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Working with Clay: An Introduction
Susan Peterson
Working with Clay is Susan Peterson's warm, richly illustrated introduction to ceramics—one of the standard first books for anyone learning the craft. Peterson, a legendary teacher who founded ceramics programs at several American colleges, walks the beginner through the fundamentals in plain, encouraging language: handbuilding, throwing on the wheel, plaster mold-making, decorating, glazing, and firing. What sets the book apart is its sheer visual generosity—hundreds of color photographs of both processes and finished work, drawing on a gallery of clay artists from traditional potters to avant-garde sculptors, so the reader sees not just how to do something but the range of what's possible. It's a companion to her more comprehensive The Craft and Art of Clay, and it's pitched squarely at the newcomer. For students, hobbyists, or anyone drawn to making things by hand, it's a friendly, inspiring, and genuinely practical place to begin.
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The author
Susan Peterson (1925–2009) was a renowned American ceramist and teacher, Professor Emerita at Hunter College, who founded ceramics departments at several institutions and won the NCECA Lifetime Achievement Award and the American Ceramic Society's Binns Medal. She was also a noted writer and broadcaster on pottery.
The book
Working with Clay: An Introduction, published by Prentice Hall and revised across several editions, is Peterson's primer for the beginning ceramics student. It covers handbuilding, wheel work, molds, decoration, glazing, and firing, illustrated with hundreds of color photographs of processes and of work by many contemporary artists.
How to read it
As a first course and a source of inspiration. Its strength is the pairing of clear step-by-step instruction with a wide survey of what clay can become, from functional pots to sculpture.
For more context
Read alongside Peterson's fuller The Craft and Art of Clay and the classic A Potter's Book by Bernard Leach.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Susan Peterson
- Publisher
- Prentice Hall
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Craft & How-to
- Location
- Maine