Pottery Pitcher: Wedging Clay

Video Transcript

"So today we are going to throw a pitcher. And a pitcher is a form used to pour out of so we are going to be demonstrating how to make a spout and put a handle on it. The first step is to get the necessary clay you need to make this form. The wire tool is important for cutting clay and makes the job easy and we just judge about how much we want for our pitcher and simply slice off the clay. Now it is important to wedge the clay because you want any air that is inside the clay to be extracted. This clay has come from the factory and it has gone through a pug mill and most of the air has been extracted. However, it is still important to wedge and as you can see we have a squared block here and that is hard to center. So wedging also prepares the clay for the wheel and we are just going to wedge the clay like this pushing the clay down on itself at the same time as pushing the clay in on itself. Now if this clay had air bubbles in it we might do this 40 or 50 times maybe more changing direction and rewedging, however, this clay is fairly well wedged and we are just going to close up any irregular holes. As you can see we have a nice spiral patent here on the clay which is going to make it easier when it comes time to throw. So we just pat this down and smooth it out and the more rounded you get it once again it is going to be, once we get it on to the wheel. Now we have a wedged piece of clay that is ready to be put on to a bat and thrown in to a pitcher and we'll be doing that next."