Combining Hand Building and Wheel Throwing Techniques in Ceramics
Earlier this Spring I took an amazing two-day workshop with my former instructor, Dean Goss at the Art Students League of Denver. The workshop was called Wheel throwing, Altering Clay with Hand building Techniques. As well as an instructor, Dean is both a friend and mentor of mine. I’ve studied hand building with him for close to six years until he decided to take a hiatus from teaching, and I decided it was time I learned how to throw on the wheel.
He is also the person who got me started in ceramics. In the workshop, Dean taught us how to combine our wheel throwing skills (I’ve been throwing on the wheel for about a year and a half now) with hand building techniques which included using molds and slabs of clay. Using the molds helped me up the scale of my work, which is something I’ve been trying to do for weeks. When trying to throw big bowls on the wheel, my walls kept collapsing when I widened the mouth of the pot. Using the slab technique and the mold, the clay walls were supported and did not collapse… what a game changer! With the clay supported by the mold, I could then through either a handle or a foot directly on the vessel. These combined strategies allowed me to make the whole piece at once, verses having to make them separately and attaching the parts later. This approach to making pottery saves so much time and allows me to make even more pots.
I’d been mulling over an idea for a fruit bowl for a while and decided this workshop was the perfect opportunity to try and make it. Using a large bowl-shaped mold and a slab of clay I created the bowl; then using the pinch pot technique, which is another hand building strategy, I created a sizable donut shape and centered it on the bowl. Once centered, I proceeded to use the wheel to pull up the sides of the donut to create the foot of the bowl and wallah… I had myself a fruit bowl!
The next thing I created was a cheese tray. I again used a mold and slab technique to create a doom and then threw a handle on the doom while it was on the mold and attached to the wheel. Then, using a plate mold I created the base of the cheese tray. The plate mold, by the way, is brilliant because you can make a lightweight plate using a slab of clay cut into a circle in a matter of seconds! I used Dean’s plate mold to create the cheese tray but then after that I threw two different size plate molds for myself. After making the mold, they need to be bisque fired. Once fired, you have yourself your very own plate mold. My plan for my smaller plate mold is to use it create a set of four - six appetizer size plates to use with the cheese tray!
What an amazing weekend, I learned so much and feel empowered by the knowledge that I can now combine both ceramic strategies to up my game when working with clay! My vision is to create a series of work that can be used for entertaining, I will call it The Garden Party Collection.
