Roberta12

Yes. Other factors involved but body outgassing is definitely one.

So it's actually a cone 8 clay. Not as tight as I'd like at cone 5, too tight at cone 10 (for a stoneware body).

It appears that the pits go all the way through to the body, so the bubbles are starting there. You say the body is rated for cone 5-10. That means it is immature at cone 5/6, not mature until 10. An alleged  wide firing range is one of the unfortunate fallacies perpetrated by the clay industry. My guess is that there is still stuff outgassing from the body at cone 6. If you are using a kiln with a digital controller, you can try a controlled cooling to allow the glaze to heal over any bubbles that are coming up.
As for the unexpected color, I'm not familiar with that glaze.

My husband has always been supportive of my clay life.  I started my small business after I had retired and he retired a year later.  He takes the clay downstairs for me, helps haul greenware out of the house to the shop where I fire,  has worked some of the larger out of town shows with me (he is a good wrapper of pots).  I have made pots working around a shoulder repair, a hip replacement with a fractured femur, and a knee replacement.  So my husband has been a great help with loading and unloading the kiln.  I had an unexpected kiln repair one November and had the kiln torn apart replacing elements etc,  it was -30 degrees and 10:30 p.m with a show looming.    I was at the end of my last nerve, he came out to check on me and lend a hand.  I said, "don't you wish I had became a knitter and sold hats?"   He said, "no, that wouldn't have been nearly as interesting!"  
r

"Oh yes, pass for most of us, sending around with strangers making clay pots, no thank you"
"What's fascinating is the types of items fellow students make. ... Time, imagination and a willingness to fail - none of us cares if we make something ugly or lame - have freed us to create. It's an exhilarating experience."

Decent article, liked the links especially.  I scrolled the comments-they were all over the place. I liked one from somebody talking about the attraction maybe being more about touching physical material,  rather than hanging w/people, noting that even paper was removed from him via working on the computer. 

Times allows limited (ten?) article reads per month for non-subcribers...
Pottery Workshops Fill Up as People Travel to Connect Over Clay - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Interesting read, e.g. “Clay is the opposite of the cellphone,”
Be sure to check the comments as well.
As much as I truly enjoyed being in a community Studio*, the dust and artificial scents (hair products, washing solution, dryer sheets, cologne, perfume, oooh the et cetera) pose a looming ...barrier.
 
*On arrival (always waay early), a slow tour of all the cubbies, the drying cupboard, glaze racks, everything! As the semester moves ahead, so does everyone's work.
As the other students arrive, visiting and banter.
Each hour, a new selection of music (when the instructor isn't lecturing).
Watching how each person works a bit differently!
 
Added: another Times article
Can Old-World Horezu Pottery Survive Modern Tastes? - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Thanks for all the info! I've been doing a lot of underglaze transfers over the last couple of months, and I tried using the newsprint I use to wrap pots when I sell them, and I was not happy with the results. The underglaze is much more likely to flake off when it dries, and the wrinkling is a big issue. I'm doing large patterns, not line work, so there's a lot of underglaze on the paper and it wrinkles up a lot. I've settled on half-raw rice paper, printed on the raw side. It holds the underglaze well, releases very quickly, and doesn't wrinkle much at all. I've just been buying it off Amazon, about 29 cents per sheet.

I've been using adhesive vinyl cut on my Cricut to make the screens, with Speedball Screen Filler, and it has worked very well. This is a shot of the vinyl being removed from the screen once the filler has dried:

Interesting subject,   I sold my most interesting cup a year ago to a customer who broke one of a set.   I made them for valentines day.   The top was heart shaped,  to create that shape one side had deep crease down it.   For some reason people ignored the heart shape and liked the crease area calling it a butt mug.   Just for fun I put a tattoo on the bottom of the cup,  so the person sitting across from you gets a glimpse.  Conversation starter.   They didn't sell well because they were a 6oz coffee cup size,  the people who did like them were into very strong and very hot coffee.  They told me that the curve of the cup helped keep it hot and it was small enough that to refill frequently with hot coffee.   I am not much of a coffee drinker I didn't realize that people wanted to buy large mugs.     Denice

