central listener audio visual
Hi, welcome to the Wizard of Clay.
My name is Trisha Williams.
What you are about to see is the first in a series of three videotapes that are lessons
on the process of making pottery on the potter's wheel.
These lessons are designed to be beneficial to both the beginning pottery student and
the more experienced potter.
Our teacher for these presentations is Jim Koslowski.
Jim made his first pot on the potter's wheel in 1962 while a student in college in Buffalo,
New York.
After teaching art in a public high school for 12 years, in 1977 Jim became a professional
potter.
He is now the owner of the Wizard of Clay, a production pottery located in upstate New
York near Rochester.
Jim alone throws all of the pottery pieces produced at the Wizard of Clay and seasonally
employs as many as 12 assistants.
He throws more than 50,000 pounds of clay each year, averaging in excess of 20,000 pots
annually.
Jim's teaching ability and experience combined with his years of work as a production potter
make these presentations a valuable tool for everyone interested in working on the potter's
wheel.
A few suggestions for using this tape.
Watch and listen.
Try some of the techniques yourself, then go back, watch and listen again.
The video format allows you to rewind and watch a lesson or even a movement again and
again as many times as you need to.
So look, listen and learn how to use the potter's wheel the right way.
Thank you, Tricia.
Welcome to the workshop.
Let's begin by talking about clay.
The clay that I use is processed by a manufacturer and it's run through a pug mill and it's
also de-aired.
It makes a good start.
The clay primarily comes from the process of strip mining coal.
It comes between the layers of coal.
The coal of course is used and there's a nice fire clay between and that's one reason for
this dark gray color that we see in the clay.
To remove the clay from the lump, I use a piece of monofilament fish line.
A 20 or 30 pound test is ideal and you'll be seeing me use this in the throwing process
a little bit later on also.
I cut through the clay and I can easily remove two lumps.
The next thing we're going to be doing here is called wedging.
The process is originated in Korea and it exposes every part of the clay to the surface
that we work on.
The surface that I am working on is called a wedging table and it's made out of cast
plaster and two by fours.
It can be easily constructed by any carpenter and there's about 75 pounds of plaster that
are cast in here and it makes a nice good porous surface.
For a porous surface you could also wedge your clay on wood or cloth wound up around
a piece of table.
The thing you don't want to do is wedge your clay on glass or any kind of surface that
has no porosity, a painted surface or something like that.
The reason is the clay will stick.
On a porous surface it does not stick and plaster is an ideal surface to work on.
This wedging process evolved in Korea begins this way.
I simply push the clay down into the surface, turn the clay slightly and continue to repeat
the process.
Now if you look you begin to see a spiral effect begin to develop and that's one of
the reasons why each part of the clay, each part of the mass is exposed to the surface.
I use the number 30 and I think about that and I count to 30 and I do this 30 times and
in general the clay is completely mixed.
Sometimes I'll have to go 40 times, sometimes 20 times.
After a while with experience you begin to get an idea and feel exactly how mixed that
clay is.
Now another technique that some potters use but I do not prefer is the cut and slap technique.
Now you take the monofilament line and you simply drag the clay through it, look at it
for air bubbles and then you slap it onto the surface like so, the next piece on it
and this is repeated many times.
Each time it is examined for air bubbles.
You can see a little one began over there and it's slapped down.
The problem with this technique and the reason I don't use it is because as you can see
there are openings and holes in the clay and when I slap this onto that I'm actually locking
those pockets together and I'm introducing air bubbles to the process and that's one
of the things that we try and eliminate.
So I don't use it and I don't like it.
I use the wedging technique and for my purposes it works real well.
Now behind me here is a baby scale and I have a book with all the different things that
I make, cups, bowls, each particular thing has a weight.
If I'm making a cup for example I might set this scale to one pound and then draw off
so much clay to equal one pound.
This is about one pound, a little bit less and if it's not quite right we add enough
clay to it until it becomes one pound.
