I have a dumb question. I’m 12 weeks into my journey and my studio has a bunch of kilns. Some kilns fire to cone 10 others 5 or 6. Everyone uses the same clay. Standard Clay white with grog. (Angel?). There are maybe 40 tubs of glaze. Does the cone affect the glaze. What if I fire cone 6 glaze to cone 10, or the other way around. Any links or material for reading would be very helpful!

I have a really old Judson and Hudson wheel with a 10inch wheelhead without bat pins. It is a tapered push fit type wheel and I can't find a replacement anywhere.

I'd prefer to use 12 inch bats, is there a bat system that allows bigger bats on a 10inch wheel? Maybe putting bat pins onto my wheel allowing oversized bats or ideally russian doll style bats.

Or an attachable wheelhead adapter to make it bigger?

Any advice welcome!

We are having a cold snap for the next few days, and I need to run my kiln!!! Ooooh noooo!!! It is in the garage and the afternoons are in the 50s. TIA for your help!!!

Hello all!

I have a commission for a few pieces and my client has provided this photo as glaze inspiration.

The makers of this piece (luvhaus ceramics) mix their own glazes, but I am looking for commercial options that would produce a similar effect.

I tried archies base by coyote but it didn't really give the colour payoff I was hoping for. I'm thinking perhaps spectrum floating fuzzy peach?

If anyone has any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated!

TIA

My gf has enjoyed pottery for about a year now and her birthday is coming up, any good gift ideas? Thought this would be the appropriate community to ask

Hey all, I know it's not ideal, but I'm going to be in a hurry to cool and unload a Cone 04 bisque firing. Any tips and tricks? Anything you regularly do, that's not recommended, but always works? Can I start pulling out spy-plugs at a certain temp? Bottom plug? Top plug? Thanks and love, I

Where do you all purchase your cobalt blue oxide from if you are in the U.S.? Preferably online.

True or false: Lack of compression causes “s” cracks in the bottom of pots. False. Uneven drying causes tension that turns into cracks.

True or false: Compression can help prevent “s” cracks. True. There are explanations of why which may or may not be true. I don’t know why it works, I just know it does. Using this technique with a clay that consistently “s” cracks will alleviate the problem for most people most of the time.

There are other methods having to do with even drying and careful attention to thickness that help prevent “s” cracks. There are documented prescriptions for avoiding these cracks in work thrown off the hump. There is at least one method of centering that is reported to prevent “s” cracks.

Methods of preventing “s” cracks can be difficult to test objectively in the studio. First, people are likely to try more than one at a time, because the goal is to eliminate cracks right now. When the cracking stops you don’t know which thing changed the outcome, or if was a combination. Second, people who try one tactic and get relief believe in that method and may discount the others as unnecessary or even untrue. It’s when your reliable tactic stops working that things become interesting. Third and last, it’s hard to test anything objectively. It’s hard enough testing one clay body. You’d have to test a lot of bodies before you could come up with a general statement. It takes work. Someone already knows the answer to this question, so why go to the trouble of testing?

My clay is fussy. I don’t know why I put up with it. It loves to crack. Compression, porous ware boards, and a damp cupboard (or plastic) keeps the cracks at bay. Flip the pots when I can. If I skip any of these I can expect cracks. That’s my answer. I do wonder how other people see this.

I worked a craft fair this weekend and had a run in with a vendor of garlic graters. Just garlic graters. And he didnt have any sinage up with his info, just a banner that said “unique pottery”

I watched him demo and it was a great pitch, and i learned a lot about actually how to market my own graters.

I then asked him if his stuff was slip cast, and he rambled a bit about some shop of his and he is going to be getting into slip casting but these are pressed or something. It was very vague and he changed the subject FAST.

