Another young man who has never worked with clay before is creating a large-coiled pot, carving and exaggerating each coil. Last week he was disappointed that his coils are different widths when he wants them to be the same and so he’s fixing and mending each one by adding smaller coils of clay. I look across the room, and one of the girls is stroking / compressing her coil pot into a very pleasing shape. I let her know that I’ve noticed the compressing with the kidney — something I showed them weeks ago and thought no-one was listening — and she looked up at me and smiled with pleasure. Another boy really struggles with the clay and yet two coiled pots emerge, imperfect, but standing and he’s even made a spoon for one. Another boy holds his version of a Zulu beer pot in his hands and brings it to his lips miming drinking and places it back on a smaller pinch pot he made in a previous session — it’s a stand for “a Sangoma’s pot” he says.

Each week, a new teenager or two joins the group. As if word is getting out. I teach them how to pinch and add a foot. They work quietly and expertly making pinch pots as if it’s something they’ve always known how to do. This term has been a challenge — balancing ‘teaching art skills’ with holding a space where they can make what they need to make with the clay. I’ve developed a hybrid approach. I demonstrate a new hand-building or decorating technique each week and then support them in doing what it is they want to do. Some of the group follow my instructions quite carefully but mostly they are making their own unique versions using the skills I am sharing, and at times they make something totally from their imaginations. The space we are working in was once a fully-equipped and functioning ceramic studio but now it is a sad version of what it was. But you need very little really to get going with clay. The clay itself, some boards, a few canvas squares, kebab sticks, some knives and a few rolling pins.