“It’s fantastically therapeutic,” says Bhaggie Patel, ceramic artist and co-founder of Manchester’s Imprints of Earth ceramics studio. “Sometimes I’ll be sitting at the wheel and I’m so engrossed in what I’m doing, I don’t realise it’s turned dark outside.” Bhaggie is leading me in a one-to-one throwing class, teaching me how to turn an amorphous lump of clay into something useful, maybe even beautiful: a pot, perhaps, or a mug or bowl.
As I look down, though —at my hands caked in clay, my shoe twitching unassuredly on the foot pedal, and the gloopy grey mess spinning sadly before me on the wheel — ‘therapeutic’ is not the word that immediately comes to mind. Bhaggie is patient with me, however, and I soon begin to understand what she means. I stop overthinking, and the minutes melt away along with the worries of the day, replaced by a state of flow: complete immersion in an act at once wholesome, practical and creative.
“Any creative hobby can have huge physical and mental health benefits,” Bhaggie says. “It reduces stress and anxiety, increases positive emotions, and helps with problem solving. It gives you a sense of control and pride in whatever it is you’re making.”
Bhaggie understands more than most the healing power of arts and crafts. A former social worker, she set up Imprints of Earth with her daughter Shakti after the sudden death of her husband, Nitin, in 2018. The shelves around us are stacked with her creations: smoke-fired vases, mottled in red, black and grey; Japanese-style raku teapots, their surfaces swirled with horsehair and feathers which create unique, ethereal patterns during the firing process. “Making ceramics is an amazing metaphor for life: learning when to
