8. Make an alchemy jug

And we are going to use "make" generously here!

So this is a sort of nonsensical pottery challenge, since an alchemy jug doesn’t exist (and may be impossible). The alchemy jug is a magical item from Dungeons and Dragons that is capable of holding a variety of different liquids at the same time.

Making a large vessel is difficult in the first place, and making one with 9 interior vessels is another thing altogether. So it’s a construction challenge!

I first started by choosing a clay that was hopefully going to be very forgiving with the nonsense I was going to attempt, so I decided to use the dark brown stoneware clay that Glen Echo switched to. Since I have to include vessels inside of a larger pot, the exterior pot needs to be thrown in (at least) two pieces, and joined before being finished. And since the internal pots need to be joined to the exterior pot, it all has to be done when the entire things is relatively wet. So, a recipe for a disaster.

I made a large bottom for the vessel, and then threw a top part that was nearly as large, since the pot was meant to be around 18" tall.

Next, I made a lot of different closed forms for the internal vessels, and cut them in half so that they could be joined to the wall of the exterior pot. Manipulating the inside of a vessel is pretty tricky, but doing it when you can't apply pressure from both sides of a vessel is really frustrating.

After a lot of very delicate fiddling I was able to join the vessel and seal all the internal vessels inside.

Is it the largest vesssel I’ve ever made? Yes. Is it the ugliest thing I’ve ever made? Also yes.

So throwing something massive and working on it wet is not a recipe for graceful pots and after joining and trying to reshape the pot I decided I had had enough and that getting the pot to this point was better than I had hoped for when I set myself this challenge. I think if I ever try this again I am going to keep the top and bottom separate for much longer (right before leatherhard) and see if I can join them with a coil at that stage. That way I can work on the internal vessels longer with it open. I also need to make sure that no vessels obscure the seam area so I can push pressure from the inside for the seam to seal. It was difficult not being able to reshape the vessel because I couldn’t push from the inside, which ultimately led to it being very lumpy and unattractive. It was also extraordinarily heavy. I think throwing smaller vessels and trimming them would help with that.

I did cut it in half to be able to see the cross section and despite its flaws it was relatively consistent throughout the vessel, I just think working on it for so long while it was wet prevented me from giving it a better shape. Don’t know if I’ll ever try making this again, but it was a fun challenge!