I actually was going to him to thank him because i sold a few extra graters because of his demos, since more people knew what they were. And I complimented his stating “ i do ceramics and i just started making these but yours are much more refined than mine and ive only made a handful so far.” Then he went on a whole speech telling me he saw my stuff and my display looked great, and quickly shifted to telling me i need to narrow down what i sell. Stating “youve got lots of stuff but youre not gonna sell it all if you dont focus your products and just go make one thing really well, youll sell a few but youll never sell graters like i do if you dont make it about the sale”

I was soo taken aback, and i told him im more in it for the passion of making lots of things. He was just so cocky and rude and just not like any fellow artist ive ever came across.

So i did some digging with my ceramic friends. With some blurring reverse image searching we found simplystoneware.com which had all the EXACT graters he was selling. And reviews stating they bought from vendors all over.

Im just curious if this was an encounter with a “tupperware” style company and he was just a vendor salesman.

This market was restricted to handmade goods only, no retail vendors were accepted. So im thinking he probably went without branding to get in.

Does anyone else have any experience with these vendors or this company?

He treated me like i was competition he needed to run off. The few graters i had made up 18 of my 200+ individually unique items on my table. Im more in the mug/bowl business, my niche item i boast is a line of big ceramic D20 dice not my graters. Idk the way he tried to tear down my business model just really ground my gears. So im thinking of flagging him to the people who put on this market but i dont want to if this isnt the case.

So I’m finally making the leap! I convinced myself a long time ago I couldn’t make a living doing pottery so now I have a day job (yuck). I really miss it and I’ve been taking classes at the local rec center… I’m going to look at a community studio later this week. I’m mostly doing it as a therapy and hobby but I also don’t want to collect a ton of stuff around my house so I’ll probably try to sell some of it. Do any of you who have been through the process of starting a small business have any advice for someone with no experience?

hey everybody! i’m doing my first ever in-person sale at an extremely busy event in my town this month and am feeling pretty overwhelmed! i’m wondering if anyone more experienced than me has any advice regarding tabling at an event that they could pass along?

i’m thinking about things like transporting pieces, taking payments, setting up my table, and wrapping/bagging up items people have purchased etc etc. we’re also required to provide our own tables/lighting/electricity and the event is victorian themed.

any advice from your personal experiences would be greatly appreciated! and photos of your tables too if you so wish :-)

I'm a beginner who's interested in starting pottery, and I'm wondering if taking pottery classes is actually necessary or if online tutorial videos are enough. thanks in advance!

There’s going to be a wood firing soon run by one of my ceramic professor’s colleagues. My professor mentioned that while most people use this opportunity to fire glazeware, a good portion of people just fire straight bisqueware. What would this end product be called? Does it have a name? (She also mentioned that the people that do this tend to glaze the inside, just not the outside.)

I saw this image on pinterest and it’s just so beautiful. Does anyone have any idea how to mix this glaze or something similar? My teacher lets us mix glazes ourselves and we have a good variety of materials. We only fire ^6 oxidation and I use both porcelain and red stoneware. Would love all your help!

Hiya. I love throwing little porcelain tea bowls. I want to try out a new technique of leaving the clay unglazed on the outside (celadon glaze inside). I got various grit wet and dry sandpaper and spent this afternoon sanding away. I think it's worked pretty well but I have questions.

First - anyone seen any pieces like this? I'm looking but I can't work out what it might be called

Second - how much polishing do I need to do, would you think? How fine? How many stages?

Third - can anyone see any problems with this technique?

Just, any thoughts really. Cheers.

Hey guys, I’ve seen a lot of posts lately about silicosis, and it has made me pretty afraid. I have a joke studio in my garage, and I feel like there’s literally no way to get all the clay dust out. I clean my tools regularly and my wheel and stuff, but I know that small bits of dry clay get on the floor sometimes. I wear a mask when I sweep, but should I wear one at other times too, like when I’m just doing pottery in general? There are some studies saying over half of the surveyed potters had silicosis, and that is scary to me.

Sold this at a fair yesterday and was commissioned for a full dinner set to match! It just made my heart so full to look at before I packed it away. Just really proud of how it turned out, and it makes me feel like I’m really getting somewhere with my work :)