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Hi, my name is Tricia Williams.
The following presentation is the second in a series of three tapes.
These tapes give information about the process of making pottery on the potter's wheel.
The first presentation was a descriptive lesson, showing the process of throwing a cylinder
on the potter's wheel.
This tape is a presentation of how to throw many different vessels on the wheel.
You'll see being made a pitcher, a bowl, a teapot, and much more.
Jim Koslowski is our teacher.
He'll be talking about each piece as he makes it.
So let's begin to listen, watch, and learn.
Thank you, Tricia.
The first project today is going to be a plate.
During the first tape, we showed you the process of working with clay on the wheel.
For this presentation, I'm going to be doing the first project, the plate, from the beginning
to the end.
All of the other projects that I'm going to be working on, I'll begin at a point where,
if you practice, you should have the competence to get to.
So you'll only see three quarters of it or half of it or wherever we're at.
In the plate, you can see that I'm drawing the clay out in a flat way.
You can see my finger marks.
It might not be completely even.
We take a rib and smooth out, as much as possible, the plate.
I make my plates fit to the exact size of the bat.
Then the top is drawn out and flattened.
The sponge smooths the plate.
Because this is a nice wide bottom piece, I have to hang on, especially tight, to that
20-pound monofilament test line and draw it through as it spins.
Then the plate is set to the side.
Project number two is a bowl.
That's done by drawing the clay up, as in the cylinder, but we're allowing it to flare
out.
Plenty of water.
Always use water as a lubricant.
We're going to be smoothing the inside of this bowl afterwards, so I'm allowing a couple
of extra rotations in my contact points so that the inside is as smooth as it can be
to begin with.
Making sure all the surface is lubricated, I use the sponge.
A little bit of extra clay is removed from the bottom with that turning tool.
This wooden rib creates the outside shape by pressing against the contact point here
and here.
I'm creating a nice round shape to begin with.
Nice flat rim.
Do you see that little piece swinging around in there?
Don't try and grab at it.
You're going to make a mistake.
Take the time to stop the wheel and take it out.
Whenever something like that happens, you can't do it in motion.
You're trying to grab at it and you'll never catch it just right.
Now the inside is going to be smoothed out with a round rib held on the inside.
And that eliminates the most of the finger marks.
It is smoothed.
The edges made round, cut off the wheel, and the bowl is complete.
Our next project is going to be a bottle.
We begin with this cylinder by pushing from the outside at the bottom of this pot.
I create a round area.
Bottles can be any particular kind of shape and it's one of the, for me, one of the more
creative areas to work with in clay because you can make so many different kinds of bottles.
You can see how this one begins.
Here I have to crimp to make a narrow neck.
In that crimping process it went crooked and we used that technique that we learned about
in tape one.
Cutting.
A lot of people often ask me how I get my hand down that little opening in the bottle.
Well, if you've never seen one being made, it now becomes apparent that first you make
the bottom, then you narrow the neck and you don't get back down in there again.
And I use my sponge again to smooth.
I left that ridge just for an aesthetic purpose.
And the bottle is complete.
We are now making a teapot.
This teapot is going to be a spherical shape.
Starting with the cylinder, pushing out from the inside, I create that round effect.
I'm keeping the opening to that teapot just big enough so I can get my hand down inside
to create the pressure that I need.
I'm going to take this teapot, make all the parts to it, and show you how the teapot is
actually assembled.
The parts include the base of the teapot, which is what I'm making now.
Then I'll show you how we make the cover and the spout.
Then I'll actually finish one that I made yesterday and is in the leather hard condition
and ready to be assembled.
The top of the teapot is a particular size.
These calipers are pre-measured on my ruler, which is right on the right side of me for
convenience, and the opening has to fit.
It's a little small, so I just draw it a little bit larger.
Each time I make a teapot, the opening is the same size, just the right size to fit
those little tee balls that fit into the teapots.
Each time they're the same size, they'll be the same size all the time.
That just develops a consistency in the work that has a predictability to it, and the base
is sliced.
Now the spout is being formed, and this is crimped.
See how I'm bringing that narrow neck in?
Six contact points.
This will be cut and altered during the construction process.
You'll see how that's done.
I make the opening of this neck about the right size so that the tee can actually flow
through it easily.
The rig will help me develop a smoother contour.
Then after the teapot, the spout is formed.
I put my finger in it and just bend it to approximate the shape of the spout in the
teapot.
Next we have the cover.
I'm creating the cover so that everything is in one piece.
The handle, which is coming up between my fingers now, I just started by going into
the clay on the outside, and that draws that handle up, and I'll smooth the top of it.
The outside is separately thrown, like so.
In order that it fit that opening that I made previously in the teapot, I have to readjust
my calipers about 3-8ths of an inch to a quarter of an inch smaller so the teapot fits.
I take a quick measurement.
I see I have to go a little bit smaller.
