I missed our final session, so I watched the video.

It was raining and I didn’t fancy going outside to get some proper clay, so I used my daughter’s physio putty – a silicone based non-Newtonian liquid which changes to a malleable solid with pressure. I made a little bowl.

Thinking about it, it’s very much like me: it becomes resistant when pressured, will embrace change temporarily but generally just wants to revert back to its natural state.

The exercise of feeling the material with awareness and the subsequent discussion with Alexis Rago on his experience of working with clay was particularly interesting as I’m currently researching materiality, in particular, Malafouris’ Material Engagement Theory – the act of making is a lived and relational state of becoming in which selfhood is enacted and transformed through the ongoing dialogue between the maker and the material.