Now I'm going to be making a couple of cylinders with this and I'll show you how we throw on
the potter's wheel and the next one will be two pounds.
Set this to two pounds.
I need a little bit more clay and it's right there and it's wedged and we're ready to
go.
I'm going to show you a couple of different kinds of wheels that can be used in the process
of making pottery.
The wheel that I have here to show you is powered by electricity.
It comes with a wooden surface so that when you're working with a large piece it can be
removed and set to the side.
You can work on this wooden surface or this metal surface and of course it has an on off
switch and it's controlled with a foot pedal or a rheostat in the same way the sewing machine
would be operated so that if I depress it slowly the wheel goes slowly or if I go fast
the wheel goes fast and you have infinite control.
It's a good wheel to use and I've used one like this for years very successfully.
Another kind of wheel that I'd like to just talk about is a treadle wheel.
I've seen a lot of potters use treadle wheels very successfully.
What a treadle wheel is, is operated by the foot and you're constantly pushing a pedal
back and forth with one foot or the other.
It turns the wheel quickly or slowly according to how fast you're kicking the wheel.
It takes more effort and more work certainly but it's also an effective tool.
The particular kind of wheel that I work on here has a flywheel, an 85 pound flywheel
and it's operated by a direct drive electric motor.
To kick the flywheel I start it like so and then push the switch for the motor to come
on.
What you will hear is the motor and you'll hear that motor going on periodically throughout
the process.
It'll sound like this.
The surface that I work on is made out of plaster.
If I want to stop this wheel I have to drive my heel into the flywheel.
The plaster bat can be removed from the wheel head as you see so that when I make a large
piece it can be removed and set to the side.
The first process of working with clay on the potter's wheel is to consider the direction
of the wheel and adhere the clay to the wheel.
The direction is important depending upon how you begin.
In the western process it's counter-clockwise so that the wheel goes this way.
If you were in Japan most of the wheels would be going this way.
In either case you would be operating and working with the wheel with your fingers on
this side in rotation and motion as the wheel goes around.
If you were going this way, left-handed, you would be going with your wheels in this way
so that the clay pulls through your fingers instead of dragging through your fingers.
If I was going in a counter-clockwise motion like this and I had my hands here this would
all come towards you and the whole pot would be distorted.
Adhering the clay on a wooden surface would be done like so.
You would slap it down.
This is on a wooden surface and it would be pushed into the wood and that would be the
beginning.
On a metal surface you would do the same thing.
On a plaster surface it couldn't be done that way but what I do for small pieces like this
is I get the wheel going first, wet the surface and wet the plaster.
You would not wet the surface for wood or metal.
I wet both surfaces and throw it down and it's begun.
The first thing I have to do is center the clay.
I center the clay by putting both hands on the surface and squeezing them together I
get a more centered mass.
By squeezing and lifting at the same time I'm bringing this mass of clay into a cone
shape and what this does is it causes the clay to whip and twist and blend and even
more thoroughly mix than the way we did it on the wedging board.
After this is done I take the clay and push it down so that I'm trying to create the shape
of a hemisphere and then right hand over left hand I push down on the clay and in on the
clay.
See where my hand touches?
I'm right next to the knuckle in here.
I'm pushing in and I'm pushing down.
So it's down and in like so.
Two important things.
Water is a lubricant.
I'll use water throughout this entire process.
Without water on the clay my fingers would slip, would drag and pull that clay and distort
the piece.
It's very important to keep the clay constantly moist.
The other thing I'd like to point out is this particular wheel and the reason I like it.
I like this wheel because I can make myself a table and I have all my tools, everything
set up for me to work and I also like it because my feet are on stirrups and any motion that
I make is directly from a stable base.
I don't have an opportunity to move all over the place.
Nothing happens up from the air.
My elbows are mounted into my knees and my whole body is a strong even tight unit.
In a lot of the other processes it's more difficult to do the potter's wheels.
It's more difficult to do that.
