- published: 08 Jul 2016
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In pottery, a potter's wheel is a machine used in the shaping of round ceramic ware. The wheel may also be used during the process of trimming the excess body from dried ware and for applying incised decoration or rings of color. Use of the potter's wheel became widespread throughout the Old World but was unknown in the Pre-Columbian New World, where pottery was handmade by methods that included coiling and beating.
A potter's wheel may occasionally be referred to as a "potter's lathe". However, that term is better used for another kind of machine that is used for a different shaping process, turning, similar to that used for shaping of metal and wooden articles.
The techniques of jiggering and jollying can be seen as extensions of the potter's wheel: in jiggering, a shaped tool is slowly brought down onto the plastic clay body that has been placed on top of the rotating plaster mould. The jigger tool shapes one face, the mould the other. The term is specific to the shaping of flat ware, such as plates, whilst a similar technique, jollying, refers to the production of hollow ware, such as cups.
The world is fast becoming younger
The news is all they’ve ever known
They’ve seen the wars, the hurt, the hunger
How will they choose when they are grown
What do you tell forever’s children
When it’s their turn to hurt and heal
Whatever spins a grim tornedo
Can also turn a potters wheel
Take a little clay
Put it on a wheel
Get a little hint
How God must feel
Give a little turn
Listen to a spin
Make it into the shape
You want it in
Tell with your life the bloody story
Teach to they’re dreams not burning steel
It’s not in bombs where lies the glory
But in what’s shattered on the field
The potter’s wheel takes love and caring
Skill and patience fast and slow
The works it makes are easily broken
Once they survive the potter’s throw
Take a little clay
Put it on a wheel
Get a little hint
How God must feel
Give a little turn
Listen to a spin
Make it into the shape
You want it in
Some day some children will be digging
In some long forgotten ground
And they’ll find our civilisation
Or what’s left of it to be found
They’ll find the weapons of destruction
But buried deeper in the hole
They’ll find a message and a promise
In the sand, the potter’s bowl
Take a little clay
Put it on a wheel
Get a little hint
How God must feel
Give a little turn
Listen to a spin
Make it into the shape
You want it in
Earth and fire and wind conspire