Determining the process for making a new form can be tricky and daunting. I tend to get lost in the trials and errors on my way to finding the right composition of moves and marks. It is critical to my vitality as a maker to take risks. Searching for the next form is what keeps me inspired and curious. To constructively explore new territory in the studio, I use two guiding pieces of advice.
First: Follow your attention, no reservations. Practice taking note of what you notice at various stages: from wet clay, fluid wheel work, cheese-hard shaping, applying glaze, placing pots in the kiln, or cold finishing. Make a point of lingering in the areas where your enthusiasm and attention are greatest. For example, one easy way to start is by writing down what’s worked during a session in the studio and acting on that information as soon as possible. When designing the pots covered in this article, I noticed my attention was held the most when trimming wheel-thrown parts, and I wondered how I might lengthen and widen that step of the process.
Second: Years ago, a mentor asked, “What would happen if you take your clay on more exciting dates?” The flow of steps to arrive at these specific basins also emerged from this question. Me, romancing a mound of clay: Should we go somewhere new, or return to an old haunt? What haven’t we talked about lately? The steps of carving and uncovering these basins emerged from my digging into this question—in the romantic dream of being enthusiastically entangled in my studio. Obviously, there’s no need for you to make these pots this way, but I hope that sharing my flow of steps could inspire your own material poetics. Follow your attention and let it take you somewhere new.
Tools and Design
These pots are made with a small group of straightforward tools (1). Using my hands, I can pinch, coil, and otherwise grow a lump of clay into a hollow pot. Each of the tools invited into the process beyond that is partly responsible for the physicality of the finished product, taking the pot beyond what my hands alone can do.
I am partial toward tools that open the clay body’s textural grit, intensifying the edges, crevices, and planes that will compose the vessel. Changing up the flow of steps and the balance of tools will change the identity of the completed pot.
I turn to metal loop tools, small knives, and strung wire to make these pots. The most particular metal loop trimmer I have was made with the help of a metalsmith. Because I yearned to trim larger curves of clay in one fell swoop, we designed a more generous and sturdy loop. It was cut from a galvanized steel sheet, bent over a solid form, and finished with a belt-sanded bevel edge. Try jerry-rigging a new tool or using a familiar one in an unfamiliar way to investigate the steps of your process that speak to you.
Getting Started
First, begin by wedging the clay. For a small basin, start with 3 pounds (1.36 kg) of clay (2). It is always better to have extra clay than to accidentally carve through the form or run out of land to resolve a contour. The routine of wedging both physically and mentally readies me to work in the studio. I imagine my objectives for that particular studio session, and measure an amount of clay to accommodate those dreams. Wedging wakes the clay and I up together, and gets us going on our journey.
Once wedged and patted into a ball, pinch a simple pot (3). As the pot expands, switch to a round paddle to further compress its interior and exterior (4). The pot should be more than 2 inches (5.1 cm) thick, and should have extra thickness at its rim. Thorough compression during this step is essential to the sturdiness of the pot and helps to prevent S-cracks and floppy walls.
Mapping and Making Moves
Take time to pause and feel the interior space that you’ve pinched and paddled. How far can you stretch that space? Will the inside be bigger than the outside?
Explore the space using only your fingertips, imagine how you might carve it, and trace those lines with a pencil or needle tool (5). By physically walking the space with my fingertips and tracing that path, I save myself from potential hiccups. Skipping this step can lead to cutting through the wall, running out of interior before a curve is resolved, and having to remap or rebuild.
When cutting the interior contours, I use small turns of the banding wheel in concert with my hand dragging the tool through the pinch pot. Gripping close to its loop (like an ice cream scoop), drag the tool in a steady, continuous motion to keep the contour line fluid and crisp (6, 7). My carving style is a one-and-done move, so I often pinch and paddle a group of three or more basins at once. This way, I can iterate on an idea without losing the stream of thought—tracing through a series of squiggling flumes in quick succession.