So I like this and mostly everything happens from the elbows with strength and the strength
of my body that I can put into the clay.
The next step in throwing a cylinder is to go into the clay, to enter the clay.
I enter the clay with my thumb but you will see now and you will see throughout the process
that when I work I try and use one hand as a tool for the other hand.
The other hand is a tool for that hand.
One hand is using the thumb as a tool so that nothing is acting independently because of
the lack of strength that anybody has in an individual hand.
One hand can do it.
The other hand controls it that much better and you have that stability and control.
So I will go in by pushing my thumb down with my right hand and I draw the clay out from
the bottom.
Now you will learn after making many, many, many pots exactly how far that is from the
base.
If I went down too far I would go to the plaster surface and I would have a hole in the bottom
and it would be ruined.
If I don't go down far enough of course I can push it a little bit more and get some
of that clay out of the surface.
One way to double check your move is to use a tool like this.
This is a needle tool.
These are available from Ceramic Supply Houses.
This is one that I simply made and a lot of the tools that we use are simple and can be
made and I will talk about these tools as we get to them.
This is simply a finishing nail driven into a piece of wood and then ground on the surface
on a grinding wheel.
To check the bottom I insert that into the bottom of the wheel, mark it with my finger
and then see the exact distance to the bottom and that seems to be a reasonable amount so
I will leave it right where it is.
Next point then is to smooth this out.
It will be smoothed out with a rib.
This is a wooden rib.
This rib will be used to smooth the bottom out and make a nice round edge in here on
the outside of the bottom of this particular piece.
If I reverse this and use this sharp corner this way I would have a sharp edge down in
that corner and that would create a tendency for this pot to crack in the drying process
or in the firing process.
So most of my edges on the inside are nice and round and it makes it easier to clean
and functionally it makes a better product.
This particular rib is only one kind and size and shape.
Throughout again you are going to be seeing me use different kinds of ribs.
Here is another shape and yet another and even more for working inside of bowls and
shapes like that.
These are wooden tools and it is usually some kind of dense hardwood, rosewood or something
like that is ideal.
The little holes in the middle are simply to have your finger grab onto them so they
don't slip.
The next process then is to begin drawing the surface up, always adding water as a lubricant,
very important.
By putting my finger in the middle and my two fingers on the outside I push to the inside
and by pushing to the inside it forces that clay not just in but it has to begin to go
up because the clay cannot go to the bottom, it is a hard plaster surface.
It cannot go past my finger because I am holding it here and it cannot go past these fingers
because they are actually pushing it in.
So there is no other choice but for that clay to go upwards and it happens like so.
With my finger and I begin to lift.
Now I have actually got contact on the outside of this clay and you can go back and check
how this happens later on on your rewind button.
I have got contact with this pot in these surfaces.
It is touching here and here.
It is touching here and here and here.
So I have actually got a grip on that clay.
And I will continue pulling that up and this is called a course.
Each time you do that from beginning to the end it is called a course and I draw it up
slowly and gradually thin out the surface of the pot.
Now as you do that you get this slurry on your hands and if you leave the slurry on
your hands you don't feel the clay as well.
So it is important in your water bucket to have some kind of scouring pad and this is
simply a plastic mesh pot scrubber and it is always in the water and I use it to semi
clean my hands so that they are reasonably clean and I can better feel what I am doing
with the clay.
I will repeat that process again and this time I have got a thicker area in here and
I am going to push in and begin to draw up one more time and the ridges you see beginning
to develop are my finger marks.
Now I have come to this point and I have stopped.
I want to show you where I am making contact with this pot again.
It is actually on these three fingertips primarily with this finger right in here.
I am not even worried about this.
That could stay there right through the end.
That was just carried by my fingers.
And on the inside it was touching here, here and here.
So it is important to realize that when you are working with clan the whale your point
of contact could be in any number of places and there is no one given set rule that says
you absolutely have to touch your pot here or with your fingertips.
