He Didn’t Start Out to Teach. It Just Happened. | Sam Lopez | Episode 544

Sam Lopez | Episode 544

Sam Lopez is a potter living and working in San Diego, California. Sam teaches ceramics as an adjunct instructor at Riverside City College and makes pots in his home studio.

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Do you have a step by step process you like to bring people through in order to teach them how to do ceramics?

Yes, and part of what helps that process is there is a course description that I have to follow along. So I have techniques that I have to teach that the students should learn throughout a semester but generally a beginner class is what I like to call the greatest hits of ceramics. You learn all the techniques. So you learn pinch pots, coil pots, you work with slabs. and then you are going to get an introduction to the wheel basically in that whole first semester. And my goal at least is the try and find some balance of challenging the students to really try and make accomplished work or at least to make as many pieces as possible. I go this from Greg Kennedy who taught up in Idlewylde for a number of years, he used to say, Make as many mistakes as possible, as fast as possible. as a way of growing. So with the pinch pots, they are making a ton of them and we try to just crank them all out in a couple of weeks.

Who wrote the class description for you?

The college writes it.

So the curriculum is laid out before you get there.

At least in terms of what’s expected before they enter an intermediate class. So they have to have the basic techniques that I mentioned and they also have to have historical teaching within the classwork as well. So I try to expose them to as many interesting things as possible that are being done with clay whether it is past, present, so on and so forth. With each technique they learn there is either a lecture or a slide show that corresponds with that technique to show them what is possible, to try and generate some kind of excitement.

What makes a person go from a beginner to an intermediate?

Honestly, the wheel. As funny as that is, I kind of wish that we could have hand building as its own class and wheel throwing as its own class, as a community college we don’t have that luxury. So we have to give them all this stuff in one semester which is a lot really, but once they get to the wheel it is the end of the semester for them.Right now we are coming into finals week and all the beginning classes are starting to be really excited about the wheel because they only have had six weeks on the wheel out of the entire semester. In that six weeks they have already done their cylinders projects, their bowls, and their cups and mugs. They do all that in six weeks and all the work and all the effort that they have put in is starting to show and they get really excited and then they want to take intermediate. Part of what gets them excited is my night class is a really cool class. It is beginning, intermediate, and studio all together. So I teach three levels in one session and what ends up happening is my intermediate and studio students work along side my beginner students and my beginner students start getting excited especially when they get on to the wheel and they see the intermediate class make all these nice projects. And there is a really nice community that develops in these classes where everyone is learning from each other and it’s really cool to see.

What is the progression you like to teach on the wheel to develop skill?

To develop skill I just pound into them that they are kind of production potters. So I don’t like to emphasize them as having special thing. I want them to really understand that repetition is key and also the amount of time that you spend on something on the wheel can either fast forward your progression or it could deter it. I try to give them a time limit per object so they are just getting clay through their hands. And I find that the more clay that they get through their hands and they get to failure as quickly as possible, the faster they develop the skill and understand the skill. It is really important for them to understand that failure is okay. It is such a big part of ceramics. If I help them make the perfect cylinder every time. They are going to make nice cylinders but they are not going to understand the techniques to adapts them to other projects. It takes three days before they keep anything. I work for a long time on them learning centering. I want it to be a really calming experience to and to teach them how to use their bodies. We work on the first three steps for a while before we go onto all six steps.

What are your six steps.

So we start with centering. I might actually have seven. So centering, you get it in the middle. Then you are going to make a hole and for that looks like it should have a point down at the bottom. It shouldn’t be a straight down hole it should be a tapering down hole. And from there that is going to get their depth for their floor, so that would be step two. After that step three, they are going to establish that floor, for a cylinder they are going to make a nice, even, flat floor. So what should happen is the walls of your cylinder should just surpass the base of your cylinder so you have a little bit of a flare going outside. That opens up the floor enough for you to smooth is out and make it flat. Then you will recenter, which is the fourth step. And from there I call it raising or bringing up the walls or however you want to call it-pulling. Those will be the fifth and sixth steps really. So you will squeeze up the walls, you will double the corner of the edge after your cylinder is flat and it is ready to come off the wheel.

What is your favorite part of teaching?

I think when you see a student get really excited, really, for the first time. There’s these moments that are really cool, these aha moments of throwing. Because throwing is really hard to learn, you know. I remember having this one particular student and he was a Friday student and there is a lot of time that goes between classes, so it is really difficult to learn to throw on a wheel if you are only throwing once a week and I remember towards the end of the semester you just sit down and work and sit down and work and he was having a really hard time with throwing and then one day he was sitting at the wheel and he looked up and said, Sam! What is going on? I looked up and I have six bowls in front of me. He was like, I don’t remember making a single one of them bu they are all right here. He was stunned that he was doing it right and he was so, so excited. And for me that was the coolest thing for him to get to that moment. He did it through struggle and he did it all by himself. Those little moments are really cool. It is also cool to see students go through the program and then go on to other schools and major in ceramics. Regardless, just watching someone be excited about the material is just as fun.

My last question is a two part question. What has you frustrated about ceramics and what has you excited about ceramics?

Frustrated about ceramics? I don’t know. I mean, that is more internal for myself. Wishing there was more time to have studio time, really. But what has me excited about ceramics is it just seems to be this time where through social media and the internet it is everywhere and so accessible. There are so many Youtube channels, you can learn from so many different people. There are podcasts like you and Ben, it’s amazing really. Just the community that we are a part of. You can connect to these people all around the world. That is super exciting and just to see what is available, I can’t imagine having all this stuff available as a high school student. My mind would have been blown or something to understand that there is that much accessibility.