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The Kid Should See This

Spinning clay on a pottery wheel with Bill Strickland and Mister Rogers

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The original video was removed from YouTube. This shorter clip captures just a bit of Bill Strickland’s work on the show.

“One of the fun things about clay is it’s like mud, and when I was young, I used to play in mud and make shapes. It’s very similar.”

In this episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood from 1991, Mister Rogers visits the Neighborhood Arts Center to learn how to make his own clay bowl. Professional potter Bill Strickland demonstrates how pottery is made on a pottery wheel, and then explains how they’re fired and glazed in a large kiln.

When Mister Rogers comments on how it must take practice to learn how spin bowls and pots with skill, Strickland assures him that “children can learn to do this if they’re patient… All it takes is practice to get good.”

Bill Strickland
Bill Strickland
Follow this with Mister Rogers’ classic crayon factory visit.

Plus, watch more pottery videos on this site:
• From the potter’s wheel at Tortus Copenhagen
• The art of carving by Haruya Abe
• Experimental animation meets pottery – A zoetrope bowl
• Kintsugi & kintsukuroi – The art of pottery mending with gold

Updated video.

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