However it is comfortable for you as long as it is not being dragged from a lack of
water and as long as you are doing it slowly.
Now I am going to continue pulling this and one thing I want to point out here and that
is the way you touch the pot or approach the pot and even leave the pot with your fingers.
With the water I can push in this way and you see it is distorted quite a bit and if
I release slowly it comes back into round.
If I jerked into the pot that would happen.
If I went into the pot slowly the way I should and then released quickly the same thing would
happen.
So the point I am making here and this is critical, extremely important, whenever you
approach the pot you touch it slowly and release it slowly.
If you do anything suddenly or jerk the pot is going to distort and it will be difficult
to bring back into round.
Now the objective here is a cylinder and we will continue.
Sometimes water can be added with a sponge and this is a natural elephant ear sponge
that grows in the ocean as an animal and we touch gradually, lift, point of contact, inside
it looks like this, I am touching primarily here but notice also there is contact up here
on the ridge and that helps keep the piece round and I continue drawing the cylinder
up, release gradually.
Okay this tool that I am about to use is going to remove excess clay from the bottom.
It is actually a plaster turning tool and this tool was originally designed for that
purpose as well as for scraping loose paint off of your house if you were going to repaint
it you would go and scrape the paint.
I use it to scrape off extra paint from the base that is unnecessary and then sideways
and this falls into the pan and is discarded later on.
I do throw all of these scraps away.
One of the reasons why a lot of potters do not favor working on a plaster surface is
because if there is even one tiny speck of plaster that gets mixed in with the clay with
the particular pot the piece can be fired and it will be fine.
It can be glazed and it will be fine.
After a month, a couple of months that little piece of plaster absorbs moisture from the
atmosphere and it begins to swell and as it swells it pocks out the side and you can actually
see that sometimes you see a little white dot in the middle and that is that plaster
and a small pock mark and a pot makes it a second and it is not worth as much as if it
did not happen.
So a lot of potters prefer to work with wood or on metal.
I do not mind working on plaster because these scraps are discarded and that is for economic
reasons.
The cost of clay versus the time of reconditioning that clay is not worth it.
I will now use this rib to continue thinning but also shaping the cylinder and eliminating
a lot of those finger marks and drawing it up as I go.
Excess is discarded.
I sense that the bottom knee is a little widening out and I will push from the bottom and continue
bringing that up.
The sponge is used to help smooth out the top right here.
Without that being smooth of course it would be rough and a much better product is created
when it is smooth.
The bottom is undercut and I generally undercut my pots for the sake of aesthetics.
I want the pot to look a little bit better and we will talk a little bit more about that
and some of the ideas that I talk about in further tapes.
The monofilament fish line that I used on the wedging table is attached to a stick.
It is attached to a stick so I can more easily find it and then it is drawn tight and I am
going to slice this through the bottom so that it can be removed.
Now that is one way of doing it.
You saw that the wheel was in motion and I drew it through.
Another way is to have the piece completely stopped and draw it through.
If you are going to be doing it this way make sure that the wheel goes around at least one
or two circumferences otherwise you get a little ledge in the bottom of that pot and
you can try it for yourself and see if that will happen.
That is not desirable then you have more work in trimming.
This particular tool is a modern day advancement in pottery techniques.
It is called a sponge on a stick and I use that to get out all that water that I added
into the bottom.
Then if the piece is small enough I can remove it this way and set it to the side or if it
is so large that it distorts as this one is beginning to I can take the whole plaster off
and set that to the side.
What I am going to do now is I am going to do that particular pot in a more fluid way.
I am not going to talk as much and it will give you a chance to see how the whole piece
is done and how quickly it is done.
Nothing is going to be slowed down here.
I am just going to make the pot and go on and complete it and give you an opportunity
to watch.
If you heard that plaster back shattering and you saw it moving a little bit it was.
What I have to do in a case like that is lift it off the wheel because this is a little
bit smaller than the wheel head and use a little bit of clay as a shin and that will
eliminate that shatter by taking up the gap and I continue.
