The Process of Pottery
hello friends!
So many people inquire about what it takes to make things with clay. While the process is quite extensive, it also varies by piece. I want to try and give a breakdown of the time and effort. It’s also a cycle, so you could probably start at various points of the process and consider it the beginning. Please email me if you have any questions or if you actually read all of this! Haha.
I typically start with a bag of clay bought locally from NM clay in Albuquerque, NM. Sometimes I use recycled clay and I’ll explain that process in a different post.
I decide what items I want to throw and divide out the clay accordingly. Plates take about 3#, mugs take about 1#, bowls about 2#. It’s taken years to be consistent with this.
Then I wedge each section of clay several times eventually forming it into a ball. I make approximately 100 wedging presses into the clay.
Once I have formed all of my balls, I sit down to throw. I slam the ball into the center of a “bat” (a hard plastic or wooden circle that can be removed from the potters wheel). Throwing time varies depending on what size, complexity of a piece and how my centering ability is on any given day. I don’t have as many OFF days any more, but I sure remember them!
When I obtain the form that I want, I then “cut” the piece, slicing a wire underneath my clay form, and remove the bat from the wheel. I set that piece aside and throw as many forms as I have planned. When my table is full, I take the thrown pieces to a drying rack and cover them with plastic.
Mugs take 2-3 days to dry, bowls 3-4, and plates I attempt to dry out for at least a week before trimming and then maybe another week after that. Otherwise they tend to crack in this dry, desert climate..
When the pieces are “leather hard” (not super dry, but not soft and wet… when I slide my finger over them clay doesn’t smear onto me), I trim the bases. Depending on the sizes, I’ll use tiny clay balls to hold them to the potters wheel, or I’ll use my new Giffen Grip tool (which is dreamy).
For mugs, I pull handles from a small ball of clay. The force of the downward movement lengthens the clay, rather than actually pulling it downwards… these are smeared onto the edge of a table to dry.
When the handles are ready, they are malleable without being too sticky. I attach each one at a time and paintbrush around the contact points to smooth out any rough spots. I try to compliment the mug with the handle shape.
Once handles are in place, or other pieces are completely trimmed, I now carve them or add “appliqués” (quilting term I alone likely use to describe cutting out shapes and applying them). I can also apply an underglaze, which I tend to do on my lotus mugs.
Now, all pieces need to sit to dry until they are “bone dry”. This time varies and can even depend on the weather. Usually is at least 2 days (unless you are a plate…then I cover them in plastic and aim for another week)
This is the last point that something could be recycled. If I decide that I don’t like a piece, or it accidentally breaks (because it’s so fragile here), I can break it up and put it into a bucket letting it wait for recycling.
When everyone is warm to my cheek (or close to it), they’ve lost a majority of their moisture and are ready to be “bisqued” in the kiln at ~1828 degrees for approximately 17 hours. I always do a 4 hour preheat which helps prevent any kiln explosions. After the bisque completes, it still takes the majority of a day to cool. This part of the process takes around 36 hours.
At some temperature lower than 200 degrees, the kiln is cool enough, I open it and remove all the bisqued pieces.
When making certain pieces, I stain them at this point. I paint stain mainly where I want to highlight grooves, let it dry for an hour, and then wash the stain off with a sponge. I then have to let those pieces dry, preferably for 24 hours.
Once my stained piece is dry, or I have a bisqued piece that’s ready, I can now glaze them. Some of my glazes are hand mixed and I can dip them, but most of my glazes I handpaint onto my pieces. When hand painting, I aim for 3 coats of glaze, allowing each coat to dry in between. This process takes a little bit longer than dipping. Especially if I’m painting particularly on certain areas or spaces. For my snowy mountain mugs, I paint each individual space, which can be quite tedious, but worth the extra work.
When all my glazing is complete, again, the pieces need to dry. I attempt to wait at least a day before firing them.
During the firing process, no piece can touch another, so this reduces the capacity of the kiln. You can bisque almost double what you can glaze at one time. Large flat items, like plates, take up a lot more space than small compact items, like mugs.
For the firing process, I usually do a 1 hour preheat and it takes 8 more hours to reach 2232 degrees. The cooling time takes a lot longer because it reaches such a high temperature. This process, like the bisque, also takes about 36 hours to complete.
Once cool, I remove the pieces and sand them wherever there is exposed clay.
And WAH-LAH: art and functionality are married and a pottery piece is born.
Congratulations to you if you read all of this. I hope it gives you an appreciation for my effort to make you something beautiful. Yes, sometimes I choose the hard way, but I think the results make the effort valuable.
There are many methods to make this entire process much longer, such as harvesting your own clay, creating your own recipes for glazes, creating designs on computers and transferring it to the pottery by various forms. Some of these I have a great desire to learn, but just haven’t found the time….YET.