Only those who risk going too far can possibly find
out how far they can go.
— T.S Eliot
I do pottery. I love it. It's very relaxing; it takes
me to another planet.
-Eva Herzigova
Honestly, the idea of pottery does
not really catch my attention. Even though I’m quite aware on the important
role that pottery played in our history as well as understanding history, it
never really caught my interest to the point that I would ever think about
going to a place where pottery is still a practiced lifestyle – not until our archaeology
class.
We were in the midst of our
discussion on some artefacts found in some notable archaeological sites and we
were actually watching a video on how pottery is done, when our professor
suddenly came up with the idea of visiting an actual place where they do
pottery. Well this kind of lit up the mood of the class, or at least my
interest. I was like, finally! I found an
excuse to try to visit this kind of place which I never really thought of
visiting without the presence of other reasons to do it. And in just a
20-minute of clarification and guidelines, our class finally had an agreement,
and that is to visit any pottery place and then write a paper about it.
The rest of the discussion passed
by without me noticing because I kept on thinking where would I go? Whom would I
go with? What would I write about? And all other things I could think about. Then
when our professor finally dismissed the class, me and my classmates
immediately gathered and agreed to go the next day to this pottery place that
one of classmate knows. It is somewhere in Tiaong, Quezon, and even though we
don’t really know how to go there and nobody in our group has a car, we then
accepted the challenge on commuting and
using google map as our only guide.
The next day, our group met in
JAC Liner in Cubao. We asked some of the bus liner staff on what bus to ride
going to Tiaong, Quezon. After a little talk, we finally rode a bus (that I forgot
what the sign says) and went off – and the adventure begins!
The whole bus ride was fun. Because
we did not really know the way, we are kind of obligated to look on where we are
going to get familiarized with the routes that we are taking. Despite the fact
that that was a 4-hour ride, nobody from our group seemed bored. Everyone was
having fun pointing out places that interests us as we pass by and trying to
figure out if we are still on the right track or if we have ridden a wrong bus
and will totally end up in a wrong destination (Which I honestly kind of
wishing for. Who would not want an unexpected change of plan? That would be a
whole new adventure!)
But thanks to our honest and
intelligent bus conductor, we ended up in the place where we wanted to be. We finally
reached, Ugu Bigyan Pottery House, but
I would prefer to it call it a pottery
haven, because it is a haven for real!
I was in awe when we entered the
gates of the pottery house. The architectural design, ambiance and the feels of
the place really kept my mouth open. We were like, ooh! Wow! Grabe sobrang ganda! and all the shiz that you can think
about.
The zen vibes of the place suits
perfectly with its nature as a pottery house. It was really nice to see people
actually doing and molding pots using the pottery wheel. And the fun part of
this is that we get to have a chance to actually try to do pots using these
pottery wheels. I didn’t care if I was to get down and dirty, it was fun!
We spent the rest of the morning
until early afternoon looking around the place, sitting and chatting with the
staff and eyeing some of their finished products. Man they were awesome! That’s
why it’s no wonder that their products are being exported to different Asian countries.
Isn’t it cool? We had the chance to visit a pottery that produces world class
products!
All that I can just say about our
trip that day was that it was really fun and awesome. This day really proved me
that it is not bad and scary to try new things or go to places you really do
not know how to get to. It’ll certainly give you a hell-of-an-adventure, because
it gave me one for sure – and that I will never ever forget.
All photos from Arielle Castillejos.
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