Beginner Potters Pinch Their First Pot

Freshman+Trenten+Packett+smoothing+out+his+coil+pot+in+beginning+pottery+class.

Steven Hall

Freshman Trenten Packett smoothing out his coil pot in beginning pottery class.

Jina Bagheri

Students in beginning pottery made hollow spheres using pinch pot techniques at the beginning of second quarter and are currently working on coil mugs.

 

First students made hollow sphere bases where they could reshape. They started off by creating one clay ball, then they divided the clay ball in half and rolled each half into two separate spheres. The clay spheres were then “pinched” into a bowl shape. After this they attached each side to each other with a process called “scoring,” which helps each side stick to create one hollow ball. One student believed this project was simple.

“It was pretty straightforward,” freshman Eliana Wayoro said. “The directions were pretty easy to make the pinch pots.”

 

The students also made coil mugs. To make this they had to make circular shaped clay base. Then they formed their coils which they would “scratch attach” to the base and stack them on each other. Then they take their wooden sculpting tools to smooth out the mug. Some students found this project harder than their previous pinch pots.

“The pinch pots were easier to make while the coil pots were a little more difficult in my opinion.” junior Cole Harman said.

 

Beginning pottery students have more upcoming projects later this quarter where they will learn techniques such as slab, molds and wheel throwing.

 

“The hardest part for any beginning class is going to be the pottery wheel,” Pottery teacher, Mr. Sapp said. “It looks overly simple but it takes practice to do it.”