A Thousand Potters, a Thousand Ways
Ask four potters how to center clay and you will get four answers, each delivered with total confidence. This confuses beginners more than almost anything else, and the confusion is avoidable once you know which parts of pottery are genuinely a matter of preference and which parts are physics that does not care what anybody prefers.
Most technique is preference. A smaller set of things is physics and cannot be argued with. Learn one method properly before collecting others, and judge any advice by whether it works in your hands.
Two categories, and people mix them up
Some things in pottery are genuinely open. Where your elbows go, which hand leads, how fast the wheel turns, whether you brace against your thigh or the wheel head. Four potters, four answers, all of them right.
Other things are not open at all. Clay shrinks. Water weakens a wall. An unsupported flat form warps. Trapped air expands in a kiln. No amount of preference changes any of it.
Most arguments between potters are about the first category. Most failures are caused by ignoring the second.
How to learn from disagreement
- Pick one method and stay with it for several sessions. Switching every time you see a new video is why nothing sticks.
- Learn it until it works before judging it. Most methods feel wrong for the first few attempts, including the one you will eventually use forever.
- Then try a second method deliberately. Once you have one that works, a different approach is information rather than confusion.
- Ask which category a piece of advice is in. Is this how they prefer to do it, or is this what the clay requires?
- Judge by your hands, not by the source. A famous potter's grip may not suit your build, your strength or your joints.
- Keep what works and drop the rest without needing anybody to be wrong about it.
Three traps
Method hopping
Changing approach every time a new video appears. Every method feels wrong at first, so constant switching guarantees you never get past the part where it feels wrong.
Treating preference as law
Being told there is one correct hand position, and believing it. If somebody cannot say why a thing must be done their way, it is probably a preference wearing a rule's clothing.
Treating physics as preference
The more expensive mistake. Deciding that drying times, trapped air or glaze thickness are matters of personal style. The kiln has a firm opinion about all three.
Three teachers, three methods
All three of these teach centering. All three are well regarded. They do not agree with each other, and none of them is wrong.
Watch any two of them in a row and the differences are obvious. Different hand positions, different wheel speeds, different opinions about whether you cone the clay up first and how many times.
- They agree on the physics. The clay has to end up symmetrical around the axis, your hands have to be braced against something solid, and the wheel does the work rather than your arms.
- They differ on everything else. Hand shape, speed, coning, sequence, where the pressure comes from. Those are the parts that are genuinely open.
- Each of them is describing what works for their body. Hand size, arm length, strength and joint flexibility all change what the best grip is for a given person.
- Each is also describing what they were taught. Pottery knowledge passes down through lineages, and different lineages solved the same problems differently.
- Watching all three at once is a mistake. Pick the one whose explanation makes most sense to you and use it exclusively until it works.
- Come back to the others later. Once you can center reliably, a second method is genuinely useful, especially for clay or quantities the first one handles badly.
What is preference, what is physics
Almost every argument about pottery technique becomes simple once you sort it into one of these two piles.
Preference, where reasonable people differ
- Hand positions, grips and bracing points. Whichever gives you stable, controlled pressure is correct for you.
- Wheel speed. Faster and slower both work, and the best speed changes with the clay and the stage.
- Coning up and down, and how many times. A good habit for many people and unnecessary for others.
- Tools versus fingers. Ribs, sponges, chamois or bare hands. All produce good pots in the right hands.
- Trimming methods, handle pulling, order of operations. Many valid routes to the same result.
- How much water to use. Within limits, a matter of style, though the limits are real.
Physics, where the clay decides
- Clay shrinks as it dries and again as it fires. Every drying rule follows from this and none of it is negotiable.
- Uneven thickness dries unevenly and cracks. No technique makes this untrue.
- Water weakens clay. Too much on the wheel and the wall collapses, regardless of how skilled the hands are.
- Joins need score and slip, at matching dryness. Pieces joined dry to wet come apart, always.
- Trapped air and trapped moisture expand in a kiln. This is the one that breaks other people's work as well as yours.
- Glaze thickness changes the fired result. Not an opinion, and the main reason two people get different results from the same bucket.
A test for which pile something belongs in
Ask why. If the answer explains what the clay does, it is physics and worth obeying. If the answer is that this is how it is done, or how their teacher did it, it is preference, and you are free to try something else.
How to take conflicting advice
Two people telling you different things is not a problem to resolve. It is two options.
Nobody has to be wrong
The instinct is to work out which one is right. Usually neither is, in the sense you mean. They are describing two working solutions to the same problem.
Try one properly before the other
Give it several sessions. A method judged on one attempt is judged on the part where every method feels wrong.
Ask what problem it solves
Most techniques exist to fix something specific. Knowing what a method is for tells you whether you have that problem, which is far more useful than knowing the steps.
Notice the body it was built for
A grip designed around large strong hands may be actively wrong for small ones, and the reverse. This is a real reason methods differ and it is rarely mentioned out loud.
Watch for confident nonsense
Confidence is not evidence. Some widely repeated rules are just habits that got passed along, which is what the myths page exists for.
