Stardust Pottery: Clay Adventures, Tips & Insights

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  • How To Make a Mug of Unusual Shape

    An experienced and talented potter messaged me asking how to make an unusual mug that was not marked by the potter. My friend had stumbled upon this mug of unusual shape at a thrift store and included an image.

    original mug of unusual shape

    The image clued me into the construction. It seemed to me that the original design came from a happy accident. This piece seemed it was going to be a vase, but I bet the original potter cut a hole through the bottom. When the potter took off the piece from the wheel, they flipped it over to look at the bottom. While doing so, they set the piece with the vase top on the wheel. The potter liked the shape so much that they decided to salvage the vase and turn it into a mug.

    I decided to make this mug of unusual shape.

    1.25 lbs of clay on a scale.

    This mug of unusual shape started with 1.25 lbs of clay.

    I wanted to make this a 5” tall mug and was worried that with the collared neck, that I wouldn’t meet that height. But I had forgotten that I didn’t need much, if any, clay at the bottom of the thrown piece. So, this easily turned out to be 5” tall.

    Because the bottom of this “vase” will become the lip of the mug, I am careful to measure the base to between 3 to 4 inches. I really want 3.5 inch width at the mug lip. I ended up with about 3.25” by the calipers. So I widen it a teeny tiny bit more.

    Vase shape on pottery wheel.

    So now I have a shape similar to the original mug image. Right now this is a small vase on the wheel. In the interest of speed, I dried the vase with a heat shrink gun. I could have just set it aside until it became leather hard.  

    Upside down vase.

    I was kind of hoping that I had made the vase bottom thin enough to slice a hole in the bottom when I wired it off the bat to match my narrative, LOL! Obviously, that didn’t happen.
    Now that this vase is upside down, it resembles the mug shape.   

    Bottom of vase cut out.

    Next, I cut off the top (of what I’m now calling a mug).

    Here’s the edge of the mug lip cleaned up. So now I have a piece with two holes: the top of the mug and the hole in the bottom.

    cutting clay slab

    A small slab of clay was rolled out. Because this was my first time making this style of mug, I was not sure of the size I needed. So, I cut 2 different sizes of circles in the slab.

    scribing a light line in clay wall.

    This mug needed the larger slab. I gently placed the slab in the mug bottom and outlined the slab location onto the mug. Then I removed the slab from the mug. I just flipped the mug over the let the slab fall out.

    Scored clay pieces

    Then I scored and slipped under the line I just made in the mug. I also scored and slipped the outside edge of the slab.


    clay slab in place

    Afterwards, I worked the slab with scored slip down into position by using my fingers in both holes. Then I placed the mug back onto the wheel.

    blending slab to mug wall.

    Using the back end of a wooden knife, I pulled the slab edge toward the mug wall.

    Inside mug

    Next, I treated the mug as if I were throwing a mug bottom with a curved wooden rib.

    It may not have needed the extra support, but I also added a small ribbon of clay to the underside/bottom of the mug where the slab met the walls. That’s just good hand building technique.  

    mug of unusual shape: greenware.

    And voila! A mug of unusual shape.
    This piece is destined for a salt glaze wood fire kiln, so I will show the final results here when the mug is finished.

    This design is a bit fiddly, but it definitely is do-able. So have fun!

  • Taking Stock of 2025

    This is written on the day after Christmas. For the first time in many years, we have gotten the day after Christmas off. Whee! A whole extra day off to spend anyway I’d like. That has given me time to plan for a big (new to me) show that’s happening in the Spring.

    The Catawba Valley Pottery & Antiques Festival is happening on March27th (7pm – 9pm) and March 28th (9am to 5 pm).

    So I’ve muddled through the lists of my most recent show sales, and gallery sales to discover the popular items I make that might sell again.  I rarely do mugs or bowls because when I make them, they tend to be simple classic items that sit around, while people seem to be drawn to my more “exciting” pottery.
    So much like Santa, I’m making a list, hoping to find the nice things to make that will sell at the show.
    Should I make some bowls, anyways? Maybe I will.


    I’m also interested in pursuing a design series featuring Ring Jugs. More info on those later, but I’m heavily leaning into the Earth, Air, Water, Fire & Spirit theme for them.

    And then that led me down the rabbit hole of how will I display the Ring Jugs at the show? I think I’ve found the best setup to showcase them. I will need to have plinths built, though. This is another thing to add to my to-do list.

    I have a very long list of things to do to get ready for the March show. After coming off of Christmas, I need a little break, so for this week, I’m just going to relax and plan my pottery making schedule.

    Maybe I’ll play around with making berry baskets. My Aunt Doreen had told me a tale of blue berry picking with me as a little kid back in the days before cell phones. Apparently I didn’t enjoy the process as much as she did, even though according to her it was a beautiful day out in the fields next to the forest.  I was crying until a young couple stumbled over us. I stopped crying over the novelty of new people around.  They had car trouble out in the middle of Michigan’s unpopulated section, so my Aunt packed us up, blue berries and all. We took that couple into town. For some reason, it is one of her treasured memories.
    Soooo, blueberry baskets are on my list of things to make because I want to gift one to my Aunt.

    Happy New Year!

  • Are Thermocouple Flakes Ruining Your Glazed Pots?

    In my experience, the thermocouple will age. And as it ages, if it is hanging out in the air (not tubed), it will start dropping little bits of ashy metal flakes. They may be small to begin with and you might not notice right away.

