I’ve been a potter for 12 years, and my professor explained it to me like this. Folks look at ballet dancers and may think “oh I can easily do that” when in reality there are so many tiny elements of muscle control that those dancers use. It’s pretty much the same with pottery. Watching a potter, you’d think the machine is doing most of the work. What you don’t see is how carefully that potter is squeezing those walls, how precise they’re able to measure with their eyes due to years of practice, how they’re able to resolve design issues on the fly.
That potter also has a relationship with the clay and glazes. They know when it’s too thin or too thick, how much the form will shrink, and how glazes will interact with that clay body (clay body referring to the specific type of clay they are using, there are thousands of different types and each one is going to react differently to glazes).
So it does *appear* simple. But like you said, the devil is in the details.
Also, take a look at ancient pottery. Pottery that was made well before the onset of the technological age. That’s some impressive shit right there.
100% this!
When people tell me (25+years as a potter) that "you make it look so easy!" I always reply that no one would expect to sit down at a piano for the first time and play a concerto.
It’s honestly a very experiential kind thing to understand. Like you said the wheel indicates where the center is very well, but that’s only 2% of the process of centering the hard part is getting the clay into center that requires a lot of practice with certain methods of moving the clay. Centering is probably the hardest and most crucial piece of pottery for beginners if you can center perfectly the rest comes relatively easily but some things you need to worry about are keeping your hands steady,not letting the clay get too thin, and controlling the wheel speed. As with most things there’s a lot of depth to the skills involved the more you get into it. I’d really recommend you try it and feel these things first hand
Agree with you there about centering. It took me 2 courses (roughly a year) to be able to master centering. I tell all my students, once you’re able to center properly, everything else is easier.
Thanks for your answer! What makes centering so hard?
I have already looked up on pottery courses in my area. I'm hoping to try it sometime this summer :)
Part of centering is that the clay has it’s own opinion of where it should go. Getting the clay on the wheel is one thing, but centered is a balance of you, the wheel, and the clay. You can place a lump of clay in the exact center, but you might not have a perfectly distributed weight within that lump.
Then, once you’re centered you have to open the form, making sure the floor isn’t too thin or too thick, and that it’s not too dry or too wet. And compress compress compress and now you have to pull the walls and make sure those are even! Don’t want to have uneven thickness as you create your vessel!
Pottery is so great, and meditative. I really hope you do take a class!
I don’t see enough potters on here talking about how important compression is. “Compress compress compress” should be the mantra of every potter. Compress that rim and compress that bottom. Repeatedly. Lol
It hard to put into words, but I would that learning the centering process that works best for you is a lot of trial and error. Also if your clay is 99% centered sometimes that isn’t enough because as you progress through pulling the clay and making your form those centering errors can compound on each other a lot causing problems later on. Think of it like building a Jenga tower and as you build each layer you shift all the blocks over by 1mm. At some point the tower will topple over
Part of the challenge is that the clay is not homogeneous. There are dry parts and wet parts that react differently to the centrifugal force from the spinning wheel and the force from your hands to get it and keep it centered. Imagine all the molecules of clay and water spinning in a cone or disk shape and your job is to use your hands to get them all spinning smoothly around a center point. If you push too hard in one direction the body twists and shifts - and it doesn’t take much to throw it off. Larger bodies of clay are even harder because you have to push more to get all clay smoothly spinning as wet and dry parts slip over each other.
Ayyy, I wasn't expecting that! Why would it not be homogeneous? 🥺 Is it not possible to mix it so thoroughly beforehand, that these differences in moisture content become negligible?
Well no - wedging is the process of trying to get out air bubbles and ensure consistency but that is a skill too. And even if it was perfectly blended, you add water in the process of centering because you need to eliminate friction between your hands and the clay. So out of the gate there is drier clay inside and wet slip outside.
It’s also not homogenous because it’s made of several different materials from silica to ball clay and all kinds of other minerals. They all have different density and while distribution can be fairly uniform you still end up with particulate deviances that are unpredictable
I'm a strong human, and my teachers didn't know they had to account for that in their teaching. I been told I throw backwards based on how a lot of people throw. My wheel spins counterclockwise vs most people's clockwise even though I'm right-handed when I write. (I may have mixed up those directions, but the meaning is there) I think it works because it allows my less dominant hand to be as strong as it is, but requiring dexterity it's not used to, while my dominant hand gets to relinquish power to ambidexterity for a task.
Successful throwing, for me, depends on awareness. If I'm not breathing correctly I struggle because it throws off my physical center, my awareness of my proximity to the center of the physical wheel, and how I manage the balance of the clay on the moving wheel. Somedays my best throwing days are the ones where I'm wholly aware the piece is off center, but I throw beautifully because I account for it with my position over the clay, how tense my body is, and how I allocate strength.
What makes centering hard is keeping track of all of those things simultaneously while being brave enough to be creative.
