Don't Go To Pot--"throw" A Pot With A Pottery Wheel And Supplies

"Throwing" ceramic pots is the term that is used to change wet clay into a vessel on a rapidly spinning pottery wheel.

However, pottery wasn't always formed on a spinning wheel. In fact, humanity used other forms of containers before they used clay pots. It is thought that around 10,000 BC in Japan, clay pots were first recorded in history.

The pottery making art form is entrancing to watch and always enticing to try. However, it is not as easy as it looks. It takes great skill and practice to form a beautiful pot as it spins.

Historians believe that when cultures had progressed from nomadic lifestyles to agrarian--farming—lifestyles, the art of pottery was born. For nomadic cultures, pottery would have been too heavy to lug around on the backs of animals, as people moved from one location to another.

Before the advent of the pottery wheel, the earliest pots were tediously created by hand, one pot at a time. No two were alike.

However, around 3,000 BC in Mesopotamia, history records the first pottery wheel. It was very slow because the pottery wheel was a turntable. Potters were able to place the pot on the turntable to see it on all sides. This was an important development in that it made all sides of the pot even. Since they were still creating pots by hand, this first pottery wheel did not increase production, but made the pot more symmetrical.

In Egypt, hieroglyphics reveal the development of a pottery industry that was spurred on by the pottery wheel. The expansion of pottery making occurred because the potters developed a stand on which to place their turntables. This made it possible for the wheel to spin more quickly. These advanced pottery wheels made it possible to create more complex pieces of earthen art.

In the 19th century French potters were able to develop the momentum wheel that had a combination of low friction and a high spinning speed. Although pottery making is an ancient art, This invention moved the pottery wheel and supplies world from the coiling method at the beginning of the pottery age to the "throwing" of pots today.

The latest advance in the wheels is to make them electric. There are also specially designed children's wheels as well. Pottery tool kits are not very expensive, generally priced at less than $10. The wheels, however, can range from a low of $26.95 all the way up to $548.88. Kilns are generally more expensive investments, some running as high as $679.99.

So if someone should tell you to go to pot, maybe you should ask them to buy you a pottery wheel and supplies.


Copyright (c) 2011 Sandra Tiffany