from the back cover

To make a pot, you need both practical technique and a feeling for clay - a working rapport. Cora Pucci gives you both. Pottery: A Basic Manual is the result of years of teaching and crafting, a clear, plentifully illustrated handbook that provides the novice with everything he or she needs to know about clay, methods of handbuilding and throwing, how to make and apply glazes, and how to plan and outfit a studio.
Miss Pucci begins by introducing you to clay, encouraging you to explore its qualities, to test its limits, to feel as many different clays and mixes as possible. She makes you aware of the physical process involved in handling clay and helps you develop a sensitivity toward it and toward the basic form of an object, which will later be reflected in the quality of the finished pieces. She discusses the three methods basic to handbuilding - the pinch, the coil and the slab - and moves to building pots, cups, bowls, boxes and sculpture. In describing throwing, she emphasizes the importance of practicing to develop a rhythm between the potter's body and the wheel - and, as in the handbuilding section, suggests a number of simple exercises to get the new potter going. Bottles, plates, pitchers, handles, spouts - all these are covered in detail and always with the teacher's sensitivity for the frustrations of a beginner.
In addition, the author thoroughly explains glazes, providing the formula for a basic glaze mixture and for colored glazes, and describing the many ways in which they can be applied. She helps you plan a studio, detailing how to buy or build a kiln (electric or gas), a wheel (electric or kick), and suggesting some procedures she has learned to keep her studio in good working order.
Throughout, the emphasis is on simplicity, individuality, and a basic harmony with your materials, so that by using the methods taught here, you can go on to develop your own techniques. With Cora Pucci, you learn how to talk to clay - and how to "let the clay talk to you."

Cora Pucci works, exhibits and holds classes at her studio in the Old Schwamb Mill in Arlington, Massachusetts. She has also taught at the M.I.T. Student Art Center and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, and has demonstrated the skills of pottery for the Boston University Humanities Series.