LUTING

"Luting; the act of attaching and sealing pottery parts or forms together with a clay slurry"

I learned a long while back that when throwing my terra cotta, it is best to make certain vase or bottle forms in two pieces, throwing the body and necks separately. This ends up being infinitely easier that throwing them in one piece where the terra cotta is constantly trying to collapse at every turn of the wheel head. I start out by throwing the bodies first and then measure the apertures and guesstimate what thrown neck form will look best on each piece, the illustration shows a single ware board with three bodies and their corresponding necks which are put together the next day after the pot base is trimmed with an inset foot. Once the pot and neck are put together I generally add some form of lug which connects from the neck to the body and brings some attention to the join and shoulder area. In this particular case, one of the vases will be black and white slipped and the other two will have an abstrakt resist decoration. This particular form works from very small to quite large though these pots will likely end up just shy of 14" when assembled. I can tell you from past experience, there is no music that I have that can make throwing these in one piece an enjoyable experience, thanks goodness to the person who pioneered luting pieces together all those centuries ago.