My husband has always been supportive of my clay life.  I started my small business after I had retired and he retired a year later.  He takes the clay downstairs for me, helps haul greenware out of the house to the shop where I fire,  has worked some of the larger out of town shows with me (he is a good wrapper of pots).  I have made pots working around a shoulder repair, a hip replacement with a fractured femur, and a knee replacement.  So my husband has been a great help with loading and unloading the kiln.  I had an unexpected kiln repair one November and had the kiln torn apart replacing elements etc,  it was -30 degrees and 10:30 p.m with a show looming.    I was at the end of my last nerve, he came out to check on me and lend a hand.  I said, "don't you wish I had became a knitter and sold hats?"   He said, "no, that wouldn't have been nearly as interesting!"  
r

I’ve been humming and hawing over this question, was going to pass on making a comment out of respect to those amongst us who live a single life and might be having a difficult time reading these tales of love and understanding. 
I am one of the fortunate people who has a sympathetic and understanding life partner. The respect and considerate nature we have for each other and what we do with our chosen paths isn’t something that is limited to how we spend our days make a living. We started off with student debts and stretching out the pay checks to make ends meet then as time went by found ourselves with a mortgage and 4 daughters.  Just to make things more complicated I left my well paying job to make a go of selling pots.
Being supportive isn’t just restricted to a tolerance or a shallow understanding of the trials and tribulations of working at making a living with clay and all that it involves. Does it still require an understanding and at times boatloads of patience? Hell yes! Could I do this without an understanding partner? Yup, I’m sure I could but it would be more difficult. I have deep and profound respect for people who make a go of working a lifetime in clay, especially those who do it singlehandedly.

My husband has always been supportive of my clay life.  I started my small business after I had retired and he retired a year later.  He takes the clay downstairs for me, helps haul greenware out of the house to the shop where I fire,  has worked some of the larger out of town shows with me (he is a good wrapper of pots).  I have made pots working around a shoulder repair, a hip replacement with a fractured femur, and a knee replacement.  So my husband has been a great help with loading and unloading the kiln.  I had an unexpected kiln repair one November and had the kiln torn apart replacing elements etc,  it was -30 degrees and 10:30 p.m with a show looming.    I was at the end of my last nerve, he came out to check on me and lend a hand.  I said, "don't you wish I had became a knitter and sold hats?"   He said, "no, that wouldn't have been nearly as interesting!"  
r

My husband has always been supportive of my clay life.  I started my small business after I had retired and he retired a year later.  He takes the clay downstairs for me, helps haul greenware out of the house to the shop where I fire,  has worked some of the larger out of town shows with me (he is a good wrapper of pots).  I have made pots working around a shoulder repair, a hip replacement with a fractured femur, and a knee replacement.  So my husband has been a great help with loading and unloading the kiln.  I had an unexpected kiln repair one November and had the kiln torn apart replacing elements etc,  it was -30 degrees and 10:30 p.m with a show looming.    I was at the end of my last nerve, he came out to check on me and lend a hand.  I said, "don't you wish I had became a knitter and sold hats?"   He said, "no, that wouldn't have been nearly as interesting!"  
r

My husband knew I was serious about clay when we met,  I was 17 he was 19.  When we married I was 21,  we bought our first house a couple of years  later and that is when I got my first kiln.  It was our first major purchase for the house,  other couples buy a refrigerator or a sofa we bought a kiln.  A year later I got a scholarship in art to Wichita State and quit working to go back to school.   He has always supported me but never liked my work,  he worked in engineering  department and my work wasn't precise and perfect enough for him.  I tried not to  let is bother me,  I had the best support otherwise.   He was always encouraging me to buy new kilns,  but I wasn't  ready to jump into the world of controllers.  Last fall  I finally jumped and bought a Paragon Caldera with a Genisis Controller,  easy to use so I ordered a LL kiln with a Genisis Controller this year.   Since my husband has retired he likes to go to the ceramic supplier with me,  he  moves my clay  and loves to unload the kiln.   Right now I am glazing a 3-D landscape mural,  some of the tiles warped or twisted,  he is at the tile saw cutting and checking them with me to see if they will work or need remade.   I only had to remake one tile among the 200 tiles of the mural.   I likewise support his passion of restoring cars,  my passion is less expensive than his but he can always sell a car if he needs the money.     Denice

