Why Pottery?
There is something so satisfying about creating an object that is beautiful and brings you joy, and also makes your coffee taste better than it ever has before.
So many things in our lives are ephemeral, temporary, “virtual”. Working with clay is, almost by definition, grounding and permanent. You can shape a piece of the earth with your own hands and make something beautiful, useful, lasting. Something real.
Definitions
Pottery, like anything new, can be intimidating to start. This section is to help you understand the terms used on this site, and what they mean.
Throwing - making pottery on a potter’s wheel. Very satisfying and zen once you get the hang of it. And exceedingly frustrating until then. But totally worth the effort.
Hand building - creating with clay without a wheel. Using your hands and simple tools. This offers much more variation in shapes and styles for your creativity.
Trimming - once a piece has been “thrown” on the wheel, it needs to dry to a stage called “leather hard”. This means the pot is tough enough to hold it’s shape but still soft enough to cut into for neatening up or decorating. Handles for mugs are attached at this stage.
Firing - pots that have dried to leather hard or bone dry (known as greenware) can be placed in the kiln and fired to “bisque”. Then at this stage, they are hard but somewhat fragile and can be glazed. Then they are fired again at a higher temperature to finished pieces.
Glazing - The simplest method of glazing thrown pottery is dipping in a glaze that melts into a tough, protective layer over the ceramics, and in our studio, makes the piece microwave, oven and food safe. Hand built pieces are more often decorated by brushing glaze to create more intricate patterns. These can also be microwave, dishwasher and food safe.
