If you aren’t well acquainted with the differences between British TV and American TV, watch the original Office, by Ricky Gervais, and compare it to the American version with Steve Carell. As much as I love me some Carell (40 year old virgin to Beautiful Boy, now that’s some range!), the American Office opts for zany laughs, caricature and contrivance, and forced character transformations. The British Office populates its world with people you can relate to and have probably worked with or been friends with or been frustratingly forced to endure. The British Office gives you uncomfortable laughs, pity, sadness and – unexpectedly – empathy. American TV just can’t stand realism, British TV lovingly wallows in it. And so it is with great joy that I stumbled upon The Great Pottery Throw Down, a British skills challenge show featuring a number of amateur potters facing up to a variety of challenges created by Master Potter Keith (a former punk band lead singer who can be moved to tears by potters’ works), and his co-judge, Kate, a master of handwork and a radiant soul.
The location for this show is known as the Potteries, Stoke-on-Trent, the hub for pottery production in all of England. Contrast this show with Craftopia and Crazy Delicious – two immensely enjoyable American challenge shows – and you will see that the Pottery Throw Down wastes no production time on fancy set pieces or flashy editing. There are just simple, natural settings, and simple, beautiful displays of the potters’ works.
I spend a considerable amount of time thinking about scent work and talking about scent work. As with all endeavors to mastery, one must let go of ambition, structure, control, outcomes, and self-consciousness, and begin to feel the process and be shaped by the process. This is incredibly hard for Americans! It may be that we have so few top performers in any given field, not because there can only be a few amazing athletes or musicians or scent work handlers, but because we have managed to separate ourselves from the realness of the process. We are more accustomed with the idea of performing than the act of performing.
For those among us who can surrender to the process, the journey is far from over! The process will take you places you aren’t ready to go – or don’t want to go – and it will face you up to truths about yourself – some you wish you’d never learned – but, it will also offer you a deep peace, an intense joy, and an appreciation for the beauty of creative expression and creative interpretation.
The Great Pottery Throw Down would not work without Master Potter Keith creating an environment where the potters are faced with experiences that challenge them and allow for self-revelations. Keith is not there to catapult these potters to fame or to pit them against each other for cash prizes. He is there to guide them to their process. Some potters bring Keith to tears, not just because of the beauty of their work, but because he knows the potters are unknown to themselves, are unaware that they are being shaped by their work. Keith inspires the potters when he sits at the throwing wheel, blindfolded, and creates a tall vase entirely by feel. He encourages the potters to push past the disappointment of a cracked piece or a failed vision. He reminds the potters that the clay will act as it wants to if the potters are not perfectly in tune with their medium and wholeheartedly engaged in the process.
Watching potters work with clay, there are various rituals that inform the process: hammering, pounding, and kneading the clay to reduce air pockets in the material; wetting the clay and your hands to achieve the right pliability, centering the clay on the wheel as it begins to spin. There’s no room for second-guessing, you must do the work and accept the results. After all the time spent at the wheel, the clay must go through a drying period and a firing period. It is here that the potters’ choices at the wheel will be reflected back in the process from clay to ceramic. Too much water, too much air, improper shaping, thickness, or design and the clay will crack or fall apart in the kiln.
While each item a potter produces is finished at some point, the process is never finished. A potter may assume certain status or stature upon winning a “big make” challenge or upon coming in last. When you observe someone letting the process find them, it’s magical. That same person may approach their next project trying to find the process, and it’s painful to watch.
In season 2, Cait (of Irish heritage, pronounced “coit”), wrestles with emotion and doubt at every turn of the wheel. Clover, from China, remarks upon the cultural taboo of feeling prideful after producing a pair of beautiful honeycomb porcelain lights. James, one of the first potters to leave the pottery studio at Middleport, has a detachment from his work, frequently remarking on his designs and finishes as “sort of” this or “sort of” that. In season 1, Rockabilly singer, Jim wins top potter for the week and spends the remainder of the competition worrying over his ability to stay on top. While he makes it to the finals, he loses out to Matthew, a young potter who focuses on his connection to the clay and the process.
