How to Trim on a Foam Bat and Create a Lovely Altered Plate Learn how to make any shape on the wheel! Deborah Schwartzkopf

Every aspiring potter wants to make beautiful pots that are uniquely their own. And throwing and altering is one way to come up with unique shapes. Using throwing and altering, combined with handbuilding techniques, Deb Schwartzkopf creates some of the most creative and interesting work out there!

In today's post, an excerpt from her video, New Ideas - Fresh Forms: Innovative Techniques for Thrown and Handbuilt Pots, she shares a relatively simple way to trim a plate and alter it. Play around with this idea and see what interesting variations you can come up with to make it yours! - Jennifer Poellot Harnetty, editor

This clip was excerpted from New Ideas - Fresh Forms with Deb Schwartzkopf, which is available in the Ceramic Arts Network Shop. Or, if you're a subscriber to CLAYflicks, click here to view the entire video. Not a CLAYflicks subscriber, but want to try it out? Click here to sign up!

Need more altering tips from Deb? Check out the following articles:

In this clip, Deb Schwartzkopf demonstrates how she makes the super cool bottoms of her cup forms with a slab and a bisque fired mold. She then skillfully attaches the base to a bottomless wheel-thrown cylinder, which she then darts and alters to make the shape just right. Voila! Not your typical cylindrical cup form.

In this video, Deborah Schwartzkopf, a master at designing beautiful non-round functional pottery, shows us how she makes her dessert bowls.

Rat City Studios is the workspace of Deborah Schwartzkopf, a Seattle-based studio potter and instructor. Her aim is to build the community of artists working in clay by connecting people through social and educational events. Emerging artists join in a year-long studio assistant position, trading their time for studio space. Further community-building endeavors include weekly clay classes, workshops, and seminars on professional development as an artist. Learn more at http://ratcitystudios.com, and on Instagam @debspottery and @ratcitystudios.

**First published in 2020.