Pottery Studios are a popular and growing force in world culture

Here is a quote from a recent article in the New York Times:

“Clay is the opposite of the cellphone,” said D. Wayne Higby, an artist and the director of Ceramic Art Museum at Alfred University in Alfred, N.Y. “This stuff is real, takes up space, it’s dirty. There’s just this physicality that is very different from what we experience six or eight hours a day sitting in front of a computer.”

This might partly explain pottery’s recent resurgence in popularity.

Clay educators, artists and industry experts from across the United States told me of people flocking to pottery classes and workshops, studios trying to get a handle on expanding wait lists, and ceramists racking up huge online followings. (There is even a television show for aficionados of the craft: “The Great Pottery Throw Down,” a production à la “The Great British Baking Show,” streaming on Max.)

And maybe because it provides a tactile alternative to the flattened reality of the screen, clay kept drawing in new devotees even as much of the world ground to a halt during Covid lockdowns.