I enjoy making my pinch pots. It's a time to slow down and enjoy the relationship between you and the clay. It is you trying to make something definite out of the clay and the clay teaching you how it wants to behave.
There are many things this humble low-tech form can teach us if we take the time to find out. Many new comers to clay rush past this "technique" to go on to other things, be it wheel throwing, slab construction, hand building, etc. In the paperclay class I teach, I have students make 3 pinch forms in the first class, set aside to dry completely and then later on use them for the dry-to-dry joining techniques.
It takes skill to make a beautiful pinch form. I still find myself limited to a symmetry that I'm trying to break out of.
Here are some simple pinch forms I made (from clay samples given out) during the paperclay workshop I attended earlier this month. You can tell which one I spent the most time on. The clay is Aardvark Papel Cone 6 porcelain. They are bone dry greenware, not fired yet.
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