Community Stories
We have been having such a fantastic time with our team of legends at Milly’s place. This month we want to celebrate the awesomeness that is… Pottery!
The art of pottery was immortalised through the movie Ghost in 1990…But if you haven’t seen it, it’s a truly unique art form which moulds vessels or makes other objects with clay and other raw materials. It’s then fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form.
Creating with clay is a physically and limitless potential for creativity as it engages our muscles, fine motor skills, vision and imagination. Clay is tactile, sensory and it can be very relaxing.
Other benefits include that it can reduce depression as well as having improved emotional regulation and emotional wellbeing. It’s truly a great tool to express yourself.
Our Incredible Diversional Therapist Sandra created this program off the back of a very successful creative arts program. She could see a need for our participants to further development of their fine motor skills, and saw how creative outlets were achieving such great results in their overall development.
The Pottery Program started as an occasional activity, and was often a highlight of the month. It has now formed into a program on its own, and gaining tremendous momentum.
Our programs run on a 13 week block as part of Milly’s Place’s Hub Club. We have some participants that are at different levels within the program, and Sandra has been able to expertly cater this program to suit everyone based on the level they are at.
Most of our Participants at Milly’s Place have never expressed themselves creatively before, let alone picked up a piece of clay!
Our Diversional Therapist Sandra, has created an easy to follow program for everyone. The core focus is on developing key concepts, including form and structure, colour, proportion, composition and function.
What this means is, we have our participants going from never holding clay, to creating truly incredible pieces of art in only a few short lessons.
Through this current program block, our Participants have been learning the background on clay. They were then given designs to use a pinch pot method. We taught skills on decoration and glazing. What we found was by the end of this program block, all of our participants were designing their own pieces.
Over time, we saw everyone’s confidence soar as well as new friendships forming in the group. Fine motor skills improved, and cognitively thinking about design improved. The vocabulary of ceramics developed tremendously.
We had some feedback that our group wanted to try working a real pottery wheel. So… naturally, we delivered!
We recently took everyone down for a surprise visit to a Community Pottery Studio where they had the opportunity to use a wheel and to see what a real studio environment was like. We had a truly memorable day! It was amazing to see the level of participation and concentration amongst the group.
There was also a fun day excursion to Monte Lupo which is a full working studio. They have a number of artists of all abilities and backgrounds who showcase works, and gain employment. A number of our participants were inspired by this, gaining ideas on how art can also become a potential employment opportunity in the future.
One of our participants was so inspired, they took a picture of a piece they saw at Monte Lupo, and came back to Milly’s Place and replicated this piece using the pinch pot method. Truly inspiring!
Are you or someone that you know ready to join our Pottery Program at Milly’s Place? We are currently accepting enrolments into our Hub Club program. You don’t have to have NDIS funding, we are also accepting privately funded clients as well. We also have a number of flexible “pay as you go” options. To get started, fill in an Expression Of Interest via our website, or call our team on: 07 3112 7883.
