OD Practitioner

By Cheryl Lieberman

Clay is a remarkable and fascinating medium with which to work. It is hard to have a real clear plan in your head when you throw it because every mass of clay is different - even the same clay is different at different times. It can be stiff and dry or it can be wet and all over the place or it can be any texture in between. You learn this in the beginning as you wedge the clay. This is the time when you first interact with the clay and begin to think about the throwing approach you will need to take.

Regardless of the shape it is in, every piece of clay has potential. You simply cannot be too impatient when you work with it. Throwing a piece takes time and you must go one small step at a time. If you rush the process, you can lose what you are working on. If you don't go fast enough, the clay often just falls into a heap. If you try to do too much too soon, it is hard to salvage what you've started.

Centering the clay is the hardest part. You offer guidance and direction but the clay does the actual work. If you are too forceful, the clay will slide around and often fly off the wheel. If you do not offer enough support, the clay will just wobble haphazardly around the wheel. But if you are comfortable in your role and work gently and firmly with the clay, it will center. Only when the clay is centered can the actual throwing begin.

Part of the adventure with clay is not having a preconceived notion of what the end product will be. You may have a basic idea in mind but each wad of clay will not necessarily fit that idea. The joy of being an artist is to discover the clay - to watch it change direction and to begin to get a sense of where it will end up. Generally, you can do more with a piece of clay but often you stop at some point knowing that while it could be better, it is still better than it was when you started. When a piece is finished being thrown, you gently sever the piece from the wheel and carefully lift it onto a piece of wood to dry before the next phase begins.

After it dries, the piece must go through a first firing. The clay must do this alone. Some pieces do not survive the firing and others do. Some pieces blow up in the kiln from all the pressure. You never know which pieces will make it, but you hope they all do. Most pieces do make it, but they might have a slight crack or other imperfection. But since everything you tried to do was your best effort for that moment, you feel somewhat satisfied. You know there will be other moments when the clay must work alone to become a finished piece and that throughout the lifetime of a finished product, all kinds of problems will be possible - dropped by someone, scratched by another, cracked by another. And throughout the lifetime of each finished work, as these problems arise, some pieces will survive a long time and others won't. All you can do is your best for the time that you worked with the piece and then its fate is out of your hands.

After the first firing, you glaze the piece. You may have an idea of what the piece will look like when it is fired a second time; but, glazes will look one way one day and another way another day. Variety may occur even on the same piece. In addition, glazes do not look the same when you put them on as they will look when the piece is fired. Often, it is trial and error that helps you learn what to expect at least most of the time. So, again, you have an idea about outcome but the final product is still out of your control. It is really not in the clay's control either. In the kiln it becomes simply what it becomes - nothing more and nothing less. It just is.

When you finally look at the end product, sometimes you are pleased and sometimes you are not; sometimes you are satisfied and sometimes you are not. A lot also depends on how you feel on the day that you look at the piece. There is always more work that could be done to make it better. However the piece turned out, it is usually a lot better than the lump of clay with which you started. It may not be what you wanted it to be; it may not be what you thought it could be; it may not be what other people think it should be; but it is not what it once was.