How to Open and Pull Walls Evenly on Your First 10 Pots

Your First Ten Pots Are Allowed to Look Like Disaster

Everyone sees those Instagram reels where someone pulls a wall in twelve seconds and it looks effortless. That's reel number four hundred after three years of practice. Your first ten pots? They're going to wobble. Some bottoms will be thicker than a hockey puck. Others will collapse sideways like a sad soufflé. And that's exactly how it should be. But here's the thing: if you nail two moves—opening clean and pulling evenly—you'll skip the total guesswork phase and actually start learning instead of just arm-wrestling the clay.

If You Blow the Open, the Pull Doesn't Matter

Centering gets all the glory. People talk about it like it's some spiritual meditation moment. Sure, it's important. Actually, it's mandatory. But opening? That's where your pot lives or dies. Jam your thumb in off-center and you've already built a tilt into the DNA of the piece. Go too deep and you carve through the bottom. Too shallow and you get a base so thick you could use it as a paperweight. Here's what works: lock your elbows into your thighs like you're holding a secret. Both thumbs meet in the middle. Press down firm and steady, not violent. You're aiming for a flat floor and even walls from the start. Not a crater. Not a slope. A floor.

Pulling Walls Is a Contact Sport

Once you're open, resist the urge to go crazy. Beginners always try to get all the height in one pull. That's how you get the dreaded accordion fold or a wall that looks like a topography map. Start at the base. Wet hands. One inside, one outside. Your outside hand is the boss; it sets the pressure. The inside hand just supports, like a backing singer. Move slow. The wheel should be spinning medium-fast, not turbo. And for the love of clay, use plenty of water. Dry clay drags. Dragging clay tears. Tearing clay means starting over. Do three or four small pulls instead of one heroic yank. Each pass should smooth and refine what the last one started.

You Can't See Thin Spots, But You Can Feel Them

Your eyes will lie to you. The wall looks straight from your angle, then you cut it open and find one side is twice as thick as the other. Happens all the time. So stop looking so much and start feeling. Run your fingertips up the wall as it spins. Feel for bulges, dips, or ridges. If one area feels cold and thin, back off the pressure there. If it feels bulky, give it extra attention on the next pass. Some people swear by a wooden rib to scrape and compress. Great tool. But don't hide behind it. Learn to read the clay with your bare hands first. The rib is a cheat code for later.

Why Your Walls Always Go Crooked (And It's Not Bad Luck)

Let's diagnose the carnage. If your rim looks like a rollercoaster, you're pulling with uneven pressure. One hand is pushing harder than the other. Clay follows the path of least resistance, so it bulges on the weak side. If the whole thing leans like the Tower of Pisa, your open was off-center and you're magnifying the tilt with every pull. And if the wall flares out like a trumpet? You're pulling outward instead of straight up. Angle your hands inward slightly. Think elevator, not escalator. Also, check your speed. A wheel that's too slow lets the clay drag and warp under your fingers. Bump it up.

Make Ten Ugly Pots and Call It a Semester

There's no trophy for the prettiest first pot. The goal of your first ten isn't Instagram fame. It's building muscle memory where your hands know what five millimeters of wall thickness feels like without thinking. Where opening the clay becomes a reflex instead of a math problem. So throw ten cylinders. Cut them in half with a wire to check your work. Be brutal. The clay doesn't care about your feelings. Some will be thick. Some thin. One might actually be decent. Keep the decent one. Recycle the rest. Then throw ten more. That's the job.