Wedging is the foundational language of clay. It is the principal action that imbues the material with functionality. The slightest variation in the angle of the wrist, the pressure of one’s fingers, or the position of their palm will impact the way a wedged piece of clay is articulated. Each artist develops their own nuanced signature in the wedged object.

Although I was taught to wedge my clay one hundred times (and I always do), I know several ceramicists who wedge their clay only ten times or pull it straight out of the bag and are good to go. Meanwhile, there are potters who will wedge their pugged clay off the wheel and on the wheel, tallying over 300 wedges. How much wedging is actually necessary; is there a point when the clay is properly prepared—not over, under, or unprepared? How much preparation is truly possible in the clay body, or in the human body?

In this drawing, I prepare for the sake of preparing. Essentially, I am preparing for nothing. Each fresh piece of clay is wedged one hundred times, and its tectonic history is traced in pencil lines that are partially erased when the next piece of clay is wedged on top of it. The wall is a recording device and a hurdle in the process, forcing me to relearn a strategy that I developed over twenty years ago. 

As part of The Body, The Object, The Other at Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles, I extended Preparing to include the wedging marks of fifteen of my former ceramics students from various universities over the past ten years. Their marks expanded my own, both continuing and transforming tradition, going beyond boundaries of the drawn grid and perceived limitations within ceramics. I have taught over 700 people how to wedge clay and while this lineage is embedded in the marks, the details and ultimate signatures are their own.

Participating artists include: Bryan A Charry, Paul Garcia, Miriam Bankier, Kenna Dworsky, Ash Dennis, Bradley Hutchinson (and his son Spencer Voyteshonock), Shu-Wei Chu, Alexi Butts, Ella Scudder-Davis, Sherry Shieh, Maria Lam, Cleo Berliner, Yixuan Liu, Ariel Zimman, and Gabriella Kirby.