Hi folks, running a little behind here with the QotW. However, I have been thinking a lot lately of my wife, and her participation and support over the years when dealing with clay. She puts up with a lot, from the tracking in of clay dust from the garage to the time spent alone because I am busy playing with the clay. She has even put in time during the show years helping me pack, price, set up, and take down. She has sat booths with me, and without me when I was busy getting more pots out of the kiln for the days show. She did most of the base glazing in the early years, sometimes with help form a girlfriend. Then I would put on the decoration and finishing touches. When my kiln burned out a few years ago, she was the one that told me to buy a new one and don't take too long. . . saying she would find the money. She knows that I have an itch called ceramics and that it makes me a better person when I can do it. Makes me wonder. . . . how does it work for others out there?
QotW: How does your wife, husband (or significant other) and other family deal with your need to create ceramics?
best,
Pres

That depends...This time of the year, getting into the studio is difficult. Since Spring has sprung and everything is growing on our1.5 acre property with multiple lawns and a lot of trees, landscape maintenance is a given and I am the one who does most of that. Then there is also the farm. While the fruit trees and vegetable patch occupy about 1/4 acre, the rest of the 3/4 acre is open field, and with the abundance of rain we've had this winter and spring, it seems like keeping the wild grasses down is a forever task. So, with all that going on, if I say I'm going into the studio, I get a look that says "Seriously...with all the yardwork that has to be done?" However, regardless of "the look", I go anyway just to get the feel of the clay in my hands instead of the dirt from pulling weeds. Then there are the times when, going through a magazine, she comes across something that she likes made by another artist and excitedly suggests that I might make something similar. So, I would say she runs hot or cold...

I have tried to keep my wife out of my line of work but that said she still has done my local shows with me. I have another assistant that helps set up and down but she has helped sell. Also we have set up my Christmas s booth and knocked it down on xmas eve for many many decades (now retired for that) I only have one local show now and she will help sell-the two days . She can play in studio all she wants but I do all the studio work myself or with my assistant-priceing packing. She will ocassionall drop an order off locally. Right now she has a herniated disk so all thats ioff the table and I am doing all the heavy lifting. The garden I rototill and plant and until she heals I'm doing the whole bit. She had her own carreer (now retired ) so I have done my best to keep clay my own career . She used to do a few traveling shows but its been a decade or more on those as well now that she had done. She did do 2 my last NV show two years ago ona road trip that we saw my Nephews one year old twins. But it was the twins not the show that she came.

I have no family anywhere near me & no "significant other". My daughter is on the opposite coast and is actively helpful with kicking ideas around and provides useful feedback re marketing/photography/types of items. She suggested I do the plant stakes--I hated making them but they sold like hot cakes when I needed some quick income.  My sister has worked in clay herself (totally different style/technique) and understands the craft,  which is much appreciated. I have one friend who has really gotten me through the highs & lows, from 2014 when I decided to make myself a studio, to the present when I am struggling with some limitations and trying to decide what  to do.  He has helped with logistics and sales, managed my inventory, done my spread sheets, taken reference pics, proof-read text, provided assistance with my web page, and given lots of "common man" perspective on items that I put out for public consumption. I have another friend who has sat with me at the few craft fairs/shows I've done, including all that packing/hauling/unpacking/rehauling.  He also did a lot of the chatting with people coming to see what's what and managed to sell more of my stuff than I did! As a group, they have become essential to supporting my "need to create", through thick & thin. 