Once you’ve carved the interior line, take a moment to absorb what’s happened. There is a big cavity gaping from the unsuspecting pinch pot (8)! It looks odd, and to balance the energetic lines in that carved abscess, the rim needs to be brought up to speed. A wire harp is a great tool to make a first pass at drawing the rim’s edge (9). I use my needle tool to map complementary moves—sometimes riffing off botanical forms or referencing the fission of two rock faces crushing into each other—thereby defining how the rim will ride along the basin’s line (10). Another series of cuts are made to carry the rim over from the inside of the basin to the outside (11). As a last step, follow-up with a paring knife to peel back more layers as needed.
Stiff Shaping
After these steps, the pots need time to stiffen up. Cover the pots loosely with one sheet of plastic, followed by one towel. I leave them for a day or two until they are at the right cheese-hardness stage. You want the stiffness of Gouda cheese—harder than cheddar, but not as dry as Parmesan. This timing will vary greatly depending on the climate. There is a sweet spot where the clay is soft enough to carve fluidly on the outside of the vessel, yet stiff enough that the established lines on the rim and interior won’t get blurred. At this point, the basin can be turned over to rest upside down (12). I set a couple of foam sheets atop a cylinder (can be a pot or cardboard tube, etc.), center it on a banding wheel, and place the pot upside down on the foam. This setup limits the stress placed on the undulating rim, which will crack if pressed.
When ready, repeat the same steps used on the rim to cut sweeping curves and tear edges on the form’s exterior. Depending on the basin, these cuts can be close to vertical or can sweep low and long to the center of the piece. If needed, I will carve out the center with a loop tool as an intuitive, inside foot ring to minimize the thickness of the wall (13).
As I near a point where the form is thoroughly carved, I occasionally take it off the foam to gauge thickness and weight balance. Deciding the heft and balance of the pot is a personal preference. That being said, these are some of the densest pots that I make.
After they have stiffened under plastic for a few more days, I use a chamois, my fingertip, or a thin sponge to soften the sharpest edges. I will also look at particularly jagged or messy areas and decide how much they need to be revised by smoothing with a rib or dulling with a chamois. This ensures the finished vessel isn’t dangerous to touch, and there are fewer marks detracting from the basin’s visual flow.
Firing
These pots are dense, and their thickness-to-thinness is exaggerated. For this reason, I dry them as slowly as possible. Ideally, this is at least one or two weeks under a thin sheet of plastic, before uncovering them to let them fully reach bone dry.
I bisque fire them on a slow ramp cycle to thoroughly dry out the thickest depths of the form, where water may still be hidden. See the diagram of my bisque-firing cycle, and explanations of what happens at each step.
The nuanced surfaces achieved by firing in atmospheric kilns nicely complete these forms. Smoky flashing slips are sometimes applied to the exterior, or bare clay is left to flash on its own. I enjoy applying a glossy, earthy glaze to the inside so that the carved lines read as a flume. If I choose a runny enough formula, the interior becomes a glassy waterfall.
Life Beyond the Studio
I wonder about how these pots exist in the world after they’ve left my hands. I hope they carry emotional function and that their quirkiness evokes a reverie. Depending on the viewer, the time of day, and its surroundings, they could stir up echoes of the world from which they come. You could look at the glaze flume sweeping through the inside and imagine yourself floating down its frothy rapids. Or along a jagged cut edge, find yourself approximating what it’s like to be a juniper at the edge of a windblown ridge, or a mountain goat cresting an escarpment. Or even, following the lines cascading through the form, remember how the wind shaped the dunes cresting on the way to your favorite shoreline.
In my dreams, handmade pots remind us of the ground beneath our feet and the geologic underpinnings of reality: integral to our daily rituals, and transcendent of them. I often dream of the bubbling creek, mossy loam, and beaver dam behind my Grandma’s farmhouse.
Katie Fee is a potter and educator in Eastern Massachusetts, where she teaches ceramics at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, and is Artist-In-Residence at The Umbrella Art Center. Fee has zig-zagged across the country and world to learn, teach, fire kilns, and support special projects, including Alfred University, The Morean Art Center, Sugar Maples Center for Crafts, Lillstreet Art Center, and TGS, LLC.
