Pottery Workshop 2003

Fortunately winter storms held for this first weekend in February as lectures by Dr. Leigh Symonds brought us in from all corners of the province. The first lecture was Saturday morning with Dr. Symonds discussing general characteristics of Anglo/Scandinavian pottery. Sat afternoon was devoted to turning Dr. Symonds' lectures into practice. Based on the techniques she showed were within or close to the Norse period, David Clarke, a professional potter, gave us some pointers on how to actually work with clay. In these pictures, attendees and Dr. Symonds are experimenting with rolling clay flat (or molding them onto existing forms) and rolling clay into coils for sides and decoration. The pot making continued well into the evening after dinner, until, in a period fashion, little light was available to work by. Some folks added some finishing touches Sunday morning before we began the last lecture. This second lecture was entitled "Contextualizing Pottery in the Early Medieval Period" and featured items from Dr. Symonds' Ph.D. thesis. The pots were then left to dry with the intention of being fired in a pit fire at a later date at Vinderheima.

Group at work	Demonstration	Richard	Group working
Busy work table	Busy work table	Results	Richard's Pot