I'm going to cut some of the clay off with my turning tool and squeeze that in so it
fits the measurement.
I double-check, and it's perfect.
This is going to fit over that lip, so I have my finger underneath here, and I'm pushing
down over it to create a slight undercut, and that teapot cover will fit exactly right
in that opening.
It's sliced off and removed, allowed to dry for a day, and we're ready to assemble.
The teapot assembly process happens as follows.
The base of the teapot is trimmed on the wheel so it's nice and smooth.
In here, if you can see it, I stamp it with the stamp of the pottery.
It says, Wizard of Clay.
I use a small turning table so I can maneuver around.
The cover has a small hole pierced right through it, and this fits exactly on the top, and
it doesn't wobble.
That hole is so that the air can get into the teapot as the tea is being poured out.
The critical part about making a teapot is actually taking the spout and adhering it
to the surface.
The important thing in making any teapot is that the spout doesn't go too high above,
so it's up here, or it doesn't go too low, so it's down here.
If it's too high, you'll never get the tea out.
If it's too low, you'll never fill the teapot up before the tea starts falling out.
The ideal is a perfect horizontal level area that we're trying to get.
I stand back from the teapot, and with a fettling knife, I try and draw the contour of the teapot
like so, and with that line that I've drawn, I hold it down, and then I try and match that
line by cutting on that line all the way down, and I see how close I've come to matching,
and I've come fairly close.
Now I make sure everything is lined up nice and even, and I draw with a fettling line
the outline of where that spout should be.
The next process is to take a medium-sized hole cutter, and then I cut the holes.
I've already begun crimping this spout, because it's still soft enough, I'm creating a flange
so that it fits perfectly on the surface that I've finished all the holes.
I take a piece of comb, and I'm scoring this, making little impressions in the clay, which
I then paint with liquid clay, or slip, and also the surface of the spout.
The spout fits on like so.
I check to make sure it's lined up this way, and this way, and then it's blended into the
teapot.
After it's all put together and assembled, and this is a different piece, we cut the
spout in a traditional teapot shape, like so, and that's further refined and smoothed
out.
It's going to be carried by a cane handle, and I take a piece of clay and I roll it into
a coil, cut it in half to the right length, and this is attached to the top of the pot,
like so, and so.
Blend it in accurately, and then a couple balls of clay, I rolled into balls, a couple
pieces of clay, and pushed into to hide the surface and to create a stronger surface.
I can use several balls of clay by running one in, creating another ball, rubbing that
in a third, as many as I want for aesthetic purposes, and when it's smoothed out, that
part of the teapot is complete.
Now we've got a finished teapot, and this gives you an idea of how the teapot looks,
and it's designed in such a way so that it can be held, your finger holding the handle
of the cover, and poured, and that way the handle doesn't fall out, and it functions
very well.
The next project is a planter.
I have just created the drip pan for the planter, and now the inside is drawn up and thrown
in the traditional way that a pot is thrown.
Two courses usually gives me the right thickness.
Planter base is going to be further defined.
When I make a planter, I think about the function of plants, and I try and make the top of the
planter a little bit wider than the bottom so that when a plant is taken out, it can
be just knocked quickly by the hand, and the roots and the sod all come out.
Some plants don't like to touch a lot of surfaces, like African violets, for example, and in
order to accommodate that particular plant, we flute the top like so.
See what I'm doing here?
It's this.
And that goes all the way around, and already I'm thinking about trying to come out even
on this, and because I thought about it, it does come out even.
That's smoothed out.
Base is refined a little bit.
It's smoothed out.
Excess clay is removed.
It's cut off the wheel, and it's done.
I'll bet you, if you learn to make a pie plate, and it comes out real well, and you
give that pie plate to your mother, your sister, your wife, you're going to get the most delicious
pie you ever saw.
We are making a pie plate, and here's your ticket to a free pie.
Slanted, traditional pie shape, so that the pie can be removed.
The top is flattened, and now I'm starting from the top, going bottom, removing some
of those finger marks.
The rib will flatten it, and to do a favor to the cook of this delicious pie you're going
to be eating, we're going to be making the finger marks of the pie, like this.
And we're done, and that's the pie plate.
I gave my pie plate to my uncle, and he made me the most delicious pie.
What I'm making now is a cork jar.
This cork jar is going to be fitting a four-inch cork.
To make sure that the cork will fit in the pot when it's finished, we have to take into
account the shrinkage rate of the clay.
And to identify and to know exactly what the shrinkage rate is, it's a good idea to take
a coil of clay, roll it out exactly 10 inches, fire it to the glaze temperature, re-measure
that coil, and that will give you the percentage of shrinkage.
Now I know that this clay shrinks about 12.5 percent, so it's about an eighth of an inch
per inch.
Therefore, I'm going to set my calipers a half inch bigger than this four-inch cork,
so that I come up with four and a half inches.
