Hi! I’m Jane Cullum from Manassas Clay and I’m going to show you how to throw pot on a wheel.

Right now, we’re going to prepare the clay for throwing. What you want to do is start out with a chunk of clay that fits your hands nicely and I’m cutting it with a wire, and this will end up to be about a little more than a pound of a clay. And you want to wrap the clay back up and secure the top because the clay gets stiff very quickly, that’s allowed to be out in the air. Now, I’m going to take my bowl of clay and start wedging. Wedging is a kneading process and we do it for three reasons. First, to get rid of any air bubbles. Second, to make the clay homogeneous and third to make the clay more plastic.

What I’m doing, you just call the rim’s head wedge and the way to do it is you take your piece of clay and put it down on the surface. Then using the sides of your thumbs pushed down, walk the clay back up, give it a twist, walk the clay back up, and you do this about 10 times, one direction and set it upon its end and do it about 10 times the second.

Now, we’re going to cut the clay in half and check for air bubbles and as you can see, there’s no air bubble. If there were, you’d have to wedge a little bit more or to put the clay back to it together and you throw it, and then give it a couple more turns and then pat the clay into a bowl. This is the wedging process. Now the clay is ready to throw.