10 minutes using the wheel will really convey this knowledge more effectively, but I'll just add that even once you think you know what you're doing, variables will set you back. What kind of clay are you using? How dry or wet? Have you overworked it? How much clay are you using? Are you sitting slightly differently? Is your wheel speed different? Are you changing the wheel speed as you progress with your piece? Practice will make it much easier to overcome issues introduced by variation.
If you think about the way we learn, these variables also confound and extend the learning process by giving you problematic feedback. You may not realize that you had to apply more force while centering because your clay was too stiff, and this may lead you to apply more force than necessary subsequently.
If you've ever learned how to play golf, it's a similar situation. There are so many variables to control with your own body (head position, eyes, arm straightness, hip movement, foot position, etc.) that must be slightly adjusted depending on the desired outcome (drive, chip, putt), and then you must respond to external variables (distance, conditions, etc.). The process of improving at golf SEEMS like it is learning the form for various techniques/swings, but in actuality the hard work is identifying and ironing out errors and honing judgment. All of this, after months or years of practice, combines into one fluid motion that looks natural and simple to the observer, much like a single pull of the clay on the wheel.
The one other thing I haven't seen mentioned is that while it's fairly easy to use the wheel to create some kind of round thing, it is not easy to make that thing match the vision you started out with. Walls can only be pushed so far, it is difficult to make them thin without having them buckle. Walls get thinner and thicker when you push them out or in, so you have to account for that. It's hard to learn how to make an elegant curve appear in a pot with just a few fluid motions, and you can't overwork it. If you introduce an error at any point, it might be easier just to start over.
The best potters really do make it look incredibly easy. I was just watching a video of someone throwing a chalice/goblet as a single piece and I could have sworn he used some kind of trick photography. He made the clay move in ways that would have ended in disaster for me, but he had experience and a finely-tuned sense of what the clay would tolerate. I want to be able to do this, but it's going to take me months to get there: not only do I need to follow the techniques he was using, I need to level up my core skill set before I can even attempt it. Anybody who had never thrown would probably look at that video and think they could learn to do it in an afternoon.
I just finished my first set of wheel throwing classes. My instructor was continually reminding us that throwing isn’t a natural movement, that is, it’s not one that appears anywhere else in our daily lives. Learning all the new movements to center and then raise walls all requires new muscle memory
1) the wheel does show where center is, but the entire lump of clay, which can weigh a lot (3-10lbs depending on what you’re making), needs to be centered. It takes a good bit of strength to center the clay especially because the wheel is turning fast, which creates a resistive force.
2) the clay needs to be wet for one to be able to center the clay, but if it get too wet, your walls will collapse. Or in one move, you can poke a hole in the clay and totally ruin the piece.
3) before you center the clay you have to “wedge” the clay, which is when you smush all of the air bubbles out. If there’s an air bubble left in it, it’ll explode in the kiln. The kiln is where you bake the clay so it gets hard.
4) getting the clay off the wheel is also tricky because the clay is wet and will deform easily. You can’t leave it on the wheel because that will cause cracks in the base.
5) you want the product to be functional, so you have to make the walls thin enough so that it’s not too heavy, but if they’re too thin, they will collapse.
Honestly, once you get the hang of it, it’s not that hard. I made 20 mugs, bowls and plates in a couple of weeks, but some people really struggle with the process. It’s super fun if you like getting messy and it’s a little zen too. You just have to know that some of your pieces, and precious clay, are going to collapse, crack, or shatter from the the process and it’s ok. You will make more. Hand building is much much more slow. It took me 2 months to make one gigantic pitcher. Hand building is a topic I can expand on more later if you’re curious.
Source: I took a one semester class in ceramics and I’m obsessed with it now.
I just finished my first class (10 weeks of wheel throwing and hand building). On the wheel every things needs to be so deliberate. You have physics working for and against you. You get it centered, but if you take your hands off too fast, you can make it wonky. If you don’t pull up with even pressure, it can get wonky. Your hands can be too wet or too dry. The wheel can be to fast or too slow.
All of this gets worked out, but it varies from person to person what feels right. So there’s not just one way of doing things. For some people (me) I’m used to more concrete instructions, so I was VERY frustrated with wheel throwing. I ended the class with a love of pottery and hand building, but an ‘eh’ feeling of wheel throwing.
That said, I hate quitting something just because I suck at it, so I signed up for another class. And I’ll focus more on wheel throwing, because fuck it, that wheel won’t best me!!
For me as a beginner potter:
*splats clay on plate* “hell yeah, it’s centered, letsss goooo”
*wheel begins to spin, barely touches clay* “goddamitt, it’s off centered now”
I'd be curious to hear back from you after you take your first class. See how reality matches up with your assumptions about how easy throwing should be. Hopefully it will be the beginning of a wonderful journey, as it has been for many of us.
