Last time I spent a day at the pottery, two months ago, I was throwing some vases on the potter’s wheel. Spring is coming, and I’d rather like to have some flowers around the house to cheer me up. I was back there again today, working on the next stage. I find it takes at least as much time to finish and decorate the pots as it does to throw them in the first place.
My main job today was to “turn” the vases. That is, to put them back on the wheel upside down and trim the excess clay away from the base using a wire loop to carve away ribbons of partly-dried (leather hard) clay. I also sign and date the pieces at that point. Then it’s a case of decorating them. I’m not particularly artistic, so delicate painting is not my thing. I generally go for bold, solid colours or simple patterns which show off the underlying shape of the pot.
I then leave the finished pots at the pottery to completely dry out before they are fired. You have to be patient at this stage – if you try to hurry the process and the clay isn’t completely dried out, the water will turn to steam in the kiln and the pot will explode!
I hope to be able to collect the fired and glazed vases in about a month.
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Do we get to see pictorial evidence??
My hands were covered in clay, so taking photos would have been somewhat messy. If you squint, though, you can see me and one of my pots in the background of
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