Plasticity is “the ability to undergo deformation without cracking.” The easiest way to determine a clay’s plasticity is using the “coil” test where a sample of clay is taken, rolled into a coil, and ...

In this method, a fist-sized ball of clay is pinched into the shape of a bowl: first an indent is pressed into the center and then the walls are squeezed, or pinched, to the desired thickness. In the ...

Skilled artisans shape the clay using techniques such as wheel throwing, coil building, or hand molding. Once shaped, the pottery is carefully dried to prevent cracking. Afterward, it's fired in a ...

Set the pottery aside to dry for several weeks, or longer, and then fire it. You can learn more complex pottery production techniques, like coil pottery, after learning the basics with these “pinch ...

Charles S. King’s new book, Spoken Through Clay: Native Pottery in the Southwest, The Eric S. Dobkin Collection, is spectacularly heavy —which is a problem from a practical standpoint ...

Image Simpson starts a new sculpture in her studio using the coil method, a traditional pottery technique for building up a vessel by hand.Credit...Minesh Bacrania for The New York Times ...

Her clay extruder certainly beats making coils by hand like we did in art class growing up! Leaving the coils wrapped in a tarp allows her to batch the process coils and leave them for several ...