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Determining the process for making a new form can be tricky and daunting. I tend to get lost in the trials and errors on my way to finding the right composition of moves and marks. It is critical to my vitality as a maker to take risks. Searching for the next form is what keeps me inspired and curious. To constructively explore new territory in the studio, I use two guiding pieces of advice.
First: Follow your attention, no reservations. Practice taking note of what you notice at various stages: from wet clay, fluid wheel work, cheese-hard shaping, applying glaze, placing pots in the kiln, or cold finishing. Make a point of lingering in the areas where your enthusiasm and attention are greatest. For example, one easy way to start is by writing down what’s worked during a session in the studio and acting on that information as soon as possible. When designing the pots covered in this article, I noticed my attention was held the most when trimming wheel-thrown parts, and I wondered how I might lengthen and widen that step of the process.
Second: Years ago, a mentor asked, “What would happen if you take your clay on more exciting dates?” The flow of steps to arrive at these specific basins also emerged from this question. Me, romancing a mound of clay: Should we go somewhere new, or return to an old haunt? What haven’t we talked about lately? The steps of carving and uncovering these basins emerged from my digging into this question—in the romantic dream of being enthusiastically entangled in my studio. Obviously, there’s no need for you to make these pots this way, but I hope that sharing my flow of steps could inspire your own material poetics. Follow your attention and let it take you somewhere new.
Tools and Design
These pots are made with a small group of straightforward tools (1). Using my hands, I can pinch, coil, and otherwise grow a lump of clay into a hollow pot. Each of the tools invited into the process beyond that is partly responsible for the physicality of the finished product, taking the pot beyond what my hands alone can do.
I am partial toward tools that open the clay body’s textural grit, intensifying the edges, crevices, and planes that will compose the vessel. Changing up the flow of steps and the balance of tools will change the identity of the completed pot.
I turn to metal loop tools, small knives, and strung wire to make these pots. The most particular metal loop trimmer I have was made with the help of a metalsmith. Because I yearned to trim larger curves of clay in one fell swoop, we designed a more generous and sturdy loop. It was cut from a galvanized steel sheet, bent over a solid form, and finished with a belt-sanded bevel edge. Try jerry-rigging a new tool or using a familiar one in an unfamiliar way to investigate the steps of your process that speak to you.
Getting Started
First, begin by wedging the clay. For a small basin, start with 3 pounds (1.36 kg) of clay (2). It is always better to have extra clay than to accidentally carve through the form or run out of land to resolve a contour. The routine of wedging both physically and mentally readies me to work in the studio. I imagine my objectives for that particular studio session, and measure an amount of clay to accommodate those dreams. Wedging wakes the clay and I up together, and gets us going on our journey.
Once wedged and patted into a ball, pinch a simple pot (3). As the pot expands, switch to a round paddle to further compress its interior and exterior (4). The pot should be more than 2 inches (5.1 cm) thick, and should have extra thickness at its rim. Thorough compression during this step is essential to the sturdiness of the pot and helps to prevent S-cracks and floppy walls.
Mapping and Making Moves
Take time to pause and feel the interior space that you’ve pinched and paddled. How far can you stretch that space? Will the inside be bigger than the outside?
Explore the space using only your fingertips, imagine how you might carve it, and trace those lines with a pencil or needle tool (5). By physically walking the space with my fingertips and tracing that path, I save myself from potential hiccups. Skipping this step can lead to cutting through the wall, running out of interior before a curve is resolved, and having to remap or rebuild.
When cutting the interior contours, I use small turns of the banding wheel in concert with my hand dragging the tool through the pinch pot. Gripping close to its loop (like an ice cream scoop), drag the tool in a steady, continuous motion to keep the contour line fluid and crisp (6, 7). My carving style is a one-and-done move, so I often pinch and paddle a group of three or more basins at once. This way, I can iterate on an idea without losing the stream of thought—tracing through a series of squiggling flumes in quick succession.
