Pieter Mostert

I'm not sure that a contemporaneous period, or movement, is possible to be named and categorized while still unfolding and in motion.  History, to me, is an amalgam of hindsight with a mix of alleged and actual facts shoring it up. It is always a bit twisted---sometimes very, very twisted.  I don't see art history as being exempt from the ways in which history (formed from records, opinions & observations, critiques, all kinds of analysis, supposition,  explanations, and relational interpretations) may be, and has been,  "used" as a political, cultural,  socioeconomic, even religious, dynamic that affects entire populations and subgroups, sometimes quite negatively (think post-Soviet actionist art). There are deep roots and reasons why the general U.S. population was initially disgusted with and fearful of the emergence of "abstract" art.  People had to be taught how to be "the viewer", how to enter a new visual reality, how to participate in the dialogue, how to "appreciate" what made no sense to them.  Once history has blessed an art movement/period with the names of the identified heroes and generated enough money to give it credence, even the most impenetrable or nonsensical works, the most blatantly naked emperors, get to assertively confound us with challenges to our discernment of what is art and what is artifice.  Most of us can't tell 'em apart, but once we slap a label on the period or movement in question, it's pretty well settled. One hopes that there is a strong core of intelligence and benign creativity when articulating an art movement or period and that art historians may bless us with insights and context, and not leave us in the dark (think of Ai Weiwei and the urn--you have to understand it to understand it). 
Yep.

I got tired with going down to the basement to make sure my kiln was working properly and running on schedule so I started (forked) a project to control my KS-1018 using a raspberry pi. With this I can:
monitor my kiln from anywhere using any device that has a web browser (phone/tablet/computer) easily create new schedules, edit existing schedules, including infinite ramps & soaks accurate PID control get schedule cost estimates and actuals If anyone is interested, here is the github link... https://github.com/jbruce12000/kiln-controller
The cost for everything I bought was under $200.00, but my time investment has been high.  Again, this is for geeks that were born with a soldering iron in one hand.

Hello!
My name is Philip White. I was the manufacturer of the Stoker Electric Reduction Kiln. The company, a.k.a. The Reduction Production Refractory Factory was building Stoker Kilns in Amesbury,Massachusetts, USA. It had to close in the early 1980's when the US Small Business Administration reconsidered RPRF from being a 'small' business to a 'miniscule' one and not important enough to continue subsidizing. Consequently, the whole thing went down the tubes. Needless to say, I was so disillusioned with this state of affairs that I didn't want to have anything to do with kilns or pottery for years.
 
Flash forward to 2018 and I'm now retired. Thought I'd see if the Internet knew anything about the Stoker. I was amazed to see it mentioned on this website. Subsequently, I decided to come 'out of the shadows' and share a little of what I learned about electric reduction firing and the engineering constraints that made it highly doable and practical. Some of this may be surprising, and (I hope) edifying. Some of what I discovered, you may find surprising. As with other discoveries, it was under our nose all this time, but no one had connected the dots.
It is really not my intention to write a 'book' on this topic without knowing if there is still any interest.
If there is anyone that may find the subject interesting, or want to actually learn more and build one, please reply and perhaps we can open a thread on the subject.
Phil White

In terms of american pottery a few yeas back I did a paper on Maria Martinez and another on Juan Quesada. Their work rediscovering the traditional native american ceramic aesthetic and process I think is definitely worth mention.

Something that is more like a sketch problem might have a broad reach...like, start with one cubic inch of clay and make something functional? something whimsical? something humanoid?
 
These could be quicker turnaround projects while the quarterly thing happen,
'just a thought,
-Paul