Chris Campbell

We are so lucky to be potters ... the world of clay is incredibly huge ... you could spend three lifetimes and not cover it all. And ... weirdly, the more you know the less you know and the more there is to discover, so set your sights on discovery and the rest will follow. ITS FUN!!! ... ooops, that’s a secret ... I forgot ... Muggles all over will be annoyed to hear that artists have fun. We’ll have no more of that!

Biggest first question is ... “ How long have you been working with clay?” Which leads to question number two ... “ How many different things have you tried?” One way you can make the kind of “narrowing down” choice you are talking about is by opening up to any area of clay that catches your fancy. Try it all and you will find something that grabs YOU ... a form technique or style that feels comfortable. Then you can focus and refine. I’ve noticed that many new potters want to monetize their work before they have had any of the fun of exploring. They hold their work up to public pricing way too early in their journey. Why miss the huge Galaxy of options that the clay world presents? Mostly, I suspect, because people around them ask more about making money than they do about the joy of learning to be good at something. Resist and explore.

For me it is not pride or ego ... it is in my nature. I simply cannot sell a pot I believe to be a ‘second’ at any price. I have learned that for me ... a ‘second’ is a second before bisque. Nothing in a firing is going to save it. No glaze or decoration is going to do magic. No raku voodoo is going to hide it. So I don’t bisque it. No piece is so precious it cannot be made again. Set your own standards on what is a second for you, then live with it.

Well, it depends. Are you going for a single sale or a repeat customer? It’s bad enough when your early ‘good’ work comes back to haunt you ... cannot imagine how horrible it would be to meet a second in the hands of a potter I admire.

There used to be a long haired dog around Penland ... many, many people have made brushes from his tail hair ... you just had to rub and the dog shed hair. I guess he is semi famous!

Pictures ... pictures ... it is 100% easier to analyze a problem with images. Most cracks are classics and once seen can be easily explained.

Due to a too long wait list, I will be teaching a second session of colored clay techniques. Spots in this second class are filling fast, so don’t delay! LEARN ABOUT COLORED CLAY - Aug 2-6, 2018 We will be at the lovely Sugar Maples Center for Creative Arts in the Catskills mountains of NY State. CALL their office directly to get your spot. (518) 263-2001 or go online: https://www.catskillmtn.org/…/ar…/sugar-maples/courses.html… Jump start your adventure of discovery with Color in Clay!

You don’t need to go to porcelain to get lovely lighter clay bodies. While I love porcelain, it does have a learning curve and can be frustrating to anyone used to a friendlier clay. Many clays are warm, creamy and light while still being user friendly. Just a thought.

You are so welcome! The teaching area of my website is a busy place .. it’s hard to find reliable information on colored clays.

I still say you should completely stir up the slip and probably sieve it to make sure it is totally blended before using it for slip casting. Your piece could have been lacking enough clay to keep it solid. Anything that settles would be missing and the thing that settles best is clay. I could be wrong, but for a well cast piece to melt that kiln would have had to run for a longer time and it would have been noticibly HOT on the outside. You would have know that thing was too hot just by observation, no?

I think it could be one of two things. Your kiln over fired which you should know from the witness cones (hopefully). Your slip was compromised ... I think if you did not stir it well enough you left the clay on the bottom of the container ... so, the form you made did not have enough strength to get through the high firing. Everything mostly survives bisque ... the test is really the high fire.

Apply this to other things ... is a good painting worth less because someone else sells theirs for cheap in a garage parking lot? Does crafted furniture suffer because you can get cheap sets at the local hardware chain? How about great cooking? Fine hotels? Designer clothing? My pet peeve has always been that the great potters don’t move UP ... vacate the low price area ... and widen our price ranges. I should never be able to buy a piece of excellently crafted work in the same price range as a beginner efforts ... but ... sadly I can. The price range is not nearly wide enough to make people appreciate the difference.

I see other images there that do not seem right ... can they just pull images off the Internet??

I agree with Neil that some just clean off easier ... like black ... while other dye the clay .. like greens and blues. Getting a sharp clean line is one of those ... it all depends ... things. There are probably two dozen basic ways to this with a hundred optional ways to each. if you could post a picture of the kind of image you are trying it would help.

You are making reasonable looking pots for where you are right now. Are they good, bad, excellent, terrible? ... you are too new at this to have that judgement say anything about your potential. That said ... remember what you said about needing the ‘zen’ part? Relaxation, meditation, looking inward? Try to enjoy this phase of learning. Throw with the intention of pleasing yourself by pushing your boundaries and seeing what happens. Forget about the glazing ... you can learn that next. Throw, split, appraise, recycle, throw again until you look at a pot and know it is good ... not just good enough to sell, unsigned, to someone. There is NO replacement for the time spent on the seat of your pants throwing pots ... enjoy!