@cbjensen Sorry it took me so long to reply with more explanation of what I said. (I had two shows in the past two weekends, one of which was a travel show.)
I used to do a show that charged a percentage of my sales. This was great when I was starting out, because of the low risk. But after several years, my sales grew to the point where the show became far more expensive than comparable shows. I stopped doing it, and others like me also moved on. I would recommend the show to other newbies, due to the low risk. Eventually, the show figured out that their talent pool was restricted to those who wanted low-risk, thus the quality of their show, and their revenue, was suffering. This has a real impact on attendance and reputation. Their intention was not to be a lower-end, newbie friendly show. But that’s what it turned into. 
Shows like these DO serve a purpose in the art world, by giving a safe space for new sellers. If you decide you want this to be the intention of your event, that’s not a bad thing! Just understand that there will be a ceiling on your quality, revenue, and reputation.
You said “we are a community” but this presumes that every one of the potters has the same goals for their own work, which is probably not true. The longer you do this event, over time it’s natural that some of your members are going to pull ahead of others. I hope you can be supportive of that, rather than trying to define everyone as being the same. 
The show that I mentioned above tried changing their fee structure to “percentage with a cap at the high end.” For some reason, that did not work out for them. I suspect it didn’t work because they had been making all of their revenue from the high sellers, so the cap cut their revenue by too much. So they eventually switched to a “flat fee for everyone” format, but had to deal with much complaining from those who felt entitled to the low-risk format. It was a real hassle for them to change formats. And by then, it was difficult for them to get the high-sellers to come back. (I had already found plenty of better shows to do.)
So my advice is to start thinking ahead about the future intentions of your event. Do you want it to be a safe space for newcomers? Do you want to foster professional quality work? It’s difficult to combine both types of sellers in one event. So maybe the answer is, down the road, you will establish a separate event that is defined as professional-grade. Where the participants are not self-selecting, but rather they need to pass through an arbiter of quality (similar to a juried art fair), and with a fee structure that is more friendly to them, and probably more profitable for your studio as well.  

I would strongly recommend first sorting out which clay has an absorption of under 1.5% (one point five %) at your chosen temp and / or exploring the possibility of running a manually set program with your kiln. It's important to match the clays firing qualities with the kiln not the other way around. If you start a thread in the Equipment section here giving the name of the kiln and what your preset firing options are someone might be able to help with this.
In regards to your glaze recipem have a look at the recipes on Glazy and see how yours compares to ones there.  Put in your search parameters and then compare your recipe to some there while looking at the chemistry, not just the recipe itself. If you aren't sure what a material is or what it contributes to the glaze then click on it in the Glazy recipe and it will take you to a materials page that gives chemical info plus lists similar materials. There also was a recent post in  this thread for a Linda Bloomfield gloss glaze (she is an American who lives in the UK).  

I agree. The kaolin, silica, and bentonite make up almost 50% of this glaze. There's just not enough fluxing going on there. I'm wondering if there was a problem with converting the recipe at some point since the numbers add up in a strange way. Maybe someone messed up the math?

I've always felt that charging a percentage of sales is good for a lot of the artists, but bad for the promoter. As an artist, it limits your costs if the show is a dud, and the percentage isn't necessarily penalizing unless you sell a lot of work. If you're someone who typically sells $5000 at a show, I can see how it's not a great deal compared to paying a flat $400 booth fee. But for someone who typically sells half that much it can be a good thing. I think you just need to do the math before applying and decide if it's a good show  for you or not. As a promoter, only charging a percentage of sales makes no sense because your costs for running the show are the same whether the artists sell a lot or a little, and it adds a lot of paperwork to the process. Flat booth fees are easy to deal with and easy to budget.

Underglaze colours can be influenced by the clay as well.

Underglazes traditionally need to be color tested with their proposed overglaze. If you read the underglaze literature, many will speak about color change at temperature and a common issue: overglazes that contain zinc can affect certain underglazes dramatically. Hence for clears, you will often see “zinc free” clear. 
The suggestion is always read the literature, which includes the bottle label, sometimes easier to find on the label than the marketing materials, and always test. Many artists prepare a color palette of all their underglazes with one and two coats of overglaze fired to their typical cone to know the color shift in advance.

Re form 1099: they may not be necessary unless there was anyone that sold more than  $600, even at a stretch. I suppose it would qualify as “other income payments?” 
I suppose the question is, would you taking this money on behalf of others and then remitting it directly to them count as taxable income, or would the government consider it to be a deductible business expense, and thereby be revenue neutral? I want everyone who reads this  to understand that they should definitely take their accountant’s advice over mine, and this is just a question I’m asking. 
 From the IRS website:
File Form 1099-MISC for each person to whom you have paid during the year:
At least $10 in royalties or broker payments in lieu of dividends or tax-exempt interest. At least $600 in: Rents. Prizes and awards. Other income payments. Medical and health care payments. Crop insurance proceeds. etc