Firing is where reading the clay meets the kiln: a piece that looks and feels dry may still hold moisture that can wreck it. The Pottery Wheel’s beginner guide covers three stages: drying, bisque firing and glaze firing. I chose it because written tutorials were one of the main ways I learned ceramics, and this…
The stages of clay are the backbone of reading the clay, because what you can do with it depends on how wet it is. Oxford Clay’s blog post by Katherine Tomlinson, a potter of more than 25 years, walks through six stages from wettest to driest: slip, wet clay, leather-hard, bone dry (greenware), bisque, and…
Centering is the first hurdle in wheel throwing: the clay has to sit exactly on the wheel’s axis before it can be opened or pulled. This post shows an Instagram reel by Harrison Worsley, my high school ceramics teacher who taught me how to throw. Harrison starts the 15 minute video by showing the minimal…
Mayer’s principles are easy to recite and hard to apply. A first attempt at taking one of them seriously.