This week, I have been mainly working on making plates and bowls for the Farmyard Restaurant in Norwich. I had ten main bowls to throw. These are wide low bowls for serving main courses. When I first talked to Andrew about them, he said to imagine there was a piece of fish in the bottom of them to make them flat enough in the centre. Ever since then, I can’t help but imagine a piece of fish at the bottom of each one as I throw it. Satisfyingly, I have also eaten at least one piece of fish from one of these bowls at the Farmyard and it looked pretty great! It tasted fabulous too.
When I first started throwing these bowls, I would throw the walls up and out as I worked. Unfortunately, centrifugal force and gravity are strong forces and often the walls would just fall down into an unattractive mess. Finally, I started to throw them as I think I always knew that I should, straight up until I was happy with the height and thickness of the walls and then I would push the walls out with various tools, like my kidney tool for bowls which has a choice of curves on it, a sponge or, keeping it simple, my fingers. I love getting to the point where I can push it out and gently ease the walls down and out. It’s a dangerous game though, as it can still collapse if I take the walls too far but nothing is as satisfying as getting a perfect curve on the inside of the bowl. It will sound pretentious but I have the word “soar” in my head. The walls soar from a small footring to the wide rim. That’s why I do what I do, to have these moments.
