I threw 3 Seder plates on the potter's wheel last week. At 16" to 17", these plates were too large to fit within the splash pan that goes around the wheelhead, which could have contained the wet stuff. Instead, I had to take the pan off and just get to messing with the clay. It was purely mud-puddlicious. The spray of water and clay extended in a four-foot radius around my potter's wheel while I made these. I had half an hour's job just sponging up the mess later from over, under and around the wheel and adjacent studio furniture. I still found more dried bits the next day where they had fallen from where they were sticking underneath things.
Trimming the excess clay from the bottom of these plates (there were 3) on Sunday similarly made a deep pile of flung shavings on wheel, floor, and my jeans-covered knees. The photo hardly does this heap justice. Even after shrinking a little in the drying, the plates were too big to fit inside the splash pan that would have collected the trimming shavings.
A HEPA-rated dust mask was necessary to gather up the dry scraps after I trimmed the leather-hard plates with my trimming tools. (Breathing this dust for years could give a potter silicosis.) Once it hits the floor I don't recycle clay, due to bits and motes of floor shmutz getting into it that will interfere with making new pots from it later on. I threw all this scrap out instead. Frugal Me doesn't like this, but Hardworking Me struggling to throw new pots with floor stuff in it knows this is just practical.
Next: Making the Seder Plates!