Why make marks 1: The nature of the material.

One of the most wonderful features of clay is that it is plastic when it is wet. This means that you can move it, bend it, fold it - and make marks in it. Some of the earliest pots have rope or stick marks in them. I guess humans have always wanted to explore and see the consequences of their actions on materials.

This plasticity means that when you throw a pot on the wheel the clay moves with your hand movements. If you push it outwards to create a bowl, it will follow. And if you collar it inwards, gently moving your hands together to make a neck of a vase, or some such feature, it will also follow. You can’t move too quickly though as any sudden movements will mean that the clay will be thrown off balance and then will need to be brought back into line before you move on to the next step in the process of making.  

I love how the clay can move into lovely curves, and even spheres, when we are thinking about moon jars. And more recently I have so enjoyed marking the clay with my own sticks, often taken from the countryside around my home here in Kent. It’s a way of increasing the connection between me, the pot and it’s place in the world. In this way I can ever so slightly distort the shape, highlighting this quality in the material.

Once a pot is finished, then the next stage is to dry it out in order to remove all moisture before firing it. As the clay dries, it becomes brittle, fixing the marks made in it, but at this moment it is easily broken. It’s such a delicate stage of the making process where even a gentle knock can chip a bowl. If this happens, I will always try to recycle the clay so as not to waste it.

The next step is to fire the pot. I use an electric kiln (actually, at the moment I have two of them). I fire twice. The first time is called a biscuit firing, to around 1000⁰C. After this, the clay remains porous, and takes on the glaze by easily absorbing the water in which it is suspended. Then comes the final test for the material itself where the kilns are fired to stoneware temperatures. After this, those marks are permanently in the material and they can’t be changed; they are there for posterity.

The process of firing is a mixture of excitement and anxiety as all my creativity and energy has been lavished on the pot, but you only really see the results once the firing is complete and the kiln cooled to a low enough temperature to open it.