Roberta12

I don't think you have been working in a dusty atmosphere long enough to do much damage.    When I started taking ceramic classes in the early 1970's  no one wore masks or gloves and the professors never talked about them and silicosis.  The studio was in a old football stadium from the early 1900s,  no windows,  no heat or air conditioning.   When clay was being mixed you couldn't even see there was so much dust.   Huge gas kilns were fired right next doors to the throwing room.   Most students weren't there eight hours a day like clay workers,  I am 71 and still here and don't have any lung problems and have been around other silicosis situations.   I worked as a dental technician for 6 year,  had exposure to different kinds of dust.   I live in Kansas wind and dust storms quite common.  I take all of the precautions in my studio now and have for years once I found out it was a problem.   You could have a doctor check things like your breathing capacity.  I have Multiple Sclerosis because of bad genes,  I always felt bad that everyone had to slow down for me.   Now that everyone is in there 70's they all have health problems and they are just as slow as I am.  You can't live your life in fear of what might happen,  you don't know  long your life will be.  We had a young friend killed a couple of years ago walking into work.  He was on his cellphone the guy who ran over him was on his cellphone.    You never know.     Denice

Put a resist on the emblem so glaze doesn't cover it. Or carefully wipe glaze  off after glazing.
Or get an on glaze decal made up.
Good luck.

I hope this worked.  A new phone, new learning curve.
r.

Wow  . . . while I always explain to my students just how long I spent learning enough to begin life as a professional potter (9 years with classes, the least 3 yrs were 30+ hr weeks),  words are all you got to prepare them for likely the most difficult  'hands-on'  endeavor the student has ever attempted, and they rarely suffice.
While I can speak to folks who have learned to play a fine instrument, I can convey - to some degree - the difficulty of the task in front of them. I tell them to recall when "less noise" was a 'victory' and apply that rate of progress to the wheel . . . and that helps . . . but the difference is that every music student has been told many times - for multiple years - "how difficult" learning to play is.  So,  music students are 'prepared' for the inevitable early lack of music and prevalence of "noise".
Not so the average pottery student . . . "I've seen 'Ghost' (the movie) "You can't tell me pottery is hard to do" is a quote from a 30-something yr old man I know.
Nobody spends any great amount of time telling their children how difficult pottery is and how long it will take even if they work hard. It hurts "exceptionally competent" people's feelings to be so bad at anything . . . much less,  something "as simple as pottery must be."
 
I will from now on use these words,  
"you do not "do pottery"  you become a potter."
 
Thanks,  old lady !!
 

it is true, henry, that the appeal can wear off once a person starts actually working on something that has so many steps that cause serious frustration when something fails.    your oven, even on 'self clean' is nowhere near the amount of heat needed to go from clay to ceramic.   
i have introduced 2 people to making items to be used.   one decided she was not in love with making and should be spending money on acquiring beautiful pieces made by others.   the second realized that she hated handling wet clay and washed her hands several times before she left.  " looks like fun, but i hate the ooze."
trying  out something before commitment is a sensible way to go.   find someone whose work you admire and ask for a private session to see if it is worth pursuing.   you do not "do pottery"  you become a potter.
air dry clay is not clay and will never become ceramic or useful except to look at.

definitely take some classes locally before you start making stuff to eat and drink from.

To get started I would enroll in a studio ceramic's  class,  this will give you the basic knowledge and you can decide if this is a area you want to pursue.   I decided to take a stone carving class,  after a solid day of chipping I decided I had enough of stone carving.    I  managed to finish my piece,  it made a nice door stop.     Denice

It was the old wiring. I've literally seen it dozens of times. Even Skutt recommends replacing the harness if relays are burning out prematurely.

(Can we talk about sustainability please)
Sure  lets talk ,I have made a living from clay for about 50 years give or take.I have had some time to consider it.
You talk about classes which really compared to say a toilet or tile manufacture are about 1/16 of a  drop in a bucket compared to the use of materials and cumbustion gas output of all the classes in. the world. I have strong feeling on keeping beginner pots-I think it should be, throw them back on the plaster table for a long spell  of time until one gains the skills but that's never going to happen as humans feel it's precious once made and want to keep the cracked dog bowl thats warped and 1 inch thick with crawed glaze.
I consider it part of an industrial process. Its hard on mother earth ,any way you want to feel good about it its a fact. The electric or gas kiln is not great for earth but for that matter either are humans on this scale of population we are at now. 
Pottery making in all but a commercail level is small time compared to the commercial ceramic world.
Is ceramics stainable ? Well are humans stainable on this planet? We all have thoughts on that point I'm sure.
Just for some prospective we have been at war most of our existance even though most of us  on this planet despise war we are currenty still at war on this planet . Still at war in 2023 is that sustainable ? as it seems its been going on as long as we could pick up a club, so one could say thats as sustainable as we humans are.
Mining materials and processing them and and shipping them and then making clay from them-its a ton of energy and its not yet a mug or a plate.Far from that.
I think of sustainibiliy as a loop and like say paper-trees =paper= recycle for more paper=growing more trees for more paper. Trees help the earth.It can be a loop and go on forever depending on the amout of paper we humans consume as the population grows.As you know at some point its no longer a loop as the use of paper gets to be more than we can recycle and grow.But for now its a loop
Ceramics is not even close to a loop
Now waste thats easy to curb. Clay is clay as long as its not fired. completely recycleable for the most part. The issue is those palstic bags that keep clay moist,all plastic is bad news ,real bad news. The cardboard boxes all can be boxed aagin recycled. One you fire its going to last close to forever so some thought shold be made about that. In teaching most do not consider that. Never had a teacher even talk about it in my days in collage.
Have I ever thought ceramics as a sustainable loop no as its not for me. 
All we can do is be more efficient with our processes in ceramics.
 

