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The Problem With Trimming This Style of Jar

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These are lovely things to trim provided the throwing was accurate, if not, well, there’s a whole other kettle of fish and it’s one I’ve tackled a lot. It’s not often that you have to attempt to throw leather hard clay in order to make a gallery smaller, but it happens.
 
The key with these, when it comes to trimming them, is making sure lid and body are exactly the same consistency in terms of how leather hard they are. Normally, this means drying the lids out for longer than the bodies, as they’re more thickly thrown, whereas I’ll wrap the body segments up in plastic well before that, as if they dry out too much, they become brittle and I actually need a little bit of flexibility in the rim to make sure I can keep them perfectly round.
 
Lots of issues arise if you turn the parts to fit when they’re noticeable different consistencies. For instance, if your lids are still really sopping wet in comparison to the body, if even you’re able to trim the piece to fit, the lid still has much more drying out to do comparatively, which means even if the components slot together beautifully, once dry the lids can end up being too loose.
 
All of that is to say, that drying your lids and bodies out is part of the process itself, it’s a skill, and if you compromise, or let somebody else do it for you, it may mean you’re trimming the clay when it’s in the wrong condition.
 
#clay #pottery #satisfying #jars #craftsmanship
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