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Handles Make/break Your Pots


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Looking through the gallery today I noticed a lot of mugs that had great potential, but such unpracticed and awful handles that the mug became rubbish. Why spend your time making a great form only to put a sloppy handle on it? 

 

Practice handles. They will set you apart. Just glance through etsy and see what I mean. If you have a great pot, but a shoddy handle, it is rubbish. However, if you have a weaker pot, but a fantastic handle, sometimes it can really work. Handles are powerful to the form of a mug and will blast you through to another level of potter

 

Need some help? Here are some ideas:

  • Practice on finished cups or even smaller plastic buckets. You can pull multiple handles on a practice cup and spin it to compare the differences.
  • Try different styles and don't become blocked or stuck in a certain way, regardless of your reason. 
  • Search Youtube for some great videos on how to make handles and get great ideas
  • Look at online galleries to see what well-known potters do. I personally like http://www.schallergallery.com as their photos and setup are great for visual learning. 

handle example

temmoku mug

 

 

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Yes! I hate handles that

  • look like a big ear hanging on the side of the pot,
  • that have to much variation in thickness-really thick at join, really thin going into base
  • That pinch the fingers because the join is without an arch
  • that force you to do things awkwardly, as in a teapot with a fancy unapproachable handle
  • handles that are too thin, or too thick for the form
  • and finally handles that don't work at all.
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Handles are a key element for sure but if the form is weak then its weak and a great handle will still be on a weak form.

Getting the form strong and putting a great foot on it and applying a great handle are hard tasks to be sure but each is a key element of the whole if its to be great.

Mark

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I'm happy enough with my handles, (usually rolled and then pulled some), they work, they're comfortable , they don't fall off. :)

 

I'm not too keen on rules of any sort and so I was interested to read in the linked article that some handle styles were now out of fashion, how does that square with having all these rules for handles?

 

Rules is rules, I'll follow them when I have to:  fashion is something else entirely, (which passes me by in everything).

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I'm happy enough with my handles, (usually rolled and then pulled some), they work, they're comfortable , they don't fall off. :)

 

I'm not too keen on rules of any sort and so I was interested to read in the linked article that some handle styles were now out of fashion, how does that square with having all these rules for handles?

 

Rules is rules, I'll follow them when I have to:  fashion is something else entirely, (which passes me by in everything).

 

 

I agree with you about his style aesthetics not necessarily being everybody's but I like the article insofar as how the mechanics of a handle works. If a potter learns the basic physics of how the handle works in regards to its design and placement on the pot then they can mess around and colour outside the lines after the basics are down. The article is taken from his teaching syllabus so should be read considering the audience it was written for. Like just about everything in clay there is usually no absolute right or wrong, just opinions.  

 

I'm glad your handles don't fall off! :)

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I agree with Mark in that the whole form has to work. A great handle on a weak pot isn't enough.

 

Vince Pitelka has a quite thorough article on side handles.

 

http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka/syllabi-handouts/handouts/Better%20Handles%20on%20Mugs,%20Cups,%20and%20Pouring%20Vessels.htm

 

As a web designer/developer I find an article about function and form with that background and that font hilarious. I literally copied and pasted into notepad to read it.

 

However great tips. Thanks for the link.

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