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What is the healing power of pottery?
Pottery work creates a calming experience resulting in lowering stress levels, blood pressure, heart rate and regulating breathing. Clay can also be an effective tool to reduce anxiety, promote a positive mood, enhance creativity, healing and induce self-expression. the results of this study show that Clay Therapy reduces anxiety and depression and increases the happiness of physically impaired people. therefore, it is recommended to include clay work in the art curriculum of schools for exceptional children. Playing with clay can transform an individual into a relaxed meditated state. Clay as a form of therapy taps into the unconscious mind and its considered art expression. The resistance of working with clay integrates mental, emotional and kinaesthetic brain functions. Clay being an earthy medium by its very nature can take a lot of anger and rage. Clay in therapy provides a medium to work through issues such as anger, grief, and fear and move the client on in their therapeutic process. Another client used the clay to represent a lot of different emotions. Potters are highly skilled professionals who often seek to improve their skills as they gain experience. To be a pottery maker, you may need these skills: Hand-eye coordination: Potters rely heavily on their hand-eye coordination to shape their work and add intricate details to their art pieces. The clay art therapy (CAT) model adopts a bottom-up model in which kinesthetic movements and sensory stimulations are used to produce perceptual and affective experiences to alter the cognitive understanding of emotions.
Is making pottery therapeutic?
Pottery therapy can be a particularly effective component of mental health disorder treatment, as it incorporates physical movement and tactile sensation with meditative practice. Throughout various applications of clay work within the realm of art therapy, clay has been seen to reduce negative mood and anxiety, awaken creativity, foster socialization, and heal from trauma. With pottery, your hands become your creative outlet and the stress relief is palpable. Believe it or not, it’s also a good physical workout as you use your arm muscles to “wedge” the clay (to get air bubbles out), and your core muscles to remain steady, especially when trying to center clay on the wheel. Pottery allows kids to absorb information at their own pace. Building with clay means dealing with pesky gravity and the unique properties of clay, which promotes problem-solving skills. It’s thought that creative exploration encourages rewiring of the brain.
What is the significance of pottery?
Pottery plays an important role in studying culture and reconstructing the past. Historically with distinct culture, the style of pottery changed. It reflects the social, economic and environmental conditions a culture thrived in, which helps the archaeologists and historians in understanding our past. Pottery can be used to date archaeological sites, reveals long-forgotten trade links, the decoration can show artistic evolution within cultures and it often reveals details of everyday life from clothing to religious rituals, from eating habits to now-lost versions of otherwise well-known myths. Stress Relief and Relaxation The tactile experience of pottery can be meditative in nature and invite a deep sense of relaxation and well-being. Your heart rate and blood pressure lower, your breathing regulates, and your stress level naturally sinks as your mind and body become enveloped in the world of creativity. The beauty of imperfection in pottery and ceramics is that each piece has its own story to tell. No two handmade pieces are alike. Each item is a tangible encapsulation of the artist’s time, energy and vision. In a way, every bowl, teapot, plate and piece of décor is an individual work of art. The potter’s wheel is 6000 years old while the oldest known piece of pottery is over 25,000 years old.