Ceramics student Jo Vigil, right, spins a ceramic bowl at a pottery wheel Wednesday in a studio at Southwestern Oregon Community College. “It’s relaxing, fun, exciting �” a Zen experience,” Vigil said.

Batches of clay yielded one bowl, then two bowls, then more than 200 bowls as potters prepared wares to help neighbors.

The handful of area artists kept their hands busy as they gathered Wednesday at Southwestern Oregon Community College for a pottery-throwing marathon. The bowls will be donated to Oregon Coast Community Action, which plans to sell them next spring to raise funds for its South Coast Food Share.

The event is based on a so-called bowl-a-thon from years past known as Feed Our Neighbors, according to Associate Art Professor James Fritz. Feed Our Neighbors was introduced in 2003 and ran three years before going on hiatus. In 2005, the last year of the event, the effort generated more than $10,000 for Food Share.

This year, Fritz and others decided that it was time to get back to work.

“We recognize there’s a lot of need on the South Coast, and we want to give back to our community,” he said.

The potters, a group of past and current students as well as professors from the college, huddled over their wheels and enjoyed good-humored conversation as they carried out their work. They slapped down wet, doughy hunks of clay and drove in their thumbs and index fingers to extract the forms of bowls.

It’s easy for the artists to lose themselves in the craft, Fritz said. Experienced potters are capable of producing a bowl every three to five minutes.

“There’s a Zen-master quality to being a potter that you don’t find with a lot of other arts,” he explained.

The artists are mostly good-natured and display a love for their craft, as well as their community.

“Genuine, salt-of-the-earth people are drawn to pottery,” Fritz observed. “I like to hang out with potters. It’s good for your soul.”