect .. well, I'm not sure what you almost expect, but they just look different from the round and somewhat pudgy, or even boney and yet shapely fingers we usually see.

Perfect for pottery, anyway, not to mention photography, painting, drawing, etching, and who-knows-what-other-art-stuff he does.

So every Monday night this semester, we go into class around 7 for a demonstration. (Usually, I go in around 5 because we've got more students than we do wheels, though not as many students as last semester when it wasn't so easy to go in at different times what with not having a car and all.)

He makes it look so easy, Mr. Ceramics-Teacher does. There's this little voice inside my head that goes "See? It's so easy! You can do that! You can make beautiful pottery on the wheel!"

So much for that idea.

Mr. Ceramics-Teacher has been at this for at least 40 years now. Likely closer to 50. I've been at using the wheel for about .. oh, 6 months or so.

Tonight, there was a little voice in my head after the triumphant encourager that said "Sometimes I wish there was a demonstration from someone that didn't do things so perfectly all the time, so that he had to take his time to do these things and I could actually figure out what he's doing. And so that it wasn't so discouraging when I can't get the same thing to work for me."

In my psychology class in high school, one thing mentioned stood out to me quite a bit: People with healthy ambition will seek to be around (not all the time, mind you, but a good deal of it) those that they admire and that are masters of the skill these people want to gain."

Put simply: If you want to be a master potter, you should learn from the master potter. Just as if you want to be a good writer, you should read good books and seek to be around award-winning (or otherwise notable) authors.

Usually, that's me. I want to learn from my ceramics teacher the things that I cannot currently do on the wheel. And I'm more often than not very much a delayed-gratification person. When given a present, I can wait 'till Christmas to open it. When a friend starts to say something and then catches himself about to reveal something he shouldn't, I don't prod him for more information. I trust his discretion, even if it did come to late.

But with skills, I often get very frustrated that they take so long to learn. It's not like waiting and working at it from November first to December 25th, nor like just putting out of mind something that shouldn't have gotten there in the first place. No, no, my friend. It's spending years working on the same basic thing over and over and over untill you finally can manage to roll one seemingly-perfect pot off the wheel bed, out of the kiln, and into someone's home -- or office. Or wherever.

Ah, well. Somehow or other, I've made some decent little pots this semester. And the process of mastering ceramics is so enjoyable I could almost see myself working at it for the next 20, 30, maybe even 40 years.