Great Clay
It’s been nice to get back to throwing again after a few weeks of glazing and doing shows. Every time that I start back after such a long time off, I have kind of a slow start getting back in the groove. It just takes me a couple of hours to get the feel of the clay and be reasonably efficient. I’m not a production potter, and I tend to work 6 to 12 similar pieces at a time. I’m not concerned at all about making identical pieces. When, as I did over the last few days, I’m making teapots, I caliper each one to make an individual lid. I don’t make all of the lids the same size. I want to look at each form independently when I’m working on it, and make subtle variations accordingly. This approach supports the evolution of the form over time, as I see new possibilities and directions to explore.
Just a couple of years ago, it could take me a day or two to get comfortable throwing after a week or two doing other things. Part of the reason for the improvement is that I’m now throwing with clay bodies of much improved consistency and plasticity. I use three bodies: B-Mix; Anapau (a cone 12 variant of Coleman Porcelain); and a 50/50 blend of the two. I never throw with clay right out of the bag, and all clays for throwing are pugged in my VPM-20 Peter Pugger. Before I got the pug mill, I would never consider blending clay bodies because processing by hand would have been prohibitive in both time and effort. Reclaiming used to be a real problem also, and I would regularly spend a day or two a month trying to reclaim clay.
I originally bought the pug mill so that I could stop wedging. I throw with a relatively stiff clay, and the wedging was causing me real pain in the back of my right hand. After using the Peter Pugger for the last year or so I can say that the pugged clay is simply the best, most consistent and plastic that I’ve ever used. Surprisingly, de-airing has a significant positive impact on plasticity and produces clay that is much more plastic than if it were simply wedged.
The only time that I use clay out of the bag, is if I’m going to running it through my slab roller. Otherwise, I take the clay out of the bag, cut it into sections and allow it to stiffen overnight. Then the clay is pugged and extruded, and sections are cut to length for throwing. Most of the time now I’m throwing with the blended body, and I mix the B-Mix and Anapau by weight into the pugger. I clean the pug mill before switching bodies.
In any case, I’m a fan of the Peter Pugger. It really can process bone dry clay in around 45 minutes, and the tech support has been excellent. For more info on the VPM-20 go to http://www.peterpugger.com.