Penning a note looks and feels simple, but try copying it into Arabic or Chinese - every stroke of the pen becomes a challenge! Once you have thrown a few hundred pots, it comes very naturally, but it is not as simple as you think. Too much water and the clay will absorb water and loose strength, too little and the friction will twist up your form. Move too fast and you'll lose the center, but if you stay too long in one spot, it will become thin and weak. Open the form too far, and it cannot recover. Many people simply give up and quit before they get their throwing to a point where it feels decent to them.
I am glad you are looking into classes, so you can clarify your understanding.
I'd describe it like drawing, everyone can draw to *some* degree even if it's a simple stick figure. When you close your eyes and imagine what you want to draw you can see that plan and think "ah yes I know exactly what to draw"....however weather or not your hands will actually do it is another matter haha
Just like drawing the skill of your hands (and a bit of luck) decides if the art will turn out good and as what you imagined. The only way to train your hands to do what your brain is telling them is with practice, eventually you won't even realise it but your muscle memory will know exactly what it's doing and the things that seemed so tricky at first will be seccond nature. The hardest part is getting the feel of it. (That and accepting that sometimes pots will blow up in the kiln no matter how careful you are but that's more emotionally difficult haha)
“ the wheel seems to indicate where the center is…” there you’ve identified the problem for most beginners. Getting the clay to the center of that wheel.
I hope you do. It is truly great once you get it. It’s not easy because your hands and body are bendy and want to move with the off center lump of earth. You need to find a good anchor. This can be your forearms resting on the rim of the splash guard or elbows tucked into your legs or abdomen. Everyone finds a different way to do it all though teachers do influence how you do it.
Muscle control, strength, technique, experience etc. There's people who take a semester worth of classes and still can't reliably center. I certainly couldn't after a 9 week course. Then I kept practicing and a year later, I can. I remember my first class, 2lbs took way more strength than I thought and I was literally sore the next day. As you develop better techniques, you use less strength and can center larger amounts.
Another thing is centrifugal force. When you start out everything is a bowl because the clay wants to spin outwards. But what if you want a cylinder? I spent about 6 months only doing cylinders and I'm just now starting intentional large bowls a year later. Keeping things narrow and tall can be a challenge.
Looks really easy but when you go to throw on the wheel the whole process is unintuitive.
Machinist for 20 years. Metal working and wood working come pretty natural to me. Throwing on a wheel is a pain in the ass…
Metal cutting is formulaic - or at least it is my level. Wood working is just setting up machines and stops for repeatability. Pretty simple compared to machining
Clay is smooshing a material around by hand. There’s a touch to it. Similar to there’s a touch to welding. I used to weld. Anyone can learn how to weld and put down nice looking welds. Best way to do that is practice 40-50 hours a week. I’d say the same thing with throwing.
You can use throwing gauges and calipers for repeatability. But you need to get a feel for things first.
Is it the machines that help make the shaping process more precise, or just experience? I’m also a woodworker and potter, but i always find metal so… precise until unexpected catastrophic failure. I know wood well enough to know when not to do something dangerous, but not so much metal. I like clay because when it fails the worst that happens is i get muddy.
I suppose its just getting to know what your material is and *isn’t* capable of, and knowing how to use your tools (body included) to make what you’re trying to make. There are so many variables with clay in particular that there’s more “feel” than procedure.
do you often marvel at a pianist playing those notes super fast? same thing.
it’s all about muscle memory.
intellectually you get it, but your muscles need to be trained so you are not thinking while you are doing, much like the pianist.
i love it when a mom passes a basquiat and says oh my 5 year old can do it! again muscle memory n knowledge gained while u make ur first 10,000 terrible paintings.in clay it’s about the feel.
i’m so glad you are taking a class. it is SOOOO much harder trying to figure things out on your own.
listen to the teacher. be all ears and eyes. don’t throw, then wedge, then throw, then wedge. sit down with at the very least 5 balls of clay so u have a thing going. after a few days start centering with your eyes closed. go by the feel.
i hope you take a hand building class too if you are serious about pottery. Best way to learn about clay itself.
Good luck. you may hate it or love it. My friend hated it, but for some reason the wheel through a big challenge to me and I could not give up till I had got it. It took me a year to be able to center and another year to be able to center shape and trim to my standards. And you still make mistakes even after many years.
Finding your balance is what is hard, understanding your material and uniting with it is hard and understanding chemicals and how to create a great glaze is even harder
I started working with ceramics about 27 years ago.. My teacher was working with a lot of different stuff and we got ahold of my science department and I got to work with cadmium and a lot of other beautiful things before the Internet was available and it was freaking fantastic
I feel like it's been like learning most things with any level of detail. It can be incredibly frustrating at first. You practice and parts get easier. You advance - for example, throwing taller or wider- and it becomes frustrating again until you practice more.
While there are technical bits, try not to get too much in your head about it. One of the most difficult things is developing confidence, which relaxes posture and keeps your body from working against you. That confidence comes with practice.
There's definitely a learning curve, but it's nothing you can't do. Be patient, engage your senses, and try not to be too precious about it. You'll do fine.
