Clay Times Back Issues Vol. 2 Issue 4 • May/June 1996 | Page 20

Jack Doherty Shares
Colored Clay Techniques
A dismal, rainy weekend in the
nation’s capital earlier this year
was transformed into a colorful
splash of activity when Jack
Doherty, a porcelain potter from
Northern Ireland, shared his
unique insights and demonstrated
his techniques for working with
colored clays. The well-attended
weekend workshop was sponsored
by the Clay Connection, a potter’s
guild serving the mid-Atlantic
region of the U.S.
Doherty, who serves as chair of
the Craft Potters Association of
Great Britain, has been a potter for
25 years. Now residing in
Hereforshire, England, he has
developed a technique of working

the work to achieve a series of lively, decorative patterns of color.
Doherty's work has been featured
in exhibitions both overseas and in
the U.S., and can be found in the
collections of the Cheltenham
Museum, the Liverpool Museum,
the Faenza Collection, the Arts
Council of Northern Ireland, as
well as numerous others.
Prior to creating each piece,
Doherty colors his clay by mixing
various percentages of stain with
water and finely powdered porcelain. The recipe is mixed thoroughly, then allowed to dry out to the
point of working consistently
(which can be achieved fairly
quickly by spreading out the clay
on an absorbent
surface like plaster
or wood).

Above and upper right: examples of Doherty’s porcelain
works using applied colored clays, soda-fired to cone 10.

with porcelain in which he strategically applies thin-cut slabs and
strips of colored clays to a wet,
wheel-thrown piece, then re-throws

“I produce
work in which the
colored decoration
forms part of the
body of the pot,”
Doherty says.
“Surface quality
and its relationship
to form is an
important aspect of
my work.”

Doherty's works are fired in a
soda-vapor kiln, enhancing the
inlaid clays with a range of sur-

faces
that varies from soft matte to bright
and iridescent.
To achieve the unique patterns
of color which serve as the main
source of decoration for his forms,
Doherty first throws a piece on the
wheel. Immediately after throwing,
he applies cut-out strips, triangles,
and various-shaped pieces of colored clay from thin (1/8”) rolled
slabs. With the freshly-thrown pot
placed on a banding wheel, each
slab or strip is then carefully and
gently pressed into the wheelthrown pot. Some pieces are overlapped with each other; others are
draped over the lip of the pot to
achieve color on the interior and
exterior surface of the form. To
help adhere each slab or strip to the
pot, Doherty often pokes the slab
into the pot’s surface with an xacto
knife. Usually, all of the applied
clays are attached to one small section of the wheel-thrown pot,
because the re-throwing process
will then fan them out to cover
most of the pot’s surface.
Doherty says the most impor-

The Clay

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