Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Learning to make pottery is a lot about learning how to work with the same materials in a variety of states. Clay goes from being soft as butter, to firm like leather, then it’s hardened, a powdery layer of glaze is applied and finally that’s high-fired into a state that’s much stronger and stone-like. It’s a craft where the pressure applied and how we handle the material is constantly changing and part of learning this skill is learning how to continuously adapt to clay in its current state.
For instance, bone dry clay is extraordinarily delicate, if you attempt to pick it up poorly, or with your pressure focused in the wrong area, it’ll snap like chocolate. How thick the clay-work is changes how you approach it, and this is consistent throughout the making process. For example, how you handle a thinly thrown pot and a thickly made differs greatly, a thin clay-based glaze versus a thickly applied, feldspathic glaze offers the same challenges too, as you can’t work with them with the same approach.
Potters, and craftspeople in general, learn very specific and subtle ways of interacting with materials in ways that people who aren’t craftspeople may never experience in quite the same way. There’s a delicacy and care and attention that you must apply to the objects made and deep level of material understanding that I think we’re losing on a wider, population level viewpoint.
Ultimately, being able to recognise how things around you are made and their material characteristics and all part of the human experience and in a world that’s increasingly racing away from that, I think that’s part of the reason craft and making has become so popular again, as we’re missing something that has been so integral to humanities journey thus far.
#pottery #ceramics #vase #beforeandafter #craft
Learning to make pottery is a lot about learning how to work with the same materials in a variety of states. Clay goes from being soft as butter, to firm like leather, then it’s hardened, a powdery layer of glaze is applied and finally that’s high-fired into a state that’s much stronger and stone-like. It’s a craft where the pressure applied and how we handle the material is constantly changing and part of learning this skill is learning how to continuously adapt to clay in its current state.
For instance, bone dry clay is extraordinarily delicate, if you attempt to pick it up poorly, or with your pressure focused in the wrong area, it’ll snap like chocolate. How thick the clay-work is changes how you approach it, and this is consistent throughout the making process. For example, how you handle a thinly thrown pot and a thickly made differs greatly, a thin clay-based glaze versus a thickly applied, feldspathic glaze offers the same challenges too, as you can’t work with them with the same approach.
Potters, and craftspeople in general, learn very specific and subtle ways of interacting with materials in ways that people who aren’t craftspeople may never experience in quite the same way. There’s a delicacy and care and attention that you must apply to the objects made and deep level of material understanding that I think we’re losing on a wider, population level viewpoint.
Ultimately, being able to recognise how things around you are made and their material characteristics and all part of the human experience and in a world that’s increasingly racing away from that, I think that’s part of the reason craft and making has become so popular again, as we’re missing something that has been so integral to humanities journey thus far.
#pottery #ceramics #vase #beforeandafter #craft