Once you’ve carved the interior line, take a moment to absorb what’s happened. There is a big cavity gaping from the unsuspecting pinch pot (8)! It looks odd, and to balance the energetic lines in that carved abscess, the rim needs to be brought up to speed. A wire harp is a great tool to make a first pass at drawing the rim’s edge (9). I use my needle tool to map complementary moves—sometimes riffing off botanical forms or referencing the fission of two rock faces crushing into each other—thereby defining how the rim will ride along the basin’s line (10). Another series of cuts are made to carry the rim over from the inside of the basin to the outside (11). As a last step, follow-up with a paring knife to peel back more layers as needed.
Stiff Shaping
After these steps, the pots need time to stiffen up. Cover the pots loosely with one sheet of plastic, followed by one towel. I leave them for a day or two until they are at the right cheese-hardness stage. You want the stiffness of Gouda cheese—harder than cheddar, but not as dry as Parmesan. This timing will vary greatly depending on the climate. There is a sweet spot where the clay is soft enough to carve fluidly on the outside of the vessel, yet stiff enough that the established lines on the rim and interior won’t get blurred. At this point, the basin can be turned over to rest upside down (12). I set a couple of foam sheets atop a cylinder (can be a pot or cardboard tube, etc.), center it on a banding wheel, and place the pot upside down on the foam. This setup limits the stress placed on the undulating rim, which will crack if pressed.
When ready, repeat the same steps used on the rim to cut sweeping curves and tear edges on the form’s exterior. Depending on the basin, these cuts can be close to vertical or can sweep low and long to the center of the piece. If needed, I will carve out the center with a loop tool as an intuitive, inside foot ring to minimize the thickness of the wall (13).
As I near a point where the form is thoroughly carved, I occasionally take it off the foam to gauge thickness and weight balance. Deciding the heft and balance of the pot is a personal preference. That being said, these are some of the densest pots that I make.
After they have stiffened under plastic for a few more days, I use a chamois, my fingertip, or a thin sponge to soften the sharpest edges. I will also look at particularly jagged or messy areas and decide how much they need to be revised by smoothing with a rib or dulling with a chamois. This ensures the finished vessel isn’t dangerous to touch, and there are fewer marks detracting from the basin’s visual flow.
Firing
These pots are dense, and their thickness-to-thinness is exaggerated. For this reason, I dry them as slowly as possible. Ideally, this is at least one or two weeks under a thin sheet of plastic, before uncovering them to let them fully reach bone dry.
I bisque fire them on a slow ramp cycle to thoroughly dry out the thickest depths of the form, where water may still be hidden. See the diagram of my bisque-firing cycle, and explanations of what happens at each step.
The nuanced surfaces achieved by firing in atmospheric kilns nicely complete these forms. Smoky flashing slips are sometimes applied to the exterior, or bare clay is left to flash on its own. I enjoy applying a glossy, earthy glaze to the inside so that the carved lines read as a flume. If I choose a runny enough formula, the interior becomes a glassy waterfall.
Life Beyond the Studio
I wonder about how these pots exist in the world after they’ve left my hands. I hope they carry emotional function and that their quirkiness evokes a reverie. Depending on the viewer, the time of day, and its surroundings, they could stir up echoes of the world from which they come. You could look at the glaze flume sweeping through the inside and imagine yourself floating down its frothy rapids. Or along a jagged cut edge, find yourself approximating what it’s like to be a juniper at the edge of a windblown ridge, or a mountain goat cresting an escarpment. Or even, following the lines cascading through the form, remember how the wind shaped the dunes cresting on the way to your favorite shoreline.
In my dreams, handmade pots remind us of the ground beneath our feet and the geologic underpinnings of reality: integral to our daily rituals, and transcendent of them. I often dream of the bubbling creek, mossy loam, and beaver dam behind my Grandma’s farmhouse.
Katie Fee is a potter and educator in Eastern Massachusetts, where she teaches ceramics at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, and is Artist-In-Residence at The Umbrella Art Center. Fee has zig-zagged across the country and world to learn, teach, fire kilns, and support special projects, including Alfred University, The Morean Art Center, Sugar Maples Center for Crafts, Lillstreet Art Center, and TGS, LLC.
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