My father used to say, “a good workman never blames their tools”. This was usually on the back of me at the age of 7 bending a nail and saying it was the hammer’s fault.

I also spent many a weekend digging around in the basement of the house that my grandfather built. I saw nothing in his basement that would lead me to conclude that he had built the house with those tools. They all seemed too small.

What I have learned through a string of short bursts with various pottery teachers, is that what qualifies as a “tool” in ceramic work could literally be anything.

One of my teachers would say:

Your hands are your best tool. So I prefer to use my hands as much as much as possible, but you can use anything.

Another of my teachers had a strangely extensive collection of tooth brushes and flossing machines which were kept in an old glass jam jar.

I continue to learn that the potter need never be pressed for tools.

1. A strip from a car chamois

2. Bowl

3. A computer bracket for turning

4. The broken head of a plastic spatula

5. An old brush

6. Strips cut from a softdrink can bent over a pencil and wound with cotton
for turning

7. The wire from a pen straightened, twisted and looped over a pencil from Ikea.
For turning.

8. A swiss army knife (various uses, no pun intended).

9. A length of dental floss tied between two rings from my wife’s keychain
for cutting clay.

10. A few old bread and butter plates to shift pots from the
wheel onto for drying.

11. And of course, my hands.