Ara-neri (rough wedging)
Ara-neri or rough wedging, is the first of the two wedging stages that prepare clay before a piece is shaped. Ara means "rough" and neri means "kneading." A lump of clay taken straight from storage — uneven from one part to the next — is pressed and folded again and again until the moisture and firmness are the same throughout and the large air pockets trapped inside have been driven out.
It may be the least visible work in the whole of making japanese pottery. No form appears, nothing is decorated, and the finished piece carries no trace of it. Even so, clay that has not been through ara-neri fights the maker on the wheel, warps as it dries, and in the worst case cracks inside the kiln.
Ara-neri is followed by kiku-neri, the finishing wedge. Together the two stages are simply called tsuchi-neri — wedging the clay.
A note on the English terms. English-language pottery uses wedging as a single word for this whole process, but it names the methods rather than the stages. The Japanese two-stage system maps onto them closely:
Ara-neri is what English-speaking potters call ram's head wedging — press down, fold the clay back over itself, repeat. Kiku-neri is spiral wedging — press while rotating, so the clay winds into a shell-like spiral.
Why clay has to be wedged at all
Clay is not usable the moment it is dug. Stones and impurities are removed, it is slaked in water and strained, and then it is left to age. Months, sometimes years. Ageing develops the plasticity, but it also leaves the clay in an inconsistent state.
A lump taken out of storage is usually in something like the following condition.
- Drier at the edges than in the middle (moisture escapes from the surfaces touching air or the bag)
- Soft where it has been pressed, firm where it has not
- Holding air pockets (from the mixing, and from being cut and stacked)
Ara-neri resolves all three at once. What comes out is a single mass that behaves the same way wherever you take hold of it.
Ara-neri and kiku-neri: the two ways of wedging clay
Wedging done before shaping needs two stages. Both are wedging, but their aims differ, and neither can stand in for the other.
| Ara-neri 荒練り | Kiku-neri 菊練り | |
|---|---|---|
| Order | First | Second, immediately before shaping |
| Main aim | Even out moisture and firmness; drive out the large air pockets | Remove the remaining fine bubbles and align the clay particles |
| Motion | Press, then fold back | Press while rotating (a spiral) |
| What you see | No particular pattern. The mass simply becomes even | A spiral like chrysanthemum petals appears — the source of the name |
| If skipped | Uneven wall thickness / warping while drying / clay that will not centre on the wheel | Air expands inside the kiln; the piece cracks or bursts |
Put simply, ara-neri makes the clay even; kiku-neri makes it airless. A lump with firm and soft regions in it will not wind into a clean spiral, so there is no skipping ara-neri and doing a careful kiku-neri instead.
How ara-neri is done
Ara-neri is done on a firm, slightly absorbent surface — a wooden board, a plaster slab, a stone bench. The maker works from a low position, kneeling on the board or standing over it, so that body weight rather than arm strength does the pressing. That is why studio photographs so often show a maker crouched over a plank on the floor.
The sequence itself is simple, and it is repeated many times over. For a lump of around 1–2 kg, three to five minutes is the rough measure. Larger amounts take proportionally longer, and clay that has been aged a long time takes longer still.
One principle governs the whole stage: never fold air in. Wedging is a process of subtraction, and every motion exists to push air out.
Without ara-neri, clay that mixes firm and soft regions gives uneven wall thickness. The damper areas also shrink more than the drier ones. As a result, when the piece is fired it warps, and it may not come out of the kiln as intended.
See the pottery that comes from these hands
At Nokaze, we bring you japanese pottery from ceramic artists and kilns across Japan, each piece listed with the maker's name and their own words. Clay dug, aged, wedged and thrown — one-of-a-kind pieces made by hand from start to finish, available online. We hope you will feel the pleasure of that handwork for yourself.
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