Janet DeBoos Workshop: Janet Kovesi Watt

A new use for old credit cards

Potters have often incised spiral lines up their pots, but few wield old credit cards with such an adventurous touch as Janet de Boos. She does not merely inscribe, but with precisely-judged pressure uses the card to drag the pot into stepped spiral shapes. She makes sure that the pot is wetted, so that the card will glide as well as drag, and it is important to ease off the pressure as you reach the top. (This is great fun to do, and we shall probably see a lot of spiralled pots in the near future.)
She was working with Southern Ice clay, generously donated by Clayworks, and discussed its advantages and limitations. One advantage is that it does not need a demandingly high firing temperature, and is content at cone 10, preferably reached in a leisurely firing, using time rather than temperature alone. The main attraction is its flawless whiteness, but it does dictate certain ways of working. Sections of pots that need to be joined, for instance, need still to be fairly soft, dictating a light touch in the assembling.
Janet's pouring vessels consist of the main body of the pot, a shoulder (formed as a bowl with a central hole, turned upside down), then a tall superstructure to carry the handle, and a spout, which was also given a slight dragged twist, to match the rest of the pot. The handle was not so much pulled as patted gently into a ribbon, suited to the fineness of the rest of the pot, and was attached end-on, despite the small area available. She pierces tiny holes in the end, and works in a minute amount of slip, blended with a trace of paper tissue, to act as glue.
She made a selection of separate parts, so that she could choose the most harmonious combination.
The need to join parts when fairly soft dictated her technique for making teapot strainer holes. She covered a hole in the body of the teapot with a pre-prepared disk of clay which was just firm enough to have holes pierced through it, but still soft enough to join. The ragged edges of the holes were on the outside of the pot, where they would be hidden eventually by the body of the spout.
Her pouring bowls would add style to the most mundane batter or scrambled eggs: part of the wide horizontal rim was pinch-stretched, and then lifted up and formed into a flamboyant spout.
She is a potter who takes useful pots very seriously, and once ran a production pottery herself, in the days when this was regarded as the proper aim for a committed potter. Now she runs the course at Canberra, one of the few places left in the country where aspiring potters can gain a comprehensive ceramic education.

Article and Images by Janet Kovesi Watt.