Forming Clay for a Salt Cellar

Series Summary

Making pottery is the art of creating earthenware vessels from clay. The process involves shaping a vessel, by hand or with tools, and cooking it in a kiln. Mankind has been making pottery since the times we first learned about fire. Ancient civilizations used pottery for all sorts of things, from storing oil, wine, and other foodstuffs, to holding papyrus scrolls, the organs of dead god-kings, perfumes, and various religious offerings. Because pottery is durable and lasts long after its creator is gone, it has helped us to learn about entire groups of people that we might have otherwise never known; these hand-crafted objects tell stories, not only from their complex structural designs, but also the carefully wrought stories painted on their surfaces, a sort of iconography of a time and place in history. In this free video clip series this clay expert will be addressing the art of pottery forming and molding the clay with your hands. She will include several examples of natural hand movements you can use to create life in your pieces as well as several creative ideas for new and interesting designs no one has thought of yet. This will make each piece you make special and unique. You will learn tricks for scoring edges of clay, attaching them and even how to apply handles to a pouring bowl. Take a look at these great videos and go play in the mud!

Video Transcript

"A good thing to learn, throwing on the wheel, is to make closed-in forms, where the base is wide and the top is narrow. I've got a couple of examples here. One, this is a salt cellar. And what this is for, you put salt in the top hole and you keep this on your stove when you're cooking and you can poor the salt out the side hole so that you don't have to shake your salt shaker over and over. And of course this is a soap pump. And I have attached a collar to this soap pump, so that you don't have to have the cork style soap pump. So, for this form I'm going to use about a pound of clay. Get my scale. And for this form anywhere from a pound to a pound and three quarters. Unless you want a really big soap pump, you can go bigger than that. Got a little bit over a pound and a half so that will be just about right. And now I'll show you how to make these projects on the wheel."