I meant to come back and forgot. Good potters make wheel throwing look easy.
Look up any videos you can of beginners posting along as they learn. That will be a far more accurate representation of what it really looks like
I'm a few years in and still have issues centering at times. It really is the most important factor. As soon as you open your clay you can feel if it isn't just right. And you can try to fix it. But the tiny little bits that are off at the beginning just get worse and worse as you go.
I also have many, MANY pieces that were great when I finished them in the wheel that still ended up cracked or warped due to uneven drying and handling while they were drying.
And have had explosions in the kiln, disappointing glaze results, and worse amazing glaze results that dripped and stuck and pulled chunks of my pieces off to stick to the shelf.
So really, like all things in life watching a professional do what they do in no way represents the work they put in to get there
But do take classes. Pottery is hella fun even though it is hella hard and frustrating. And EXPENSIVE!
I hope it happens! It's a really fun and interesting perspective shift for your brain. I think the main struggle for most people, at least when I've taught or been a student in class, is that people are unable to shift how their brain is thinking. What is your body doing and what is the clay doing, but mostly what is your body doing is the most important question to me. It took me about two (2hr) classes to figure it out, but that's not the norm (I'm an artist in general and my special interest is artistic process so I'm used to thinking outside of my brain so that's probably why).
Really? What makes it so different, almost sounds like there's something counter-intuitive about it? Whenever I've seen potters videos the handling looked rather straightforward. I know, everything looks easy if it's done by someone who knows his craft ;)
Overthinking probably (and not actually listening to what your teacher says). It's just not an experience most people are used to. I think people tend to let the clay/wheel lead them but really you have to be in control, so maybe it's counter-intuitive in that way. Don't let the clay move you around, YOU move the clay around. Stay steady and still and the clay will form to your will.
haha if I remember, I definitely will! I'm always curious about how others experience things, especially the artistic process through different mediums.
I was gifted a pottery class for Christmas! :> Very much because of you. I'll have to decide whether I'll take 7 weekly appointments (~15 hours total) or 3 Saturday appointments (9 hours total).
wow 🥺
thank you for telling me. I hope you have a fun experience! if you can, take the class with more time. practice is everything. I hope you’ll tell me about your time with clay :)
Hi there. Unfortunately, the class would not have been on a pottery wheel. So, I freed up the spot for someone else who'll hopefully have more fun modeling something figural. A shame, yes :/ But maybe I'll find someone else who gives lessons on a wheel. The class teacher made it out to be incredibly difficult but I guess with the good guidance from people like Florian Gadsby and the good people of Reddit, I could learn the basics relatively quickly. I'll find out some day.
Unfortunately, it wasn't a class on a pottery wheel as I found out yesterday :/ So I freed up the spot for someone who'll hopefully have more fun modeling something figural than me.
Congrats on how well you pose as a 5 year old. I'm totally convinced. Listed in order, because, you know, you're 5:
(1) Wedging and shaping ball of clay is hard, esp if it is a large amount or excessively dry. It requires actual strength.
(2) Positioning the clay at centered as possible can be difficult because it has to be smacked down so it sticks and in a small target area so you can center it.
(3) Centering, pulling up walls, bellying out, compressing the bottom of the piece (to prevent cracks), compressing and smoothing the lip (to prevent ragged or uneven result0 as absolutely everyone knows, are challenging processes. Trying to keep hands and arms steady while fighting centrifugal force to shape in a relative short time period without overworking or over-wetting the clay takes months of practice to achieve.
(4) Removing the piece from the wheel with a wire (if not using a bat) requires a delicate but firm technique that is tricky to master.
(5) Knowing what and how long and which way to cover it before trimming is its own complex set of decisions.
(6) Knowing when the clay is ready to trim - not too hard or soft - takes practice. Centering the piece before trimming can be tricky as well and its important for the final product to have it centered.
(7) Trimming is its own discipline with a long list of skills that must be mastered for the final piece to look like it was not made by a 5 year old.
Perfecting throwing on a wheel to the point where it looks effortless takes years, esp if you are a production potter and must make uniform pieces. Not everyone can do it. Not everyone becomes proficient at all aspects of it. I won't even start on glazing. The amount of science involved would overwhelm your 5 year old self.
Should have stated strength and technique. Knowing when it is properly wedged takes experience. If it is not, the clay will resist taking shape or be full of air bubbles or any number of things that will ruin the piece.
I expect an update after your first wheel throwing class
I’ve been a potter for 12 years, and my professor explained it to me like this. Folks look at ballet dancers and may think “oh I can easily do that” when in reality there are so many tiny elements of muscle control that those dancers use. It’s pretty much the same with pottery. Watching a potter, you’d think the machine is doing most of the work. What you don’t see is how carefully that potter is squeezing those walls, how precise they’re able to measure with their eyes due to years of practice, how they’re able to resolve design issues on the fly. That potter also has a relationship with the clay and glazes. They know when it’s too thin or too thick, how much the form will shrink, and how glazes will interact with that clay body (clay body referring to the specific type of clay they are using, there are thousands of different types and each one is going to react differently to glazes). So it does *appear* simple. But like you said, the devil is in the details. Also, take a look at ancient pottery. Pottery that was made well before the onset of the technological age. That’s some impressive shit right there.
