Preparing clay before fashioning in Thanh Hà village 1/2

Although it has already been processed before being brought to the workshop, the clay has to be reworked before starting the fashioning of the pots. Nguyễn Thị Thủy cuts out big chunks of clay from the storage pile, using the nê and thrown on a big plastic bag that has been laid on the floor. When two or three of these are piled up, she repetitively cuts tem with the "nê" into fine messy slices. Finally, Nguyễn Thị Thủy steps heavily on it to compress it and smooth it out. Once the whole pile has been compressed, some more chunks are added to the pile and the process is repeated. When she has a quantity of clay that corresponds to the quantity that she will use on that day, Nguyễn Thị Thủy places another plastic bag on the floor and the pile of clay goes through the exact same process again, twice.