    To check your thermocouple, just

    1. (IMPORTANT) Unplug your kiln

    2. Set A white shelf under the thermocouple

    3. LIGHTLY scratch over the thermocouple metal part with your fingernail. (Do not apply pressure.)

    Check to see what drops onto the shelf. If you had a pottery piece that was getting glazed, that’s the junk that ‘s going to land onto your glazed piece.

    If your thermocouple is new enough and the ash pieces are small enough, you may not have noticed yet, but sooner or later, without protection, you will likely find a ruined piece in your firing.

    My kiln uses an environvent.

    Pottery tip for preventing ashy metal flakes on your electric kiln glazed ware:

    Throw a short cylinder, vertally cut off about a third , and fire it under the thermocouple. The black ashy type substance falls into the cup bottom instead of on your wares.

    Just leave enough room for the thermocouple to work when stacking your shelves and you will keep a nice clean kiln.

    I’ve been using the same cylinder for a couple of years. See how black the bottom is!

  • On Being A Left Handed Potter

    By Cindy Douglass

    Disclosure: I am left-handed. I throw left-handed on a Brent C pottery wheel.

    I feel left-handed people should be given ADA protection. We are probably one of the last unorganized minorities in our society because we are not given a sense of common identity. We seem to function well enough, and no real American wants to be called disabled. But I think we should have ADA protection in order to have access to tools and equipment made for left-handers, without exorbitantly higher costs.

    Left-handers are often discriminated against. There’s the social discrimination (‘He’s just clumsy’), the educational discrimination (desks attached to chairs, pencil sharpeners, standardized tests, etc. are made for right handed people), and discrimination from religious institutions.

    Even our language set the left-hander apart as “different” and even “bad”. (The Latin word for left is sinister. That has morphed into the English word, sinister, which has some scary evil implications.)

    Most right handed people and many left-handers believe that being left-handed today doesn’t matter. That being left-handed it is somehow just cute, or is similar to eye color differences: interesting but not very relevant.

    Some people feel that to prevent problems of being left handed, one should just start using their right hand. Studies have shown that this forcing right-handedness tends to cause, or further promotes, troubles such as learning disorders, dyslexia, stuttering, and other speech disorders in children.

    Being left handed is a biological brain processing issue between the two hemispheres. It’s called “atypical brain asymmetry”. Being left handed is still there even if you think you were “trained out of it” years ago.

    So why do I think it is important that left-handed people have rights under ADA?

    We have more accidents than the average right-handed person, maybe because we are facing a hostile right-handed world. Whether or not we left-handed people acknowledge it, we are merely coping with physical limitations in the world.

    Studies have shown that left-handed people tend to be more fearful than right-handed people. That doesn’t surprise me. We are facing a hostile right-handed world where tools tend to hurt us, badly! Add that to an active imagination due to the atypical brain asymmetry and we have some great big fears.

    I handle serrated steak knives, electric saws, chain saws, angle grinders, weed whackers and all sorts of machinery that all turn in the direction to hurt me first! Right-handers using the same tools don’t need to have that highly honed fear because the turning action generally first moves away from their hands, feet and other extremities.

    Don’t believe me? Pick up a weed whacker and use it with your left hand, on your left side. On the right hand side, the weed whacker flings weeds out away from you. Use a weed whacker on the left side and you’ll find the weeds and rocks are being flung directly at your legs and feet. That gets painful and scary at times. A pottery wheel can be set to spin for left handed people, why can’t a weed whacker?

    The same experiment with a serrated-on-one-side steak knife will show you the danger of a simple eating utensil. The serration of the knife actually causes the knife to slip directly toward your body with left-handed pressure. People with left handers in the house really should consider buying steak knives that have serrated edges on both sides, not just one. Let’s support the manufacturers who care about the safety of left handed people!

    Studies have also shown that left-handed people tend to be angrier than right-handed people. That doesn’t surprise me, either. When we aren’t dealing with outright dangerous tools, we are dealing with tools, and attitudes, that frustrate us at the below consciousness level.

    Try picking up a manual can opener and turning the knob with your left hand. Don’t give up until you’ve opened a can and see how fast you lose your cool. Now do it with someone standing by, snickering at your “incompetence”. The jokester may think they are just being funny. A left-handed person may be conditioned to “take it” and laugh it off. But imagine you face those types of annoyances and jokes on a daily basis, several times a day, and you won’t have to wonder why there’s some fast anger in left handed people. I’m not condoning violence here, but I sure understand the cause of anger.

    Here’s a simple example. When I was younger, I bought a coffee mug for a cute saying. The only time I got to see that saying was when I washed the mug by hand. I never got to see the cuteness while using the mug because the saying was directed away from my eyes when I held it. Every time I used that mug, I felt cheated. Now that I’m older,  I ask, “Why wasn’t there a left handed mug made for me?” It really doesn’t cost anything to turn 10% of the cups* in the opposite direction during printing.   

    That’s why I custom make my mugs and yarn bowls to accommodate left handed people when I know the handedness of the person.  And I don’t charge extra for the service. To me, it is insulting to be charged extra for the same item as a right-handed person’s item – just because I am made differently than a right-handed person. In my eyes, it is the same as charging extra because a person has different skin color. And that is morally abhorrent to me.

    That’s why I wish left-handedness were covered under the ADA and the ADA design standards. The years we live are filled with constant small insults and highly probable injuries just because we are made a bit differently from the rest of the human race. 

    —
    * It has been estimated that around 10% of the population is left handed.