And I always have a ruler handy, and I have it nailed down here just for convenience,
so that I don't waste a lot of effort.
Now I'm real close.
I'm going to create a taper, and I'm going to make a nice, nice smooth inside line about
the shape and contour of that cork.
It's right there, and it's ready to go.
Now, just a point, it's bigger than the cork, but it will shrink when that is completed,
that full half inch.
What I'm making now is a kerosene oil lamp.
I like my oil lamps to have a nice wide bottom because of the flammability of oil lamps.
I don't want to take any chances that a customer's oil lamp is going to be tippy.
My objective here is to think about that function, but also to think about how that oil lamp
collar is going to fit onto the oil lamp itself, how it's going to be glued down.
So what I've got to do is consider the collar itself.
The collar will fit down on top, and it has to be just the right size.
So I have to, again, consider the shrinkage of clay, and measure with calipers a little
bit bigger than the oil lamp collar itself.
So this is the measurement, and now I'm bringing it down so it fits that particular size.
And when I've got it, I can trim the bottom and smooth it.
And that oil lamp collar, when it's finished, will fit down.
It's a little bit bigger now because of the shrinkage, and the oil lamp burner itself
will fit on top of that.
And then, of course, that comes with a glass globe.
Now I am making a pitcher.
I use this rib to smooth the contour, and the lip is flared out to assist in the actual
pouring of the liquid from this pitcher.
I always think about the function of how something works.
It's very difficult to get a spout on a pitcher or anything that has a spout not to dribble.
My spouts do not dribble, and here's how to avoid the dribble.
You create the spout, but you pull it down and let the tip of that spout—you see where
that is?
You bring the tip of that spout so it actually goes down and comes below the curve that comes
up.
And when the liquid falls out, it will hang on the bottom of that, and it won't drip
back in.
It will be impossible.
Just make sure that that's there.
It is smooth, and it comes down, and the spout is complete.
I'm rolling out a coil of clay here into a taper so that I can pull a handle for that
pitcher that I just made.
And pulling a handle is done by super-lubricating this coil with water and drawing the handle
downward.
Handles are best made and designed so that the top is wider than the bottom.
The last course of it will bring the handle down and stretch it a little too long, pinch
the top off, and this handle is ready to go.
I have one that I made a little while ago, and I've given it a chance to dry a little
bit to make it more handleable.
I will cut that to the curve of the pitcher.
This is going to be attached here and drawn down.
In order to accomplish that, I do some more scoring and slipping, and this assists in
the drying process so that it doesn't crack.
And that's one reason why it's a good idea to have your handle dry a little bit before
you attach it, because as clay dries, it shrinks.
And if you put wet clay onto drier clay, there's going to be additional shrinkage that happens,
and that's going to cause the cracking.
This is thoroughly smoothed, and then it's drawn sideways.
I check to see that it's straight, and the base is smoothed on like so.
The project at hand is a casserole cover.
I start with that low, shallow bowl, and this is the type of cover that's going to fit into
the rim of the casserole itself that's open, as this is right now.
But this is going to be the cover.
From the inside, I push with this finger to create a flange, making sure I have enough
water again.
I squeeze that to create a lid that fits over that opening and into the opening so it doesn't
wobble.
Of course, I have to make sure that it will fit, and everything has to be the right size.
This happens to be a little smaller than I need, so I just open it up.
If it was too big, I could close it down.
Now, this particular cover is thrown upside down, so that you understand, I have previously
thrown a knob.
This would be the handle, and it would fit underneath, and then we'd be able to hold
it just like this.
And this is the casserole cover that fits on a casserole.
This project is a gravy boat.
Gravy boat, traditionally, is not round, but oval, and this begins to open up new dimensions
on the potter's wheel in terms of distorting the shapes that are made.
And because it's oval, you simply take the gravy boat and distort it, and then have a
pour spout like so.
It's sliced off.
And then, it's nice to include a ladle, and we'll make a ladle, and then put a handle
onto the gravy boat.
And the ladle itself is really quite simple.
This is about an eighth of a pound of clay, and it's just made like so, sliced off, allowed
to dry, bottom is smoothed out, and now we're going to put the handle on the ladle.
Here's the ladle that we threw.
This is the bowl that's been thrown, and the bottom is made nice and smooth.
It has to be attached to a pulled handle by adding the slip to the handle and to the thrown
ladle.
It is attached, and I like to wiggle it, and that helps make it stick smooth then.
And so that when it's being fired, it doesn't lay on that whole handle side, I arc it just
a little bit, and I press flat here and flat here, and now I only have two points of contact.
And for this handle to be more conveniently hung up on the wall, I put a hole in it with
a tube.
This is just an empty pen.
You can use a hole cutter, and the ladle is complete.
That was the last project.
I suggest you hit the rewind button.
See that thing again.
I'm going back to make some new projects.