Making the Pots

There are three main techniques that Brin and Dale use in making their pottery: throwing them on a wheel, pressing them into handmade molds, and using an extruder.

Dale uses the wheel and makes mugs, bowls, pitchers, dinner plates, and casseroles, among other pieces. You can tell wheel thrown pots apart from the others because they have the spiral marks all the way around from spinning rapidly on the wheel as Dale shapes them. The mugs below have twisted handles that were added after the throwing and painted on dragon fly decorations.

Brin rolls out slabs of clay on the slab roller and then presses it into plaster molds that Dale made. The plates and platters with cut edges and butter dishes are made this way. Many of them also have leaf impressions on them, which is done through a resist process. The leaves are pressed in when the pot is not quite dry and a clay slip is painted over them. Then, after the slip has dried, the leaves are removed, leaving their impressions. Once the glaze has been applied, the leaf impressions appear darker because there is no slip, which is white, in that area.

The pots that are made from the extruder are various sizes of vases. They are extruded out and then the shapes are made less sharp looking in some cases, such as circular ones being made into ovals. Then bottoms are put on them, the tops are shaped, and they are decorated with slips and other decorations. The square ones have rims put on them and little handles and/or feet as can be seen below.