Adding Dishes

Now I know Genesis describes the making of man as from the dust of the ground but that doesn't make the plates and the dishes your close relatives. Perhaps it might if God breathed into them, but he has not yet breathed into your dishes the breath of life and here we are. Dishes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and uses. Once you have the basics mastered, there's no limit to what you can make. You will need only two things. Water and clay. Some people use a special potters clay or a mud to make the dishes. I prefer to use ordinary mud that's been collected from off the ground and mixed with water to make a sort of soup. Only you don't want it that soupy because you will need to be able to work with it. First you will mud it then you will knead it and finally, shape it into the end result you will use. The flatware such as plates and dishes can be pressed down with a roller or by hand and the edges rounded and smoothed together.

The taller rounded vessels start off with a ball and some pressure formed at the top which then makes its way down. Inserting two thumbs into the clay has the same effect of hollowing out the space. Should the vessel break during the process, you can always reform it and start again. Some people put the round wares on top of a round wheel that spins known as a potter's wheel. The potter's wheel usually looks like a stone but it can be a piece of wood or anything sanded down smooth that is attached to a spinning rotation. After you've shaped your wares, you can then safely transfer them to an area of high heat known as a kiln. Basically, any place near the fire would work, but not directly in it because you don't want the pieces to melt. Right beside it is ideal because the pieces will start to harden and glaze. This is what happens when heat reacts with the clay hardening into its' final form. The finished result should look quite pretty. Perhaps you know the mudding process for making dishes a little differently and that's okay. After working with it, how would you do it differently?