Dan Mack

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Here are my 5 biggest tips! 1. Don’t obsess over removing every bit of clay at the base. For larger forms, the skirt of clay where the piece meets the wheel is actually helping stabilize the walls. Master potters throwing large moon jars often leave plenty of clay at the base until the form is finished. Your walls should still be thin, but leaving extra clay where the piece attaches to the wheel gives the form a solid foundation to compress and helps keep wide shapes stable. 2. Slow hands on, even slower hands off! One of the easiest ways to knock a piece off center is letting go too quickly. If you’re applying pressure and suddenly release your hands, the clay will almost always pull to one side. Especially while shaping, I intentionally ease the pressure off over several seconds instead of pulling my hands away all at once. 3. Keep your outside hand rigid and let the clay come to it. One of the biggest keys to staying centered is having a stable outside hand. As you’re throwing, the clay should be pushed into that outside hand rather than your outside hand chasing the clay. If that hand moves unevenly or wobbles, the clay will follow it. Keep your outside hand well-braced and let the clay move into it. 4. Staying centered happens during every stage of the process. You’re never really “done” centering. From the moment you touch the clay to opening, pulling, shaping, drying, and even trimming, every step affects whether the piece stays in center. If you’re unable to open the clay evenly or you shape with uneven pressure, you’ll spend the rest of the process battling a wobble. Mastering the basics is still the fastest way to throw better pots, and that often involves throwing simply for practice, knowing which step you’re going out of center, and figuring out why. 5. Drying can undo everything. You can throw a perfectly centered vase and still lose it if it dries unevenly. A draft or sunlight hitting one side can pull the form out of shape. I’ll often let larger pieces slowly stiffen on the wheel while spinning, or dry them inside a large cardboard box loosely covered with plastic so the airflow stays very even before trimming.

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A look through the sketchbook behind almost every vase I’ve made over the last year. It’s a reminder that good design usually comes from refining an idea, not reinventing it. #ceramics #pottery #studiopottery #ceramicdesign #sketchbook

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Ceramic artists love to say they attach handles to their mug in a way that looks so natural it feels like it grew out of the cup itself… but I’m not sure anyone has ever been fooled. A handle always looks quite unbalanced to me and in the best examples it doesn’t look like it came from the mug but instead just feels like it speaks the same exact design language as the mug and they can sit together in harmony no matter how asymmetrical the addition might be…. . #hottake #ceramicartists #sfartist #handmadecup #designprocess