April's Mug of the Month Progress Update: Ryan Vanhorenbeck
- PennOhio Clay Guild
- Apr 19
- 3 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
From the start of this project I knew what I wanted to create --a double wall mug-- but how I should make it was a lot harder to answer. My initial thought was to make the two walls separate and combine them after they had dried a bit. This however didn’t give me the exact results I was looking for; mainly when looking at the lip of the mug and how it was shaping up, it didn't seem like it was something that was going to work for me.
So, I shifted my thoughts to throwing the two walls from the same lump of clay. This allowed me to shape the inside of the cup and lip in a way that I am used to, and after many failed attempts I finally seemed to get a hang of throwing the two pieces together.
How I ended up throwing them:
Center as usual
Make hole and pull out the inside of the mug
Flatten the top of the thick wall
Use the blunt end of a wooden potter’s knife to separate the walls (use lots of water)
Pull the inside wall, making sure to pull out to make it easier to stretch and connect it to the outer wall. This should ideally be slightly larger or equal to the height of the outer wall.
Begin pulling up the outer wall. You may need to use something as a throwing stick if you can’t get the last pull. At this point you should also shape the outer wall.
Using a rib, begin to stretch the inner wall toward the outer. Make sure that you don’t press or stretch too fast and end up collapsing the inner wall.
Before compressing the rims together, trim the outer rim to be equal to or slightly higher than the inner rim (The inner rim should have shrunk a bit when stretching).
Slowly use your fingers to compress the rims together. Make sure that you don’t press down too hard and push the walls out from the air bubble being created between the walls.
Once compressed, poke holes along the bottom to release any extra water that may be trapped within the walls. This water, if left inside, can create cracks when drying.
I chose to expand the inside of the mug as well. To do this I made 4 or 5 more holes up the outer wall for air to escape. I then slowly used my rib tool to push the wall out. If you push too fast or too hard the air will be forced somewhere else in the wall and will make a distinct bubble, rather than having a straight wall.
Carving on the leatherhard vessel occurred next. I was most familiar with this process as it is a design element that I have developed over the years. The short vertical shavings removed help the mug become much lighter and creates a textured exterior that is comfortable to grasp. Similar to my tall, carved LED lit lanterns, some of the carving movements reached a deeper depth allowing for a see through the hole into the inner wall surface.
The next big challenge was what kind of handle I should make. With this being a double walled mug that I would eventually carve into, just attaching a handle to the outer wall seemed like a disaster waiting to happen.
I even thought about a handle that would pierce the outer wall and attach to the inner one, but it still just didn’t feel right. But with the help and advice from some guild members, I think I ended up with a good solution to my problem. Rather than the handle being what you hold, what if it was just something that would help support your hand? This is a double walled mug after all, which will cause the outer surface to stay cooler than a normal mug would. So, rather than adding the texture and avoiding normal contact with it, interacting with the mug’s texture is now how you will normally hold the mug. Plus, even though you would be holding it like a cup, it still has a “handle” so I feel pretty safe in calling it a mug.
Once all the mugs dried over the next week, the first firing known as a bisque firing was completed and the mugs are now ready for glaze application and the final firing.
~Ryan
More details will follow via the final update at the end of the month.
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