Think ICT

I came back from my weekend pottery workshop anxious to practice my pottery skills … because I really need to practice!

But with the next pottery class still a few weeks away, I started wondering whether it would be possible to get a wheel of my own. Without a kiln, of course, it would be pointless, so I figured if I could find a place that rented kiln space, I’d be all set to create at home and glaze and fire elsewhere. To my delight, I found Studio 550 Art Center in Manchester, where they welcome studio visits, sell clay, and rent kiln space. Once that problem was solved, I ordered a sweet little wheel, bought a bag of clay at Studio 550, and waited for my wheel to arrive! 

After setting up my wheel on a small table (and covering everything around it because I wasn’t sure how messy I’d be), I wedged enough for a few one pound clay balls, and started throwing. I’m learning how to use the spiral wedging technique, which creates a spiral pattern in the clay. Wedging is kind of like kneading dough… but not. It helps mix the clay so it is all the same consistency when you make a pot. I used a small wooden table to wedge about 6 pounds of clay. And then I weighed the clay lumps to create 1 pound clay balls.

Here’s another lump of wedged clay. This time the clay wasn’t fresh from the bag. Instead, it was clay scraps that were leftover from the previous day. I had to let the clay dry out a bit and then wedge it back to similar consistency, as if it just came out of the bag. I used a nice piece of plywood given to me by a friend to wedge this one. The surface is great. It made me dream about making a wedging table next…

After a bit of trial and error, I ended up with a nice cylinder. It wasn’t quite 5 inches tall as I’d intended, but it was close enough for my first success. 

Then I kept going and had a few successes and a few failures. No worries. I’m still practicing!