Throwing Candlesticks
I’m happy to report that after a year and a half of throwing on the wheel, I finally figured out how to throw a proper candlestick! Admittedly, You Tube was a key source of information.
I absolutely love dressing a table for entertaining. Be it a dinner party for a few friends, a romantic dinner with my husband, or an all-out holiday celebration, I enjoy setting a table. Key components include cloth napkins, napkin rings, placemats, charger plates (not always but it’s a nice touch) that go under your dinner plate, silverware, salad and or dessert plates, water, and wine glasses. However, the real fun comes with designing the center piece which can include things like floral arrangements and of course candlesticks!
My first attempts at throwing candlesticks resulted in vessels that looked more like bud vases than candlesticks. I decided to table that endeavor and practice throwing other things. As my time at the League and pottery classes neared an end, I thought I’d revisit the candlesticks idea. I did some additional research on You Tube and with more throwing experience under my belt I met with much better success!
The trick to throwing candlesticks is to approach it like you would throwing off the hump. Cone the clay up, create the cup of the candlestick at the top by gradually pressing a finger in the center (make sure you support the sides so your clay doesn’t go off center.) Once the cup is made, check the width so it wide enough to hold the base of a candle. Because clay shrinks as it dries and during firing, you need to account for shrinkage when you are determining the width. Once the top of your candlestick is formed, you can now create the stem. You can keep it simple, or you can make it more complex by pinching the clay with your fingers as you move down the stem. For my candlesticks, I manipulated the clay, so some areas were wider while others were narrower creating varying rings along the stem of the candlestick. I found that the taller the candlestick, the harder time I had keeping it straight and centered. This I think will come with more practice. My goal for these candlesticks was to vary the sizes but make them similar in shape. I used between a half pound of clay to a full pound depending on how tall I wanted to make them.
With the candlesticks thrown and dry enough to trim, I set about cleaning up the base. Because they were a solid mass of clay, my instructors advised me to drill a hole through the center and to carve out some of the clay at the base; this would help avoid cracking as the clay dried. Great advice as all three candlesticks came out of the kiln crack free! Once glazed, I now had three successfully thrown candlesticks to add to my blue series. I can’t wait to test drive them when we host our first dinner party in Palisade.
Because the You Tube video research was a key factor in my success, I’ve included links to three videos below:
https://youtu.be/XfUz4VERTRs?si=WoVBCctAWC_nG2yT