Now supposing you are making a pot and something went wrong and you knocked it and you could
not do anything with it.
Well you have got a mess.
The one thing you do not want to do and this is another very important thing that beginners
especially should know about.
You cannot just take this clay and wad it up into a ball and expect to make another
pot with it.
It cannot be done.
I could not do it.
The best potter in history could never do it.
You have to take that clay and you have to re-wedge it on the wedging board, go through
your 30 times process even more because there are so many slippery and hard spots in this
it has to be absolutely the same consistency.
Very critical you have to do it.
The next thing I am going to be doing in this particular part is making a larger cylinder
and you will see how we control a larger form on the wheel.
I slap that down because it was a larger mass of clay and I continue bringing it up into
that upward cone to create a spiral to further mix and blend that clay.
And when you are bringing it back down into the hemisphere rather than going straight
down with it we bend it and then push at the bow of the arc until the clay is absolutely
centered.
You can see where contact points are.
Pushing down and in at the same time undercutting it slightly.
If there are any bumps in here as there is remove them with your turning tool.
Water always water and lubricate your pot.
Stopping short of the base.
Rib helps to smooth the bottom.
Smaller pieces you can do that with your finger.
And we draw.
Just show you contact points here all the way in here and here, here and here.
Notice what this thumb is doing.
This thumb and this thumb are holding the top down.
When you are drawing the clay up sometimes it has a tendency to go crooked.
One side will be higher than the other and you have got the top going wobbly.
So you push this down and you hold it down and that eliminates that problem.
Watch how it happens.
And I will repeat that course.
If when you are throwing the pot seems to want to throw itself to the outside and it
is getting bigger and bigger and bigger it is very important if you are making a cylinder
to disallow that and catch that right off the bat and to catch it right away you have
to go through this crimping process and you have to push the clay in.
Now that has to be done in as many contact points as possible.
In this case I was able to wrap my hands right around it and it is touching all the way in
through here.
On smaller pieces you can't get your whole hand around it.
It will be necessary to touch and make your contact points here, these two parts here,
and here, and here, and here.
So I am touching here and here, here and here, and my two thumbs and it makes six even contact
points.
Here, here, and here.
Six.
And it is pushed in.
When you do that the top goes a little bit uneven just like that.
That is not difficult.
Just hold on to it and push it down and that will even that out.
Later on I will show you what we can do to eliminate that.
I will go through one more course to make the proper thickness here.
Notice where my hands are.
My hand is into my body so it is not flailing out here.
I have no choice because it is so big up here but this hand is doing an awful lot of the
control.
This arm is doing a lot of the controlling and I am rigid and I am stable.
I am not kicking a treadle motion and I don't have my arms flailing.
You have got to be stable and rigid so that you can control that clay in an even motion.
I will remove some of the excess clay.
And if the top went uncontrollably crooked then the top can be cut off with this needle
tool by depressing it into the clay here.
Not this way or especially this way but by going this way and lifting very quickly you
can see that that is removed.
And that evens up the top and then you have got a nice even surface and it can be smoothed
and become part of the pot.
Now I will eliminate my finger marks and sometimes I will leave them in for aesthetic purposes
and I know that a lot of potters do.
It is simply a matter of choice and what you think looks good for that particular pot.
I like to get them smooth because of a lot of the glazing techniques and processes that
I use to help decorate the pots.
To get a smooth pot it is done this way with this rib and you will notice that the rib
itself is not always flat up against it because there is a lot of surface.
I will turn that and by turning that rib slightly I am only touching in a small contact point
and that gives me better control so that just because it is a big wide flat area doesn't
mean it all has to touch.
And you will by experience and practice get the hang of exactly how tight you have to
push that in against the clay.
And then the top is smoothed and again the bottom is removed and we slice through.
What I am going to do is stop half way through and show you the thickness that this pot should
be.
And you can see.