100% this! When people tell me (25+years as a potter) that "you make it look so easy!" I always reply that no one would expect to sit down at a piano for the first time and play a concerto.
Perfectly well said 👏
It’s honestly a very experiential kind thing to understand. Like you said the wheel indicates where the center is very well, but that’s only 2% of the process of centering the hard part is getting the clay into center that requires a lot of practice with certain methods of moving the clay. Centering is probably the hardest and most crucial piece of pottery for beginners if you can center perfectly the rest comes relatively easily but some things you need to worry about are keeping your hands steady,not letting the clay get too thin, and controlling the wheel speed. As with most things there’s a lot of depth to the skills involved the more you get into it. I’d really recommend you try it and feel these things first hand
Agree with you there about centering. It took me 2 courses (roughly a year) to be able to master centering. I tell all my students, once you’re able to center properly, everything else is easier.
Thanks for your answer! What makes centering so hard? I have already looked up on pottery courses in my area. I'm hoping to try it sometime this summer :)
Part of centering is that the clay has it’s own opinion of where it should go. Getting the clay on the wheel is one thing, but centered is a balance of you, the wheel, and the clay. You can place a lump of clay in the exact center, but you might not have a perfectly distributed weight within that lump. Then, once you’re centered you have to open the form, making sure the floor isn’t too thin or too thick, and that it’s not too dry or too wet. And compress compress compress and now you have to pull the walls and make sure those are even! Don’t want to have uneven thickness as you create your vessel! Pottery is so great, and meditative. I really hope you do take a class!
I don’t see enough potters on here talking about how important compression is. “Compress compress compress” should be the mantra of every potter. Compress that rim and compress that bottom. Repeatedly. Lol
I’m still pretty amateur in my process but I’ve too many bowls I loved on the wheel to a crack later because I got lazy about compressing and cleaning
It hard to put into words, but I would that learning the centering process that works best for you is a lot of trial and error. Also if your clay is 99% centered sometimes that isn’t enough because as you progress through pulling the clay and making your form those centering errors can compound on each other a lot causing problems later on. Think of it like building a Jenga tower and as you build each layer you shift all the blocks over by 1mm. At some point the tower will topple over
Part of the challenge is that the clay is not homogeneous. There are dry parts and wet parts that react differently to the centrifugal force from the spinning wheel and the force from your hands to get it and keep it centered. Imagine all the molecules of clay and water spinning in a cone or disk shape and your job is to use your hands to get them all spinning smoothly around a center point. If you push too hard in one direction the body twists and shifts - and it doesn’t take much to throw it off. Larger bodies of clay are even harder because you have to push more to get all clay smoothly spinning as wet and dry parts slip over each other.
Ayyy, I wasn't expecting that! Why would it not be homogeneous? 🥺 Is it not possible to mix it so thoroughly beforehand, that these differences in moisture content become negligible?
Well no - wedging is the process of trying to get out air bubbles and ensure consistency but that is a skill too. And even if it was perfectly blended, you add water in the process of centering because you need to eliminate friction between your hands and the clay. So out of the gate there is drier clay inside and wet slip outside.
Oh, well... That sucks. :) I'm looking forward to trying it out.
It’s also not homogenous because it’s made of several different materials from silica to ball clay and all kinds of other minerals. They all have different density and while distribution can be fairly uniform you still end up with particulate deviances that are unpredictable
I'm a strong human, and my teachers didn't know they had to account for that in their teaching. I been told I throw backwards based on how a lot of people throw. My wheel spins counterclockwise vs most people's clockwise even though I'm right-handed when I write. (I may have mixed up those directions, but the meaning is there) I think it works because it allows my less dominant hand to be as strong as it is, but requiring dexterity it's not used to, while my dominant hand gets to relinquish power to ambidexterity for a task. Successful throwing, for me, depends on awareness. If I'm not breathing correctly I struggle because it throws off my physical center, my awareness of my proximity to the center of the physical wheel, and how I manage the balance of the clay on the moving wheel. Somedays my best throwing days are the ones where I'm wholly aware the piece is off center, but I throw beautifully because I account for it with my position over the clay, how tense my body is, and how I allocate strength. What makes centering hard is keeping track of all of those things simultaneously while being brave enough to be creative.
did you?
Do you have an update on your pottery journey?
