Centring is a lie (until it isn't)
For the first six weeks of the evening class I could not centre a pound of clay. I could get it to look centred for about four seconds, which is exactly long enough to open it and watch the walls go thick on one side and paper thin on the other.
The tutor kept saying the same three things: brace your elbow on your thigh, keep your hands still and let the wheel do the moving, and use less water than you think. I nodded every week and ignored all three, because the clay felt like it needed me to do something.
What changed
Nothing clever. I started wedging properly at home on a plaster bat, so the clay arrived without air pockets, and I slowed the wheel down. At about two thirds speed the clay stopped fighting and my hands stopped chasing it.
- Cone up twice, cone down twice, then stop touching it.
- Wet hands, not wet clay.
- If it wobbles after three tries, cut it off and start again. Pride is the most expensive material in the studio.
The first pot that ran true was an ugly little cylinder with a lumpy rim. I kept it. It holds pencils on the windowsill and reminds me that the problem was mostly patience.