Making your own tea pots

I've thought of buying some zisha clay and making an attempt but I'm quite sure I'd just have an expensive Yixing ashtray in the end. Pottery/ceramics is one of those skills that looks effortless in expert hands but is impossible to 99% of everyone else. There's no real middle ground and tons of learning and failure to even begin to get good. There is no pottery or glass blowing in my future.

- Dominic

Yeah, I've spent some time doing ceramics here and there and it is WAY harder than they make it look. I have a video of some guy handbuilding (i.e., not throwing on a wheel) some little pot and he makes it look like something you could do while watching reruns on tv, but no, it is not easy at all to make anything of quality. Even making something of low quality would take a significant amount of practice, most likely. But don't take my word for it, go take a class. Who knows, maybe you are a clay genius!

cha bing

That's something I always wanted to try - and I might even attempt this week. I have clay that I have gathered myself, which is cleaned ready to use right now. Something like teapots are kind of complicated to make though. There are many parts that need to be made and attached together. Something like tea cups or bowls might be a much easier first-try to do.

I always thought of trying to make a Japanese tea bowl because most of them look like my failed middle school attempts at making regular bowls and cups.

- Dominic

When I look back on it I wished I would have bought the teapots from pottery makers on my travels. Oddly I never saw one for tourist sale made by Indian tribes of the SouthWest. I was in the Black Hills of SD two years ago and saw a teapot and cup sets in a window I could tell was superb. It was Sunday and closed and I was leaving the next day. Normally a potter gets about $100 for a pot.

Jim

Dom> > Something like tea cups or bowls might be a much easier

I have thought about it, I don't have access to a wheel or a kiln or I'd work on it for sure. I do agree with the person who said tea bowls or cups would be a better place to start though. Handbuilding for me has always had...less than desirable results, lol. I've bought teapots from local potters before, while I use some of them, some of them are just too important to chance it. Not expensive just dear to me.

I love doing pottery, it reminds me of kneading bread, both soothing and physical and somewhat alchemical all at once. I wish I had space to do it again. Clay is a messy hobby for an apartment.

Melinda

I made it back to Canada, got out my clay, and re-hydrated it. It's ready to work on now. So maybe tomorrow I will give it a try. So far, I haven't done anything yet. I really don't know what I'm doing anyway, hahaha. BTW, you don't need a potter's wheel to build a teapot. You can hand build one - using various techniques. That's what I'm going to attempt to do. Let's see how it turns out. But before that I guess I have to make some clay-working tools first.