It's hard to 'scroll' with clay in your hands: – It calms the brain

Paornánguaq Berthelsen enters the door to the art room at the Kangillinnguit Atuarfiat school.

Still wearing her winter jacket and reflectors, she heads purposefully towards the pottery kiln. She briefly greets some of the people she passes in the room.

She opens the kiln and places a small 'type 16' house, made of clay, next to the other creations in the kiln. The house should preferably be ready for the next firing.

- It was ordered from Narsaq, explains Paornánguaq Berthelsen and carefully closes the oven again.

- So far, so good, she says, relieved.

Paornánguaq Berthelsen is a school teacher at the school by day. But every Wednesday evening, when the school is empty of students and the cleaning staff has started washing the floors, she and 17 others go to ceramics at 'Solfridas Keramik'.

A municipal offer that started in 2016, where adults can come and try their hand at turning techniques, different types of clay and glazes for three to four months at a time for 100 kroner.

- My friend asked me for a long time if I wanted to come along to try it. And so I finally said yes, says Paornánguaq Berthelsen and laughs.

She was quickly completely hooked on it. It's been about four years now.

- It seems very therapeutic. It's like reading a good book – you're in a completely different place in your mind, says Paornánguaq Berthelsen.

Politicians, professionals and organizations have been recommending that you do something that can free your mind and increase your well-being. Especially in light of the current situation in the USA, which the country has been facing in the last few months.

Turn off the news, limit the use of social media and go for a walk, said Anna Wangenheim (D) and Nivi Olsen (D) at a press conference in January, when uncertainty in our country was at its highest.

While some turn off their phones, do yoga or climb a mountain to get a break from everyday worries, for Paornánguaq Berthelsen and several others in the ceramics room, it is the creative pursuits that send their thoughts astray.

Out of the 'mom bubble' and into the ceramics room

Nina Heilmann is one of those in the room who - unlike Paornánguaq Berthelsen - has only just started making ceramics.

- But I've always wanted to try it, she says.

She carefully cuts a shape out of a piece of clay that she has rolled flat. With her fingers and long varnished nails, she draws a small, sharp knife with a wooden handle across the gray clay.

It will be a jewelry holder, she says.

This is only the fourth time that Nina Heilmann has been here. She is showing her very first project: a Greenlandic flag, which after being baked became so crooked that it can't stand up on its own.

- I think we've all made a crooked flag here, haven't we?, comments one of the others around the table and Nina Heilmann laughs.

It wasn't Donald Trump that made Nina Heilmann reach for clay. For her, ceramics was a way out of the 'mom bubble', as she calls it. She became a mother a little over a year ago.

- It was also to get out of the house a bit. All my other hobbies are things where I can just sit at home, she says.

She knits, sews and makes earrings – and has almost always done something creative with her hands.

- It gives some peace of mind – and it is a way to get away from everyday life maybe. I just have to concentrate on what I am doing. And if it is a bit hard, I have to concentrate extra hard, she says and adds:

- So it is a bit of a way to log off from all the hustle and bustle.

Ditte Hartmann Kristensen, who has been going to ceramics for a little over a year, says something similar. She is sitting with a lump of clay that she is going to shape – yes, something or something.

- While I am sitting here, I am not actively taking a position on much else anyway. I am not sitting and reading the news and all that, she says.

But even though most people probably come to ceramics primarily to turn pots and practice ‘plate technique’, it also happens that the outside world sneaks into the visual arts room.

This is what Olivia Nygaard Nielsen says, who has been part of the 'Solfrida ceramics' team for a few years.

- Sometimes the conversations have turned to everything that has happened because it has filled so much, she says.

Trump and the USA are also something that has preoccupied Nina Heilmann – but mostly because so many people around her have been affected by it. Among them is her boyfriend, who has chosen to handle the pressure by deleting social media, she says.

- Social media is almost a bomb of information. The media can sometimes be overwhelming to read, she says.

Do you think that your leisure activities help you not to be so affected by everything that is going on in the media and around you?

- That may well be the case – it probably cannot be ruled out, Nina Heilmann answers.

- We have lowered our shoulders again

The ceramics class is well underway. People are sitting around the tables, talking about everything and anything while they grind, shape or paint. There is a loud laugh from time to time.

Tonight, the name of the US president will not be mentioned at the tables and lathes.

- I think we have lowered our shoulders again now – noticeably, says Paornánguaq Berthelsen.

- But a few weeks ago; it was terrible, she says.

She is still wearing her outerwear and is on her way out the door again. She is tired and had actually mainly come to get her type 16 house in the kiln.

Paornánguaq Berthelsen takes out her phone and shows pictures of one colorful ceramic type house after another, which she occasionally sells to people who are interested.

- You can't keep collecting. Because you collect quickly enough when you start making ceramics. Then your cupboards are suddenly overflowing with things, she says and laughs.

DitteHartmann Kristensen is not on her way home yet, but has started working on some new clay, which she has shaped into a dome.

She nods at a broken lump of clay in front of her.

- I've got that together. It was a lamp, but then some of it started to collapse – and then it was just a matter of trying again and trying something else, she says.

- Now we'll see what it turns out to be.

Because that's what going to ceramics is like, she says.

- Some days I think it's cool. Other times I fold it back together.