Week in the Life of a Blessing Bowl-Part 1-The Making

Our pieces all start as a block of clay. Our potter uses logs of clay that have the air removed through the process of "pugging". The clay is put through a pug mill and we measure out sections for storing until its time for our potter to throw. This video shows the initial process of our potter, Mary Beth, throwing a blessing bowl. This is where it all begins!

The bowl is then stored on shelves for a day for it to partially dry to a "leather hard" stage. It is now ready for the next step of trimming.

The bowl is placed upside down, secured and the excess clay is trimmed to create a foot for the bowl.

 The bowl is lightly smoothed with a damp sponge and then flipped over to be finished with notches in the rim.

The rim of the bowl is gently smoothed out with a damp sponge and set on the drying rack until it reaches the next stage.