Handbuilt, A Potter's Guide: Master timeless techniques, explore new forms, dig and process your own clay

163 Pages·2018·36.06 MB·English

by  Melissa Weiss

HAND
BUILT

A Potter’s Guide
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© 2019 Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.
Text © 2019 Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.
Photography © 2019 Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.
First Published in 2019 by
Rockport Publishers, an imprint of The Quarto Group,
100 Cummings Center, Suite 265-D, Beverly, MA 01915, USA.
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN: 978-1-63159-598-1
Digital edition published in 2019
eISBN: 978-1-63159-599-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
Design: www.traffic-design.co.uk
Page Layout: www.traffic-design.co.uk
Photography: Elijah Ferguson and Melissa Weiss
Printed in China
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HAND
BUILT

A Potter’s Guide
Master timeless techniques,
explore newx forms, dig and
process your own clay.
Melissa Weiss
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CONTENTS
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CONTENTS
06 INTRODUCTION 116 7 | HANDLES
08 MY WINDING PATH TO STUDIO POTTERY □ Making Handles
10 TOOLS AND MATERIALS □ Disc Handles
12 RULES □ Pulled Handles
13 VOCABULARY □ Guest Potter Interview: Catherine White
and Warren Frederick
14 1 | IN SEARCH OF WILD CLAY
□ Finding, Digging, Testing, and Processing 130 8 | DECORATING TECHNIQUES
Local Clays □ Types of Decorating Techniques
□ Guest Potter Interview: Mitch Iburg □ Guest Potter Interview: Shawn Ireland
□ Guest Potter Interview: Lindsay Rogers
140 9 | FIRING METHODS
26 2 | SLIPS AND GLAZES
□ Firing and Cones
□ Finding My Way to Glazing □ Bisque
□ Making and Using Slips and Glazes □ Slip
□ Basic Process for Making Glaze and Slip □ About Kilns
□ Guest Potter Interview: Michael Hunt and □ The Heart of the Studio:
Naomi Dalglish of Bandana Pottery
Elijah Cody Ferguson
42 3 | KURINUKI
154 RESOURCES
□ Kurinuki Pots 155 RECOMMENDED READING
□ Make a Kurinuki Footed Cup
156 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
□ Make a Lidded Salt or Treasure Box
158 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
□ Make Kurinuki Snack Serving Dishes
159 INDEX
□ Guest Potter Interview: Nicholas Danielson
62 4 | MOLDS
□ Steps for Making Hump Molds
□ Guest Potter Interview: Nancy Green
72 5 | COIL AND SLAB METHODS
□ Creating Slabs Three Ways
□ Slab Dishes from a Bisque Mold
□ Coil Methods
□ Make a Coil Bucket
□ Make a Serving Tray
□ Guest Potter Interview: Lindsay Oesterritter
98 6 | BUILDING POTS FROM
MULTIPLE VESSELS
□ Make a Moon Vase
□ Make a Vase with a Coil Neck
□ Pitcher from Two Slab Bowls
□ Make a Pitcher with a Coil Neck
□ Guest Potter Interview: Candice Methe-Hess
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Introduction
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This book is for potters working at many In Handbuilt: A Potter’s Guide, I've
different levels. If you're just getting covered some familiar methods of
started with clay, you'll find the basics handbuilding, and some not-so-familiar
you need here and, I hope, the answers methods as well. We'll carve cups using
to many of your questions about clay a Japanese technique called kurinuki.
and firing. If you're an experienced This is a subtractive method of carving
potter looking for new options for a pot out of a solid block of clay. We'll
your work, and new ways to work make trays and buckets by combining
contemplatively with handbuilding, slab and coil methods and build vases
then this is the book for you. and pitchers by putting together two
slab-built bowls.
Do you have clay in your backyard?
Lucky you. I'll give you directions on In other chapters, we'll take on the
how to test and use that wild clay. We challenge of creating bisque molds and
will make slips and glazes with detailed then use them to make platters and
instructions and recipes. And we'll talk dishes. We'll explore different techniques
about the different ingredients in glazes for creating feet and handles and how
and the roles they play in the finished look. to attach them to your pots. We'll talk
about surfaces and try out a variety
of decorating methods, including wax
resist, sgraffito, and carving to make
each pot one-of-a-kind, reflective of you.
And, of course, we'll take a look at the
“This book
different firing methods—electric, gas,
and wood—and discuss what each has
to offer.
is for
In each chapter, I'll also introduce you
to the work of some very talented
contemporary potters from around
potters
the country. They'll take you into their
studios for a look at their pottery and
to share some of their tips, advice, and
working
techniques.
at many
different
levels.”
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My Winding Path to Studio Pottery
Welcome, I’m Melissa Weiss. I’m a sheer to show the layers of material
studio potter in Asheville, North underneath, and to the challenges and
Carolina, where I run and work in an rewards of wood firing. At this point,
8,000-square-foot warehouse housing too, I started learning about the
twenty artists in various media. It’s wood-fire traditions of the humble
been a long and interesting path potters of Korea and Japan, and the
getting here. American potters who were influenced “Everyone
by these traditions. The path I had been
I took my first pottery class in the fall of
following suddenly branched off in
2004 when my daughter was five months
many new directions.
old. I had never before worked with clay can take
and had very little exposure to ceramics. I joined a co-op called Clayspace in the
Basically, I knew nothing. It was a River Arts district in Asheville that proved
beginning wheel-throwing class in to be invaluable to my ceramics education. these
Fayetteville, Arkansas, about an hour I now occupied a studio with a small
from Kingston, where I lived and owned group of potters who generously shared
a piece of land. The class wasn’t much, their knowledge, answered my never-
methods,
in terms of instruction or inspiration, ending questions, and participated in
and yet it turned out to be extremely wood firings. There was a gallery in
significant—it exposed me to a medium our studio, in which I was able to start
add what
I loved instantly. The class only lasted a selling my work.
few weeks, and it would be a year until I
In 2008, on a trip to Arkansas to visit my
would get the chance to take another.
friends and my land, I dug a bucket of they bring
Six months later, I moved to Asheville, the sticky red clay to take home. I spent
North Carolina, and in the fall of that weeks testing different variations of
year I took a pottery class at a local recipes incorporating this wild clay until
to the
technical college, and then another I came up with a clay body that was
at a nearby ceramics center. This time workable, durable, and aesthetically
I got lucky—the class at the ceramics what I wanted. I’ve used this custom
craft, and
center was taught by the amazing clay body that includes 25 percent of
Becca Floyd. Along with being a the clay I dig from my land in all my
brilliant teacher, Becca conveyed pots ever since.
make
such a convincing confidence in
Beginning in 2013, I had the opportunity
me and my pottery that it made
to rent the warehouse where I currently
me believe in it too.
work. It has enabled me to grow and be
pots of
In the spring of 2007, Becca presented more efficient: I can make clay, make
me with the gift of a free workshop at pots, and fire my work all in one place. I
the John C. Campbell Folk School. It spend thirty to sixty hours a week in my
their
was taught by Michael Hunt and Naomi studio. My boyfriend, Elijah Ferguson,
Dalglish, and it transformed the way I quit his job in construction to run the
saw and made ceramics ever after. The pottery with me. We work in cycles:
own.”
workshop introduced me to digging make clay, make glazes and slips, make
and working with wild clay, to using pots, glaze and decorate pots, fire pots.
slips and glazes that are layered and In between is all the work it takes to run
8 | Handbuilt, A Potter’s Guide
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