BOOOOO BOOOOOOOOO! Bad Bill! BAD.

If these new potters had to help make the clay they are using they would learn to be conservative.   I made my own clay,  they came out with bagged clay but it was too expensive.   When I finally got to college everyone had to help make clay,  build kilns, unload kilns and clean the studio.   My first throwing class the professor told  us we were there to learn how to throw.   We could only fire three small pieces and they were for grading purposes.   He also to us not to sign our pots,  you want to save that for when you make good  work.   He told us to think about some of your first pots being found in archaelogical dig with your name on it.  Fired clay last forever.  is your pot is worthy of firing.   You had to be in advance throwing classes before you could accumulate much work.   I  decided to focus on hand building.  When I was a senior  the college was looking into bagged clay,  they gave a bag to each student and told them to give it a try.   I was given a bag of b-mix,  I told them it wouldn't work for hand building,  it didn't.   To me the bagged clay was a sign of the ceramic program sliding downhill,  it wouldn't  be the great program it once was.   This was in the hippie days and natural hippies were into  reuse,  no waste,   recycle,  make everything yourself and work hard.  I was glad I managed to graduate before it got worse.   Denice

Some people find it helps to dip pots in water very briefly before glazing if the body is grogged. Theory is the water expels any tiny air pockets cause by the grog so when the pot is dipped in glaze there isn’t trapped  air which in turn can cause pinholes in the glaze firing. If the body is burnished with a rib after trimming this is reduced.

I know this thread is a bit old, but I had the same question. And ended up joining the Ky Mudworks Clay & Glaze Group on facebook. Typed in White Bear and Iceman in the search box and there are like 20 threads comparing the two with some really great opinions.

I have a GFCI outlet in my studio and a fire extinguisher next door in my husbands garage.   He restores cars and always has one handy,  we have a CO detector in the basement and a smoke and fire system wired into the house.   The smoke alarm is so loud it can be heard a block away.  Denice

Battery technology is moving fast and maybe soon Lithium will not be a major ingredient and the price will go down.

My first day of throwing the professor came in and explained what the class would cover.  At the end of his speech he said that if anyone had taken the class to make a set of dishes they might as well leave now.  He told us that it would take years of throwing before we could make a set.   After he finished three women stood up and left the room.  his way of pulling out the weeds.  I made a set of dishes about 15 years ago just to see if I could.   We are still using them but the glaze is getting a little hazy.    Denice

Don’t discount the Stroke and Coat. While they’re technically a glaze, it behaves like an underglaze that happens to go glossy. It’s quite stiff, and if you don’t cover it with a suitable clear at earthenware temps, it can show raised brush lines. They’re smooth at cone 6. I have not found them to be translucent at all. I have a friend who runs a paint your own pottery place, and they use them as underglazes, with a coat of clear over top. They don’t run or blur. 
 

@Marilyn T Thanks Marilyn, that's a great idea!
It's also nice to see how these clay bodies might work with different glazes

Clarification on the Glazy post: the image of that glaze on White Bear clay isn’t Joe’s, it’s another contributor using that glaze. The accreditation is in the gallery. Her name is Michelle Smith. https://glazy.org/u/mlsmithsbcglobalnet/recipes

I don't use either of these clays, but if I have used Glazy to find other potters who use the clay I use.  
Just put "White Bear"  in the activity search box in Glazy.  I see that Joe Thompson has used it with Van Gilder Tenmoku (he tried it on several clays so use the arrows to find the White Bear photo) .   Perhaps you can message him. 
You can use the same process for Iceman.  Glazy link.
Hope you find someone that is willing to correspond with you.   

My glaze firings have always been quicker than bisque. It would be weird if you are firing on exactly the same settings but I am guessing you turn up the glaze firing faster?

I was talking to a guy at work who did some glaze leach testing with lead glazes and grapefruit juice. They were getting really high lead readings but it turned out to be the grapefruits being grown near a road and nothing to do with the lead glaze. As safe as we can make a glaze a lot of the food/drink we put in is contaminated 

You are not alone here.
At most I'll risk a dip on the rim or pouring swipe of some safe matte for slight changes in texture mostly.
There are many more than two of us keeping metal oxides out of our liner glazes I imagine. The iron in tenmoku is an exception here.  A case can be made for copper too except for the one medical condition - so copper is out.
Opacifiers like tin and titanium are ok so this helps us find more shades of iron. Zircopax can help improve durability apparently and if I remember correctly magnesium helps with glaze fit?
I know 'good glass' will prevent leaching but the cynic in me sees more people concerned with projects other than a sound liner glaze - this includes craze free clears.
As liners, clears are the most difficult in this regard, imo. We don't get to hide behind tenmokus. And even though a properly vitrified clay will forgive some crazing its easier to simply promote a crackle aesthetic than develop and maintain a craze free, clear surface.
My pots might tend towards boring but idc too much. I do tend to overthink things so keeping things simple can help - sometimes.
 
 

Purging is also a yearly event in my studio.   I did a purging recently,   my husband was installing  new led tube lights on my ceiling.   I had to unload some of the shelves so they could be moved.   I didn't think I threw away that much such but I I seem to have several empty shelves now.   Denice

full.  My shelves are full.  There is a purge that happens once a year, then mysteriously they fill again.  The wooden shelves, metal shelves.  All of them.