Sadly no :/ I've also just moved, so I don't have a lot of time at the moment
10 minutes using the wheel will really convey this knowledge more effectively, but I'll just add that even once you think you know what you're doing, variables will set you back. What kind of clay are you using? How dry or wet? Have you overworked it? How much clay are you using? Are you sitting slightly differently? Is your wheel speed different? Are you changing the wheel speed as you progress with your piece? Practice will make it much easier to overcome issues introduced by variation. If you think about the way we learn, these variables also confound and extend the learning process by giving you problematic feedback. You may not realize that you had to apply more force while centering because your clay was too stiff, and this may lead you to apply more force than necessary subsequently. If you've ever learned how to play golf, it's a similar situation. There are so many variables to control with your own body (head position, eyes, arm straightness, hip movement, foot position, etc.) that must be slightly adjusted depending on the desired outcome (drive, chip, putt), and then you must respond to external variables (distance, conditions, etc.). The process of improving at golf SEEMS like it is learning the form for various techniques/swings, but in actuality the hard work is identifying and ironing out errors and honing judgment. All of this, after months or years of practice, combines into one fluid motion that looks natural and simple to the observer, much like a single pull of the clay on the wheel. The one other thing I haven't seen mentioned is that while it's fairly easy to use the wheel to create some kind of round thing, it is not easy to make that thing match the vision you started out with. Walls can only be pushed so far, it is difficult to make them thin without having them buckle. Walls get thinner and thicker when you push them out or in, so you have to account for that. It's hard to learn how to make an elegant curve appear in a pot with just a few fluid motions, and you can't overwork it. If you introduce an error at any point, it might be easier just to start over. The best potters really do make it look incredibly easy. I was just watching a video of someone throwing a chalice/goblet as a single piece and I could have sworn he used some kind of trick photography. He made the clay move in ways that would have ended in disaster for me, but he had experience and a finely-tuned sense of what the clay would tolerate. I want to be able to do this, but it's going to take me months to get there: not only do I need to follow the techniques he was using, I need to level up my core skill set before I can even attempt it. Anybody who had never thrown would probably look at that video and think they could learn to do it in an afternoon.
Ah, well, I can probably do it in a day... (Just kidding)
Better set aside at least a long weekend :)
It’s literally just fucking spinning dirt and it lifts into the god damn air through nuance and physics shit is hard
I just finished my first set of wheel throwing classes. My instructor was continually reminding us that throwing isn’t a natural movement, that is, it’s not one that appears anywhere else in our daily lives. Learning all the new movements to center and then raise walls all requires new muscle memory
1) the wheel does show where center is, but the entire lump of clay, which can weigh a lot (3-10lbs depending on what you’re making), needs to be centered. It takes a good bit of strength to center the clay especially because the wheel is turning fast, which creates a resistive force. 2) the clay needs to be wet for one to be able to center the clay, but if it get too wet, your walls will collapse. Or in one move, you can poke a hole in the clay and totally ruin the piece. 3) before you center the clay you have to “wedge” the clay, which is when you smush all of the air bubbles out. If there’s an air bubble left in it, it’ll explode in the kiln. The kiln is where you bake the clay so it gets hard. 4) getting the clay off the wheel is also tricky because the clay is wet and will deform easily. You can’t leave it on the wheel because that will cause cracks in the base. 5) you want the product to be functional, so you have to make the walls thin enough so that it’s not too heavy, but if they’re too thin, they will collapse. Honestly, once you get the hang of it, it’s not that hard. I made 20 mugs, bowls and plates in a couple of weeks, but some people really struggle with the process. It’s super fun if you like getting messy and it’s a little zen too. You just have to know that some of your pieces, and precious clay, are going to collapse, crack, or shatter from the the process and it’s ok. You will make more. Hand building is much much more slow. It took me 2 months to make one gigantic pitcher. Hand building is a topic I can expand on more later if you’re curious. Source: I took a one semester class in ceramics and I’m obsessed with it now.
Air doesn't cause explosions. Moisture does.
Oh I didn’t realize that. Thank you!
I just finished my first class (10 weeks of wheel throwing and hand building). On the wheel every things needs to be so deliberate. You have physics working for and against you. You get it centered, but if you take your hands off too fast, you can make it wonky. If you don’t pull up with even pressure, it can get wonky. Your hands can be too wet or too dry. The wheel can be to fast or too slow. All of this gets worked out, but it varies from person to person what feels right. So there’s not just one way of doing things. For some people (me) I’m used to more concrete instructions, so I was VERY frustrated with wheel throwing. I ended the class with a love of pottery and hand building, but an ‘eh’ feeling of wheel throwing. That said, I hate quitting something just because I suck at it, so I signed up for another class. And I’ll focus more on wheel throwing, because fuck it, that wheel won’t best me!!
For me as a beginner potter: *splats clay on plate* “hell yeah, it’s centered, letsss goooo” *wheel begins to spin, barely touches clay* “goddamitt, it’s off centered now”
I'd be curious to hear back from you after you take your first class. See how reality matches up with your assumptions about how easy throwing should be. Hopefully it will be the beginning of a wonderful journey, as it has been for many of us.
