Ron Collins on tue 22 jan 02
Hi Martin, my friend in Costa Rica.....
Here are my suggestions, as I taught myself, and so can you.
1. always use soft clay. sounds like you are.
2. tiny pieces are harder than small ones, but struggling with large balls,
like you are, can impede learning, I think. Make small little casserole,
storage dip size bowls, and then work on making lids for them. French
butter keepers are a cool thing to make to practice lots of skills, and a
popular item. If Costa Rica is like Antigua, it is very formal and polite,
lots of parties, and you will need lots of hostess gifts to take, as they
are somewhat expected. As a potter, you'll never run out, plus you get your
work in their kitchen or house...good PR...Take a little ball of clay, after
you trim the lid, stick it on the lid, while it's still centered, use hair
dryer if it needs to be harder so you won't push it in, and throw a little
top handle for the lid. If you have a nice bowl you've struggled with, but
it's crooked on top and you can't fix it, and want to keep it, practice
fluting rims, and creating pleasing asymetry.
2.5. Use a hair dryer to help set things up and then work on it some more,
because as a new thrower, your piece will get soft from too much water and
working on it and may collapse, before you get it nicely shaped. All I know
is, if I am trying to throw exaggerated wide bowls,, it helps sometimes.
2.75. Your ribs shape your pieces, compress the bottoms, so you don't have
cracks, and standardize shapes you make that you like and want to repeat and
smooths the pieces. Depend on your ribs.
3. remember that the closer you stay to the wheelhead, the more control you
have. Working wide is much easier than working tall, for me, at least.
4. I don't know your skill level at the moment. so some suggestions might
be too simplistic, and you may be past that...
5. Do you have a video or two, or a book that you are referring to? I
heard that Robin Hopper's are very good videos. Ask the list for a
referral...
6. Remember there is always more than one good way to get the same results.
For example, I have a tremor, worse on the left hand, so some ways of
working that others use don't work for me, so I make a different route at
getting to the same place. Use sponges in my left hand for one thing.
But I do throw porcelain, not de-aired, which is like throwing cream cheese.
The most important thing I think is this: You learn to throw in your mind,
not your hands. When I was learning, each night, I put myself to sleep
seeing my hands locked together, centering the clay, doing even pulls,
truing up the rim, and expanding the walls. Just like I used to teach my
adult ED GED students to learn their multiplication tables by putting
themselves to sleep at night
going over them. (that was about the only quiet time some of them ever had!)
7. What kind of bats do you use?
8. Do you practice putting a thrown coil foot on a handbuilt piece? That's
a nice way to use the wheel more as a tool, than an end in itself for a
beginner.
I used to watch James Watkins take thrown sections, and put them
together to make these huge, tall pieces....it's not cheating...throw a
bowl, a section to stack on it, and put them together on the wheel.
8.5-my numbers got off----I don't have pieces warp, even though I use
plastibats, because I dry things on sheetrock, wrapped with duct tape on the
edge.
9. Never having had any throwing lessons, etc., I'm not the one to teach
throwing, I'm sure, but I'm all they've got here, I feel a kinship because
we both live "down south"...While I know zero about wood working, I tell
beginners, as I demonstrate throwing to them, that I think maybe it's a lot
like making a round intricate table leg on a wood lathe. The machine does
all the work. Your hands dont wave all around, you hold the metal punch
with two hands to steady it, just like in centering, and your hands do very
little, but they have to do it in an extremely skillful way. By the same
token, you don't take your metal tools and hold one at each end, and work
from both ends to the middle on the wood lathe, as you have to hold the
metal thing with two hands to steady it and have control. The same thing
with
centering and basic beginning throwing. You use your two hands as one
tool, held together, and let the machine do the work. Your hands do very
little, you hold them still, mostly,but they do it in an extremely skillful
way, which comes from practice. To me, when you try to center, separating
your hands, and having them push on both sides of the clay, you'll never get
the pretty "table leg"....if they keep moving their hands all around, trying
different things, then they won't get control, the machine/wheel-cannot do
it's work for you, and ir becomes hard going, and what I enjoy is showing
beginners how with four different basic movements, done methodically, they
will end up with plates that look alike. It creates a little confidence,
that things can improve.
But if you read posts from some of the real masters of this skill on
this list, who are nationally/internationally known.....even they seem to
reiterate that there is always more than one way to skin a cat. Let the
wheel do the work for you.....size hands, etc don't matter....I like a
kickwheel....you'll do great with one...that's what I learned on
I had a little seven year old boy, the baby couldn't even really read
yet, but boy could he throw-tiny little hands.......he moved back to
Princeton, NJ, taking with him a lifetime collection of salsa bowls.....his
mom is a dancer, dad a theatrical set designer in Dallas, so guess it does
run in families...right now, although I don't have or want a kid's class, I
usually have one talented kid that I will let come for an hour, if they will
act right. Kathia has a degenerative neurological disease, is 10 yrs. ,
can throw out a small slab, because she's not able to roll one, put in on a
bat, put in on the little york kickwheel, push it with the rubber end of the
crutch, and make good looking mirror/picture frame cutting out circles
inside and out with a needle tool and putting on some nice throwing rings
with her finger. She'll cut it off the plastibat, and I help her flip it
over onto the sheetrock. I mention these examples because It's all in
the mind and heart....your hands are secondary...I think that even the big
wheels on this list would tell you that.....
keep in touch...I will enjoy hearing about your experiences in Costa
Rica, especially 4 hours away from San Jose where you live.....our daughter
spent a summer around there, and we would like it, if you send e-mails of
your experiences to your friends/etc in US, if you would put us on the list,
as we can "relate"....Ron is a retired USAF pilot, grew up in Columbia and
Venezuela, and would also enjoy hearing of your observations of your new
life. Melinda Collins, Antigua, Guatemala
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