Pinstripe Teapot Ben Eberle

Appears in the May/Jun 2024 issue of Pottery Making Illustrated.

My altered pots stem from a combination of found-object wood blocks and freehand stretching of the overall form. This pairing gives me spontaneously soft-looking pots. They have vitality and undeniable lightness to them. They are intuitive and all mine. Sometimes, it’s as if they just arrived—I merely opened the door and let them in. 

A torch is an important tool for me, achieving two things: a stiffer wall and a non-stick, plastic surface that won’t easily tear. My process allows me to get away with overhangs, folds, imprints, bellies, and really thin walls in areas where you generally need heft. 

In this article, we’ll walk through a large teapot with pinstripes. This piece is fairly large, about 11 inches (28 cm) when fired, and holds around half a gallon (2 L) of liquid. 

Throwing the Main Form 

Using 3 pounds 10 ounces (1.6 kg) of stiff clay, pull the skinniest cylinder you can (1). Get all of your height in the first three pulls, aiming to keep the diameter as small as possible. Your final pull will be a shaping pull that expands the diameter and gains height. Achieve this by pressing out from the interior, forming the ridge. Press underneath like a normal pull using just your fingertips. This pull is critical, taking lots of practice, but it will leave you with the thinnest, lightest cylinder possible. This cylinder was about 4 inches (10.2 cm) wide and 14 inches (36 cm) tall before I started to shape it outward. 

After the shaping pull, begin to form the body. The bottom wall is under ¼ inch (6.4 mm) thin at this point. Torch it for about 10 seconds before continuing (2), firming up the base to give it strength. There is a lot of torque on such a small bottom. 

Remove all the throwing marks while expanding the general form. When you have your desired shape, torch dry the main body (3). Too dry and you’ll lose plasticity, but too wet and your texture block will stick. In general, you don’t want it to steam. Caution: Keep the torch moving in small circles. Don’t focus on one spot. 

Adding Surface Texture 

Before you begin to texture the surface, you need to source an old board with indentations. I use the backside of an old piece of flooring (see 4). 

Place your texture block against the exterior surface of the body, then, using your finger on your other hand, press firmly from the inside out into the groove (4) and begin sliding your finger up the wall. Keep the block straight, focusing on a smooth, singular gesture. Any pause in the pressure will show on the exterior. You want intentional fluidity here, not indecisiveness. Put eight pinstripes on the wall by quartering the form and then eighthing it. Stand over the pot to eyeball the spacing correctly (5, 6). It doesn’t have to be perfect! 

Dimpling and Inflating the Body 

This step is where the piece comes to life. Dimples create a sense of inner air and dynamic motion. Freehand stretching creates organic fluidity. Combined, they give a sense that the pot is still soft even after being fired. 

You can use any wood tool here, but its end/tip should match the width of your pinstripe. Press the tip into the wall at the middle point on the line of texture, keeping two interior fingers on either side to hold the rest of the wall in place (7). Stretch the form when you’re done (8). I typically go in little circles, eyeballing the contour as I go. Take your time. The form will tell you when it’s finished. 

Throwing the Final Opening 

Once you have the teapot body formed, textured, and stretched exactly the way you want, torch it one final time, leaving the top 2 inches (5 cm) throwable. Throw the top opening as planned and allow the pot to dry. Measure the gallery or opening with a caliper and make your lid. 

Creating the Spout 

I throw all my spouts off the hump. Skinny spouts require stiff clay and very thin walls. Get it as thin as possible, then use the edge of a metal rib for the final shaping (9). My spouts are barely 1/16-inch (1.6-mm) thick. If you use too much water here it will slump, and if you use fingers, it will twist and collapse. A good spout can take 10–15 minutes to create. When done, torch it (3–4 seconds), cut it off with a pin tool, and set it aside. 

Shaping the Handle 

Handle time. This is a big pot, so it needs a big handle. Use ½ pound (0.2 kg) of clay and form it into a coil shape with an angled top and round bottom (10). Now, elongate it by pinching it from the bottom upward. Starting about ⅛ of an inch (3.2 mm) from the end, pinch the middle out into a double-tapered shape (11). Pinch very lightly, adding pressure as you move up the handle. 

Score the top of the pot and the handle, dab some water onto the wall, and then stick the handle to the pot. Pull it like you would a normal handle except this technique is a smoothing event rather than a pulling one (12). Use different hand and finger formations while pulling. Tip: Your hand isn’t symmetrical—using only one motion will make an asymmetrical handle. Once the handle is smoothed and shaped, score the area where it will be attached, dab the score marks with water, then bend and fit the bottom of the handle to the pot (13). 

Forming and Attaching the Spout 

Center the spout on a board in front of you and draw an arc from side to side in one smooth motion (14). Remember, you want the end of the spout to clear the top of the pot. 

Give the spout some body by expanding the area where it attaches. Dip your index finger in water and press in circles (15). I also pinch the edges where it will attach to the body. This makes the spout fluidly transition onto the body. Register the spout properly to the pot (16), mark the edges with your pin tool, and cut a single large hole. Score the border well, add a little dab of water, and score the spout edge. Stick them together firmly but gently. Clean the seam with your sponge to finish the form (17). Slowly dry the finished pot before firing (18). 

Glazing and Firing 

I fire all my work in The Karma Kiln, a custom wood-fired soda kiln I built last fall. It’s about 30 cubic feet, holds around 200 pots, and fires to cone 11 in about 18–20 hours. I enjoy the carbon-trapping effect from hard reduction at the end of the firing. 

As a community, we have Gail Nichols to thank for uncovering this surface technique. Essentially, when the kiln goes into a heavily reduced atmosphere, soot builds up on the surface of the pots. As the soda volatilizes at cone 10, it fluxes the clay body and slip surfaces, trapping the carbon, “haloing” it onto the melted silica, and fusing it in place. It takes about 20–25 minutes for us to get the soda in, then another two hours afterward to soak the kiln in a slow rise back to temperature. 

For my work, which has so much movement, little angles, dimples, bellies, etc., there are loads of opportunities for the soda to bleach edges or highlight texture with carbon. It’s been utterly thrilling to finally get the finished results that I’ve envisioned for over fifteen years—a dream, really. 

Ben Eberle is a studio potter, educator, writer, and kiln builder working in the Hilltowns of western Massachusetts. He received a BA in creative writing from Skidmore College in 2003 and his MFA from San Jose State University in 2008. He accepted a teaching position at Concord Academy that fall. In 2014, he moved to Conway, Massachusetts, to begin his career as a studio artist. In addition to showing his work regionally and nationally, he is represented by Plinth Gallery in Denver, Colorado, and The Nineteen Twentytwo in Los Angeles, California.