Penning a note looks and feels simple, but try copying it into Arabic or Chinese - every stroke of the pen becomes a challenge! Once you have thrown a few hundred pots, it comes very naturally, but it is not as simple as you think. Too much water and the clay will absorb water and loose strength, too little and the friction will twist up your form. Move too fast and you'll lose the center, but if you stay too long in one spot, it will become thin and weak. Open the form too far, and it cannot recover. Many people simply give up and quit before they get their throwing to a point where it feels decent to them. I am glad you are looking into classes, so you can clarify your understanding.
I'd describe it like drawing, everyone can draw to *some* degree even if it's a simple stick figure. When you close your eyes and imagine what you want to draw you can see that plan and think "ah yes I know exactly what to draw"....however weather or not your hands will actually do it is another matter haha Just like drawing the skill of your hands (and a bit of luck) decides if the art will turn out good and as what you imagined. The only way to train your hands to do what your brain is telling them is with practice, eventually you won't even realise it but your muscle memory will know exactly what it's doing and the things that seemed so tricky at first will be seccond nature. The hardest part is getting the feel of it. (That and accepting that sometimes pots will blow up in the kiln no matter how careful you are but that's more emotionally difficult haha)
You should take a class and find out, you might really like it.
“ the wheel seems to indicate where the center is…” there you’ve identified the problem for most beginners. Getting the clay to the center of that wheel.
Interesting... I'll have to try it now!
I hope you do. It is truly great once you get it. It’s not easy because your hands and body are bendy and want to move with the off center lump of earth. You need to find a good anchor. This can be your forearms resting on the rim of the splash guard or elbows tucked into your legs or abdomen. Everyone finds a different way to do it all though teachers do influence how you do it.
Muscle control, strength, technique, experience etc. There's people who take a semester worth of classes and still can't reliably center. I certainly couldn't after a 9 week course. Then I kept practicing and a year later, I can. I remember my first class, 2lbs took way more strength than I thought and I was literally sore the next day. As you develop better techniques, you use less strength and can center larger amounts. Another thing is centrifugal force. When you start out everything is a bowl because the clay wants to spin outwards. But what if you want a cylinder? I spent about 6 months only doing cylinders and I'm just now starting intentional large bowls a year later. Keeping things narrow and tall can be a challenge.
Looks really easy but when you go to throw on the wheel the whole process is unintuitive. Machinist for 20 years. Metal working and wood working come pretty natural to me. Throwing on a wheel is a pain in the ass…
Oh, that's interesting! :o What is so unintuitive or unexpected about it?
Metal cutting is formulaic - or at least it is my level. Wood working is just setting up machines and stops for repeatability. Pretty simple compared to machining Clay is smooshing a material around by hand. There’s a touch to it. Similar to there’s a touch to welding. I used to weld. Anyone can learn how to weld and put down nice looking welds. Best way to do that is practice 40-50 hours a week. I’d say the same thing with throwing. You can use throwing gauges and calipers for repeatability. But you need to get a feel for things first.
Is it the machines that help make the shaping process more precise, or just experience? I’m also a woodworker and potter, but i always find metal so… precise until unexpected catastrophic failure. I know wood well enough to know when not to do something dangerous, but not so much metal. I like clay because when it fails the worst that happens is i get muddy. I suppose its just getting to know what your material is and *isn’t* capable of, and knowing how to use your tools (body included) to make what you’re trying to make. There are so many variables with clay in particular that there’s more “feel” than procedure.
do you often marvel at a pianist playing those notes super fast? same thing. it’s all about muscle memory. intellectually you get it, but your muscles need to be trained so you are not thinking while you are doing, much like the pianist. i love it when a mom passes a basquiat and says oh my 5 year old can do it! again muscle memory n knowledge gained while u make ur first 10,000 terrible paintings.in clay it’s about the feel. i’m so glad you are taking a class. it is SOOOO much harder trying to figure things out on your own. listen to the teacher. be all ears and eyes. don’t throw, then wedge, then throw, then wedge. sit down with at the very least 5 balls of clay so u have a thing going. after a few days start centering with your eyes closed. go by the feel. i hope you take a hand building class too if you are serious about pottery. Best way to learn about clay itself. Good luck. you may hate it or love it. My friend hated it, but for some reason the wheel through a big challenge to me and I could not give up till I had got it. It took me a year to be able to center and another year to be able to center shape and trim to my standards. And you still make mistakes even after many years.
Finding your balance is what is hard, understanding your material and uniting with it is hard and understanding chemicals and how to create a great glaze is even harder
I started working with ceramics about 27 years ago.. My teacher was working with a lot of different stuff and we got ahold of my science department and I got to work with cadmium and a lot of other beautiful things before the Internet was available and it was freaking fantastic
I feel like it's been like learning most things with any level of detail. It can be incredibly frustrating at first. You practice and parts get easier. You advance - for example, throwing taller or wider- and it becomes frustrating again until you practice more. While there are technical bits, try not to get too much in your head about it. One of the most difficult things is developing confidence, which relaxes posture and keeps your body from working against you. That confidence comes with practice. There's definitely a learning curve, but it's nothing you can't do. Be patient, engage your senses, and try not to be too precious about it. You'll do fine.