Master Potter Keith challenges the potters to perform quickly, using lesser known techniques, but not because he wants to see perfection, because he wants to see potters who let the process find them. From throwing pots blindfolded, to working the wheel in reverse (the way it’s done in Japan), to sculpting the human torso (no dad bods, says Stephanie, the host), Keith is looking for ego to fall away and talent to rise up.
Watch The Great Pottery Throw Down and imagine that working with your dog in scent work is like working with clay. You need to understand your medium, prepare it for future stress, and let the process find you. Just as the clay wants what it wants, your dog wants what he wants. Overwork the clay, and you will pay for it in the drying process, sometimes with a piece that just explodes to bits. Play it safe and you’re left with clay that has no life, that shows no relationship between the potter and the piece. Heat the clay too much or too little, and the glaze will not react properly. Risks must be taken, care must be used; the cosmic ledger demands a debit from the potter’s soul in return for a ceramic masterpiece.
Almost every moment of the Great Pottery Throw Down is ruled by time. The workability of the clay, the drying of the clay and the firing of the clay all take the time they take. Then there are the various challenges Master Potter Keith devises, many of which use time as pressure and require quality and quantity from the potters. I have a love/hate relationship with time challenges. I love that time challenges often erase the ego-based, thinking and worrying part of our brains, and leave us with the more effective more present-focused, doing part of our brains. I don’t so much love that time pressure is much more aligned with some people’s style & personality than others, and it really doesn’t separate the wheat from the chaff, so much as tell us some people are ok with doing things fast. Alas, almost every competition on earth uses time as a determining factor.
One unique feature of the quantity and quality challenges thrown down at the potting wheel by Keith is that the potters learn to live in the moment, connect with the clay, create something, and move on. In the second season of Throw Down, Keith becomes quite fond of squashing and discarding the potters’ substandard pieces, sometimes moments after they’ve been wired off the wheel. I’d be mortified if Keith destroyed one of the potters’ main makes (the big, time-consuming project each episode), but then, the drying and firing process sometimes cracks and explodes those all important pieces anyhow. Maybe that’s Keith’s goal with the speed challenges: don’t fret over mistakes; they didn’t stop you from throwing beautiful pieces, and they won’t hold you back unless you hold onto them. So, squash ’em!
I witness so much worry and fretting over a dog’s indication behavior when working with scent work teams. It’s as if each act of communication between dog and handler is a piece of shaped clay just wired off the wheel, and any piece that isn’t perfect gets put on display in the gallery of the handler’s mind. Instead, I’d like to see a handler mentally squash that imperfect communication and get back to the wheel, get her hands back on the clay. No potter makes perfect pieces in perpetuity, and no handler should expect perfect communication upon every engagement with odor.
The potters on the Great Pottery Throw Down are skilled, and even when faced with challenges they’ve never experienced (the ancient Japanese process known as Raku, or working with special clay to make a toilet), the results are quite impressive. But, spin the wheel enough times and the clay throws you for a loop. On the occasion where a potter experiences abject failure, a new skill may need to be acquired or refined, or the potter may need to consider his problem-solving abilities (when something cracks, breaks, doesn’t fit, etc., there’s a need for crafty, quick cleverness). Whatever it may be, if everything you wire off the wheel is squashable, it’s time to step away from the wheel.
In scent work, as in pottery, the process has a natural flow, a progress toward the creation of something: a ceramic in pottery, and a communication/indication in scent work. From lump of clay to glazed ceramic, progression occurs. From search to find, progression occurs. In the season 2 finale of Throw Down, Keith is moved to tears by Richard’s main make – a pair of ceramic lights, both of which tragically cracked to pieces during the drying process. Richard found a way to display his work, and Keith wants it known that Richard’s perseverance and the beauty of the sculpted leaves that hang from the cracked light covers is quite moving. Think about a scent work search that begins to come together – shows promise and inspiration – then falls apart with a false alert or a bungled interaction and a missed hide, only to finish with a fizzle of defeat instead of a flash of triumph. All is not lost! The beauty is there. While the product can be broken or damaged, the process is impervious, the process is enduring, and the process is waiting for you to return to the wheel, to connect with the dog.
Happy Sniffing!
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