Making, Pottery

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22109, 3 June 1937, Page 8 (Supplement)

Making, Pottery

Pottery Is a very ancient art. It is practised even to-day by primitive people, so it can be also a very ! simple craft. A child can do it—and 1 indeed children do. The long, cold winter months that lie ahead with their promise of blazing log or coal fires make the ideal time for trying out this industry. All you need is a bucket and spade, clay, water. An old newspaper to work on keeps the clay from getting "all over the house.” You take bucket and spade and rush out between showers to dig your clay. What clay? Oh. any clay will make sotne sort of pottery. It must not have sand in it. You soon find out which is the best. Try the densest and puggiest. 'The ordinary yellow' clay bakes a brick colour. There is a dark grey ,clay, almost black, in our creek that bakes a neat pink. Having found some clay, let us proceed. If it is quite dry you can roll it out with a bottle on a concrete step. This makes it very easy to mix and saves considerable time and energy. If it is damp or wet and you must make something immediately, just work it well so that it becomes very smooth and does not crack too readily. Then you just make something and set it to dry. It should dry slowly, not in the sun, but certainly not in a frost either. In a warm room is best. Some clays have to be watched while they dry. to putty up the cracks. Just drop some water in the crack and press together. When the article is dry right through it is ready to bake. How do you know when it is dry right through? I am afraid just at first you do not; but a little experience soon teaches you. It must be warmed very gradually and finally placed carefully in the heart of the hottest fire you can find with coals of fire heaped on its poor head, and wood, coke, anything to make sure it gets really hot. It is best to leave it there till next day, when you will find in the chill dawn among cold, grey ashes, a cheerful pink thing of your own creation waiting to be admired. If you throw a little salt on the fire after the article has become hot, it should glaze it. if there is enough heat. At any rate it improves the colour and makes it darker and cleaner. If you paint a little bicarbonate of soda on before the article is dry and then salt it in the baking, you do get a lovely shiny blue glazef but it takes a very hot fire, and a bit of luck in getting the salt on at the right moment. Now what are you going to make? In our family everyone seems to have some favourite expression. The smallest one makes ashtrays by the simple process of putting her hand down very firmly on a lump of clay. It makes a rather detectiveish ashtray, but a useful one. Mother likes plenty of queer-shaped flowerpots of all sizes for her bulb family and those precious King ferns and wild orchids. These are sometimes adorned with imaginary beasts ahd floWers modelled separately and

(By Mary Game)

stuck on. Many of them have rather stone-age looking horses galloping round them, tails very much up, teeth well to the fore, ears streamlined, these are scratched on by a young artist with a kink for comedy. There is one strange fact which may be just coincidence, but whenever a vase or bowl has been made with a decoration of scratched network with the net coming down to points—it has always been a success. Others split, or go out of shape, or just burst for no reason at all; but so far these net patterned ones are pearls. Making animals has an endless fascination, either small ones for the house or larger ones for the garden. You must not do these on pieces as you are taught in plasticene work. It is safer to form tjie birds or beasts gradually out of one lump of clay. Otherwise they seem to come to pieces in the baking. A duck with its head turned to its wing, copied from a photograph of an ancient Chinese one, was popular, as it was simple and easy, and served as a handle on the lid of a powder box, a paperweight, and the top for the cork of the lime-juice bottle. Just a word of warning. If an article is put in the fire without being dry inside it will sometimes explode; but its range is short. If, however, papa clay has been used, it will always explode dry or wet, and generally with no small force. It looks like a grey clay when wet and seems to work up beautifully; but it is light grey when dry and is really a kind of rotten rock. Young potters have been known to slip a piece in the fire “by mistake’’ for the joy of the resulting bangs and consternation. Astronomy During 1936 During the last year a large number of new stars were discovered. These are called by astronomers by the Latin name “novae” (singular “nova”). They are either entirely new stars appearing where there was nothing before, or else a faint star suddenly becoming brighter. In 1936 four quite insignificant stars in our own Milky Way, and two further away flared up to unusual brightness. Also the famous Nova in the constellation Hercules, discovered in 1934, still remained bright and was studied at many observatories. The total eclipse of the sun on June 19 enabled astronomers to study phenpmena only rarely visible. The giant 17-foot glass mirror for the new telescope to be built on Mount Palomar in California was transported from the factory to near the site of its home-to-be and a start was made on the grinding and polishing. This will be a very long and difficult job as the greatest accuracy is required. The observatory buildings on the mountain-top were also commenced, but it is expected that the 200-inch tele'scope will not be ready for use until 1940. Rhinoceros The rhinoceros is sulky and aloof. What he lacks in sight he makes up for in sense of smell. When roused his ferocity is frightful, and his lumbering charge a nightmare. Luckily for man and beast the rhinoceros is a vegetarian.