This past weekend Joseph and I, along with a bunch of other folks, took a workshop at the Central Carolina Community College (or CCCC for short) campus in Siler City. The workshop was led by
David Stuemple and focused on coil building large vessels. Davids tecnique is similar to the way that I was taught at Matt's but he uses a paddle and anvil to thin and compress the coils before wetting them and throwing them. It was a little tricky to pick up on his technique because I still have
Matt's way in my muscle memory even though I only made a few when I was out there and it was well over a year ago. I met some great people and got to get out of the pottery for a few days which is always a nice change of pace.
David throwing the base
Adding the first coil...
Pinching the first coil onto the pot...
Paddling the coil to thin it out before thowing. Usually he uses a small wooden anvil on the inside but here he is using his hand.
Lara O'Keefe using the weed torch...
The Sandman
David throwing the base
Adding the first coil...
Pinching the first coil onto the pot...
Paddling the coil to thin it out before thowing. Usually he uses a small wooden anvil on the inside but here he is using his hand.
Lara O'Keefe using the weed torch...
The Sandman
4 comments:
Whoa that's big! My back hurts just looking at those!
man... those are gonna be huge, reminds me of an old b&w film i saw in college about korean potters using a similar technique except in the film there was a little worker dude (peon) laying on his side on the ground mechanically nudging the concrete disc under the wheel little by little so the korean national treasure dude could concentrate on putting those coils on.
Those are crazy big pots! I'm curious how many pounds of clay was used to complete that big pot he was working on? Also what kind of clay is he using?
Jim...its funny you mentioned the Korean guy turning the wheel because David would actually to that while we paddled. The Brents that we were throwing in really dont freewheel very well and so it was helpful to have someone turn the wheel very very slowly.
Cindy...Im not sure exactly how many lbs that pot was that David made but my guess is somewhere around 70. We were using a clay that is mixed by Highwater Clays out of Asheville NC called Craggy Crunch. It is a nice throwing clay with lots of plasticity but not that well suited for this technique. It was to tacky and the paddles and anvils kept sticking to the pot.
Post a Comment