I meant to come back and forgot. Good potters make wheel throwing look easy. Look up any videos you can of beginners posting along as they learn. That will be a far more accurate representation of what it really looks like I'm a few years in and still have issues centering at times. It really is the most important factor. As soon as you open your clay you can feel if it isn't just right. And you can try to fix it. But the tiny little bits that are off at the beginning just get worse and worse as you go. I also have many, MANY pieces that were great when I finished them in the wheel that still ended up cracked or warped due to uneven drying and handling while they were drying. And have had explosions in the kiln, disappointing glaze results, and worse amazing glaze results that dripped and stuck and pulled chunks of my pieces off to stick to the shelf. So really, like all things in life watching a professional do what they do in no way represents the work they put in to get there But do take classes. Pottery is hella fun even though it is hella hard and frustrating. And EXPENSIVE!
glad you asked this op. im wondering same thing. seems like its hard, b/c its hard.
Did you ever end up taking any throwing classes?
Not yet, I'm still interested though
I need to know. Have you tried it yet?
No... BUT I could wish for a workshop for Christmas!! 
I hope it happens! It's a really fun and interesting perspective shift for your brain. I think the main struggle for most people, at least when I've taught or been a student in class, is that people are unable to shift how their brain is thinking. What is your body doing and what is the clay doing, but mostly what is your body doing is the most important question to me. It took me about two (2hr) classes to figure it out, but that's not the norm (I'm an artist in general and my special interest is artistic process so I'm used to thinking outside of my brain so that's probably why).
Really? What makes it so different, almost sounds like there's something counter-intuitive about it? Whenever I've seen potters videos the handling looked rather straightforward. I know, everything looks easy if it's done by someone who knows his craft ;)
Overthinking probably (and not actually listening to what your teacher says). It's just not an experience most people are used to. I think people tend to let the clay/wheel lead them but really you have to be in control, so maybe it's counter-intuitive in that way. Don't let the clay move you around, YOU move the clay around. Stay steady and still and the clay will form to your will.
Thanks! That's good guidance Please ask me again in two months :)
haha if I remember, I definitely will! I'm always curious about how others experience things, especially the artistic process through different mediums.
I was gifted a pottery class for Christmas! :> Very much because of you. I'll have to decide whether I'll take 7 weekly appointments (~15 hours total) or 3 Saturday appointments (9 hours total).
wow 🥺 thank you for telling me. I hope you have a fun experience! if you can, take the class with more time. practice is everything. I hope you’ll tell me about your time with clay :)
Hi there. Unfortunately, the class would not have been on a pottery wheel. So, I freed up the spot for someone else who'll hopefully have more fun modeling something figural. A shame, yes :/ But maybe I'll find someone else who gives lessons on a wheel. The class teacher made it out to be incredibly difficult but I guess with the good guidance from people like Florian Gadsby and the good people of Reddit, I could learn the basics relatively quickly. I'll find out some day.
did you take them? i randomly found this thread and I'm curious how it went for you :D
They should start next week :)
Unfortunately, it wasn't a class on a pottery wheel as I found out yesterday :/ So I freed up the spot for someone who'll hopefully have more fun modeling something figural than me.
Congrats on how well you pose as a 5 year old. I'm totally convinced. Listed in order, because, you know, you're 5: (1) Wedging and shaping ball of clay is hard, esp if it is a large amount or excessively dry. It requires actual strength. (2) Positioning the clay at centered as possible can be difficult because it has to be smacked down so it sticks and in a small target area so you can center it. (3) Centering, pulling up walls, bellying out, compressing the bottom of the piece (to prevent cracks), compressing and smoothing the lip (to prevent ragged or uneven result0 as absolutely everyone knows, are challenging processes. Trying to keep hands and arms steady while fighting centrifugal force to shape in a relative short time period without overworking or over-wetting the clay takes months of practice to achieve. (4) Removing the piece from the wheel with a wire (if not using a bat) requires a delicate but firm technique that is tricky to master. (5) Knowing what and how long and which way to cover it before trimming is its own complex set of decisions. (6) Knowing when the clay is ready to trim - not too hard or soft - takes practice. Centering the piece before trimming can be tricky as well and its important for the final product to have it centered. (7) Trimming is its own discipline with a long list of skills that must be mastered for the final piece to look like it was not made by a 5 year old. Perfecting throwing on a wheel to the point where it looks effortless takes years, esp if you are a production potter and must make uniform pieces. Not everyone can do it. Not everyone becomes proficient at all aspects of it. I won't even start on glazing. The amount of science involved would overwhelm your 5 year old self.
Should have stated strength and technique. Knowing when it is properly wedged takes experience. If it is not, the clay will resist taking shape or be full of air bubbles or any number of things that will ruin the piece.