search  current discussion  categories  techniques - throwing 

secrets of throwing tall pots at one go

updated mon 9 jul 01

 

iandol on sat 9 dec 00


Dear Anne Brink,
I suppose you could propose your own diameter. However, I think it would =
have to be something of a size you can get your forearm into.
So, What's your secret of getting that seven pounds of clay up to =
twentysix inches?
Ivor.

Hank Murrow on sat 7 jul 01


>So, What's your secret of getting that seven pounds of clay up to twentysix
>inches?
>Ivor.

>Hi Ivor,
>
> John Reeve did a workshop in St. Paul I attended about 10 years ago.
>Reeve trained with Leach and is a good friend of MacKenzie's. Some
>folks from
>a museum brought him some old English pitchers (whole and broken) and
>asked him
>to figure out how they were made. What he discovered, was that these pots
>started as bottomless cylinders. First, you pull up what will end up being
>the bottom. Then you attach a pancake to the end. I often cut a pancake
>with
>a nice spiral mark on the bottom. You can finish it right then & there.
>This is why the bottom of these old pots often look scalloped. You let the
>bottom dry a bit, and then you turn it over and finish throwing the top of the
>pitcher (the part that was the thick bottom.) You can throw about
>twice the
>height of a pot that is of uniform thickness, very light, with the no increase
>in skill level, and a bonus is that the bottoms dries faster than the top
>(it is
>pre-dried) so you can dry pitchers made this way quickly without any worry
>about
>the bottoms cracking.
>Lee Love
> Mashiko JAPAN Ikiru@kami.com


Dear Lee;

One of my mentors, David Stannard made lovely beer pitchers in this
manner, and he pulled hollow handles for them_______incredibly light for
their volume, and a pleasure to pour.

David is a friend of Reeve's and studied postwar at Leach's pottery
at St. Ives while Warren and Alix were there. I don't know if David showed
John or the other way 'round. Certainly round it the result!

Cheers! Hank