What is Throwing on the Potters Wheel?
What is throwing on the pottery wheel? Many years ago before I ever began working in clay, I had no real clue what throwing meant. I had envisioned a potter’s wheel going full speed and some hapless person literally throwing a piece of clay onto its surface with enough force to somehow make it stick. If you are in the same boat now, let me assure you that the above “method” is guaranteed to make a mess, not a pot! Throwing as a General Term When people talk about throwing pottery, they generally mean the process from the time the clay touches the wheel to the time the wheel is stopped. In this more general (and most commonly used) sense, throwing is the entire activity of shaping the clay on the potter’s wheel. The steps involved in throwing are: • Do-Ahead Preparations • Before Centering Preparations •
