Photo: Leo Reynolds / Flickr

Throwing a pot in this case does not refer to a chef having a tantrum in the kitchen. It is a pottery technique that allows one to create a round pot on a spinning wheel. The act of creating a pot on a wheel can be quite hypnotic, not only for the potter but for the watcher too. Although it seems like an effortless endeavour in the hands of an experienced potter, it requires a considerable amount of practice for a beginner.

About the potter’s wheel

The first potter’s wheel goes back a long way. It first appeared in China in the fourth millennium BC. The beginnings of the wheel occurred simultaneously in Mesopotamia. The wheel spread to the Egyptians by 2400 BC.

Without a wheel, a potter has to walk around the clay when making a large pot. The wheel thus allows a potter to conserve his or her energy, especially when the wheel is turned by a power source other than the potter.

Wheels turn in an anti-clockwise direction, although this is not the case in Japan.

The experience of throwing a pot

In his book Ceramics, Bryan Sentence discusses the technique of throwing a pot: ‘Once a lump of clay has been thrown on a wheel head the potter must fight centrifugal force and keep pushing the clay back to the middle or “centring” it, keeping the hands wet to avoid friction.’

He explains that from there, the potter must draw the form upwards so as to create a cone. He or she then ‘makes a depression and begins to pull the walls gradually upwards.’ The skill of throwing a pot can’t be learned from a book. The technique is best learned in a studio through practice.

Different forms

Sentence explains that with practice ‘all manner of hollow, rounded forms can be created on a wheel, some of which may be altered by squeezing, cutting and piercing.’ The form of the pot can also be changed by adding clay handles or spouts.

Once the pot reaches the leatherhard stage it can be further shaped by shaving away unwanted clay.

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