How can you tell if the tableware you are buying is made on a potter’s wheel? Would you know how to differentiate a piece of handmade ceramic from one that is not? Do you usually believe someone telling you that a dish is made by hand without questioning it or do you like to check it?
Maybe all these questions didn’t make much sense a few years ago, perhaps quite a few years ago. But today, with the enormous industrial development, the rapid, massive and globalized production, and the lack of generational change in the trades, we are less and less aware of how products are made and what characteristics they have. Furthermore, mold or machine production already imitates artisanal finishes because they are fashionable, which makes the situation more difficult.
But don’t panic, at Torres Ferreras we are more than used to seeing pieces of artisanal ceramics and we are going to give you some tricks so that you too can give each product the value it has and not be ripped off.
What is the potter’s wheel?
First of all, we have to understand how this handcrafted method of forming ceramic products works.
From a historical point of view, some sources attribute the invention of the potter’s wheel to the Egyptian civilization, in 3000 BC, and others place it 500 years earlier in Mesopotamia. Its expansion throughout the rest of the Mediterranean was thanks to the Phoenicians and Greeks between the 8th and 6th centuries BC. The truth is that this tool represented one of the first industrial revolutions in history, since it meant going from creating pieces based on coiling with some slowness, to being able to produce more mechanically and quickly in series. Since then, the potter’s wheel has changed little, and consists of a wheel with an axle that rotates.
From a technical point of view, the wheel makes it possible to make circular, symmetrical and concentric plates and vessels, with relatively thin and regular walls, with a certain speed, always using the hands, skills and knowledge of the potter. For the latter, despite being a helpful tool, and currently operating with electricity and a motor, it is considered a manual and 100% artisanal method.
Why working on a potter’s wheel nowadays?
Without a doubt, working on the wheel, like any craft, makes more sense than ever. And the more the industry evolves in mass production, the more necessary is craftsmanship, since there are more and more market niches that the large manufacturing factories cannot afford to cover.
For example, if a restaurant or a renowned chef needs or wants to design and make unique dishes or genuine tableware, a factory producing large machines or industrial molds will ask for a minimum quantity of thousands of pieces or pay for the design and creation of a die and a mold that makes the order more expensive. However, they can work with a craftsman hand in hand so that they can make their dishes on the potter’s wheel or with some other handmade technique in a small or medium quantity without having to make profitable mold costs or order thousands of pieces.
On the other hand, the mere intrinsic beauty of everyday handcrafted objects well deserves the continuity of manual production methods as traditional and beautiful as the potter’s wheel.
How can I know if a plate is handmade on the potter’s wheel?
Before going on to give some keys, we must recognize that it is increasingly difficult to differentiate handmade products from those that are not without knowing the craft. First, because there are many imitations in the industry. And second, because with the rural exodus, the relocation of production and the monopoly of large companies, we are unlearning how things are made, and the value and appearance they have.
Now, there are some characteristics that everyone can recognize as typical of the hands of a potter in a piece made on the wheel, such as the fingerprints creating spiral grooves or the concentric decorations. Many people also look for in the pieces what is so fashionable nowadays and what the Japanese call wabi-sabi, which translates as the imperfection or irregularity typical of handmade and natural things, and which gives them beauty.
However, some of these general characteristics are already copied and imitated by mass industry, and they make the molds or configure the machines so that the pieces have grooves on their surfaces or the patterns and decorations change proportion or elements every certain number of pieces. Thus, we find in large stores pieces of kitchenware and home decoration that simulate the unique and ‘cozy’ character of popular crafts. But, as Soetsu Yanagi would say, wabi-sabi stops being beautiful when it is done intentionally.
For this reason, in this blog we are going to give you the keys by which you will be able to check without hesitation whether the dishes you have in your hands are or are not made on the potter’s wheel:
- The size. To check this you need to take more than one piece that is supposed to be the same model, and check if they are exactly the same. If there is a more or less noticeable difference in size, it is very likely that they are handmade. A master potter can make hundreds of pieces in one batch and all of them come out almost identical to the human eye. What’s more, they usually use craft tools such as a compass or a meter to avoid going overboard or falling short in the diameter of the plate. But even so, there are usually differences of several millimeters or even a centimeter in some dishes.
- The weight. Taking two plates of your tableware in your hand again, if you notice that one weighs more than the other, it means that they have been made on the wheel and, therefore, it has been impossible to make them exactly identical. Even if the potter works with previously weighed clay pellets, in the process of trimming, where the excess clay is removed and the base is made or the piece is perfected, it is impossible for all the plates to be of the same weight.
- The thickness. Industrial plates usually have a similar thickness in all their parts. However, pots made on the potter’s wheel in general, and plates in particular, should be thicker at the base and taper at the walls. Sometimes they can also be thicker on the edge, something typical of the turning process, so that the piece does not tilt during forming. It would also be strange for a handcrafted piece to have exactly the same thickness along the whole edge.
- The straightness. It must be understood that clay pieces that are produced by hand have long drying processes where they move and contract, so it is totally natural that the plates are not perfectly straight and are all the same height, for example. Especially high-temperature stoneware dishes, like ours, suffer a lot of natural movements in the kiln that makes it impossible to control 100% of their final shape. If the plates you are going to buy have exactly the same straightness, it means that they are made in a press or with industrial pressure shaping techniques, with semi-dry clay and that they are barely dried, and that is why they maintain their shape so well.
- The hardness, the compaction. To check this, you can take a clearly industrial plate and the one that is supposed to be artisanal and observe if the artisanal one weighs considerably more than the industrial one and appears more robust, stronger, and more compact. The shaping on the wheel has the advantage that the pressure of the hands that the potter applies to the clay pellet makes the final pieces have an incredible compaction and that, by having more material in less surface area, they are stronger, more resistant and heavier than industrial ones.
All this is summarized very visually in this video:
We hope that this post helps you avoid getting caught in any “craft” store or believing any misleading advertising from any large store. If you still have doubts, it is best to come and check it out on a guided tour in our workshop in La Rambla, Cordoba, or stop by our store.
Because remember, if it is Torres Ferreras, it is made on a potter’s wheel.