Keep a note of what worked
You will be given more advice than you can hold. Writing down the thing that finally clicked is how it survives to next month.
Why methods differ in the first place
- Bodies differ. Hand size, arm length, height, strength, joint range. A technique is a negotiation between a person and a material, and half of that equation changes with the person.
- Teaching lineages differ. Techniques pass from teacher to student, and separate traditions solved the same problems in different ways centuries apart.
- Materials differ. A method built around soft porcelain is not the method for a heavily grogged stoneware. Much apparent disagreement is people describing different clays.
- Goals differ. Somebody throwing fifty identical mugs a day optimizes for speed and repeatability. Somebody making one large piece optimizes for control. Both call their approach correct.
- Equipment differs. Wheel height, torque, whether it is a kick wheel. The machine shapes the technique more than people realize.
- And some of it is simply habit. Learned once, never revisited, repeated with confidence. That is a real category too, and it is worth being relaxed about it.
Finding your own way
The point of knowing that methods vary is not to collect them. It is to stop treating your own adjustments as cheating.
- Learn one method properly first. Personal style built on top of competence is style. Built on top of nothing it is just avoidance of the hard part.
- Notice what you keep changing. The small adjustments you make without thinking are the beginning of your own way of working.
- Change one thing at a time. Otherwise you cannot tell which change helped.
- Steal openly. Watch other people in the studio, take the bits that suit you, and say where you got them. Nobody minds.
- Let your body have a vote. If a standard method hurts, the method is wrong for you, not the other way round.
- Revisit old rules occasionally. Something that was impossible at six months is often easy at two years, and worth trying again.
Where this goes wrong
Method hopping
A new video every week and a new approach every session. Every method feels wrong at first, so this guarantees permanently living in the part that feels wrong.
Waiting for the right method
Researching instead of practicing, on the theory that the correct technique will make it easy. It will not. The hard part is repetition and no method removes it.
Deciding physics is optional
The costly version. Drying, joins, trapped air and glaze thickness are not style choices, and treating them as such produces failures that also affect other people's work.
Freelancing before competence
Inventing your own approach in week two. There is nothing wrong with experimenting, but doing it instead of learning a working method usually just takes longer.
Arguing about it
Two people insisting their grip is the correct one, when both are producing good pots. The pots settle it and the argument does not.
Assuming a famous potter's way is your way
Their method suits their hands, their clay and their goals. Worth trying, never worth forcing when it plainly does not fit.
The ones that come up at the tables
Two people told me opposite things. Who is right?
Probably both, if the disagreement is about hand position, speed or sequence. Those are preference. If it is about drying, joins, trapped air or glaze thickness, that is physics and worth checking properly.
How do I tell preference from physics?
Ask why. If the answer explains what the clay does, it is physics. If the answer is that this is how it is done, or how their teacher did it, it is preference and you can try something else.
Should I watch lots of tutorials or just one?
One, until it works. Every method feels wrong for the first few attempts, so switching each time you see a new video keeps you permanently in that stage. Collect other methods once you have one that works.
Why do centering methods vary so much?
Bodies, clays, equipment, goals and teaching lineages all differ, and a technique is a negotiation between a person and a material. A grip built for large strong hands can be actively wrong for small ones.
Is it cheating to change a technique to suit me?
No, and if a standard method hurts, the method is wrong for you rather than the other way round. Learn one properly first though, because adjustments built on competence are style and adjustments built on nothing are avoidance.
Which things really are non-negotiable?
Clay shrinks, uneven thickness cracks, water weakens a wall, joins need score and slip at matching dryness, trapped air and moisture expand in a kiln, and glaze thickness changes the fired result.
Someone says there is only one correct way.
Ask them why. A real constraint has a reason attached to it. If the reason turns out to be that this is how they were taught, it is a preference, held confidently.
When should I try a second method?
Once the first one works reliably. At that point a different approach is useful information rather than confusion, and it is especially worth it for clay types or quantities your first method handles badly.
Where to go next
The many myths of pottery
The companion page: things potters repeat to each other that turn out not to be true.
Read it →Asking your instructor for help
What to do when two instructors tell you different things, and how to ask so the answer helps.
Read it →Logging your pottery and glazes
How to keep the advice that worked, since you will be given more of it than you can hold.
Read it →Clay Hole University
Every lesson and guide in one place, from first day at the wheel through firing and glaze chemistry.
Start there →The pots settle it
People new to pottery often assume the conflicting advice means somebody is misinformed, and that if they research hard enough they will find the correct method underneath it all. There is no such method. There is a short list of things the clay requires, and a very long list of ways to satisfy them.
Learn one way properly. Obey the physics. Take everything else as an offer rather than an instruction, and keep whatever works in your hands. A thousand potters really do have a thousand ways, and the good news is that you only need one of them to start.
Preference is open and physics is not. Learn one method until it works, then collect others. Ask why, and if the reason explains what the clay does, obey it.
If you want the full version, including why methods differ and where this goes wrong, switch to the Comprehensive Version at the top of the page.
Which version would you like to print?
Videos come out as a labeled box with the title and channel to search for, since paper does not play them.