So todays little caption is going to be a little different
Im solely going to be talking about the relationship between an art pot such as this one and clay wall thickness.
The thickness of the walls is so important for odd shapes such as this one mainly because clay walls that are of uniform thickness dry more evenly. When the thickness varies, certain areas will dry faster than others, leading to cracking, warping, or deformities.
Playing around with your piece after you have thrown it, can cause certain areas to be thinner then other and can add to the risk of cracking, this is by no means unavoidable. Clay is a very lovely material to work with, it is one of the most forgiving materials too, and yes it may seem sometimes its quite the opposite 😂
Clay has a certain margin for error, you go past that point and there’s little you can do, but the margin is still there, deforming your pot may seem daunting, it may even fail the first time (mine certainly did) but it by no means should discourage you to try, working with your clay on a regular basis and pushing its boundaries gives you as a pottery a idea as to where its strengths and weaknesses are. You will learn how far you can push the clay and keep its integrity.
But a lot of this comes down to clay thickness too. Thick and thin sections of clay can create tension as they dry at different rates. This tension can result in cracking but most clays will allow a little bit of variations in wall thickness.
Most importantly, your walls are not too thin overall, as this can lead to crawling with certain glazes. But that can be for another post 😄
In closing, when you do make these pots, don’t throw the walls too thin a bit of thickness for you to work with once you start playing around with the shape, and when you do play around with the shape, take note as to how thin you may be making that section of the wall.
Hope you enjoyed this post and as always Happy Potting!!! 🥳🥳
