C.Banks

When we were firing in oxidation I was lucky enough to have 3 glazes that I was satisfied with. They fit, played very nicely, behaved on the pot as well as in the bucket. They were complete for the most part. The public liked them and could match pieces from year to year.
They took a few years to develop but they were complete in my eyes. This was a few years ago so a decades worth of perspective might offer some insight but I'll leave them for some other year.
 

This requires some brutal honesty and a merciless hammer. A person once told me there was enough crap pottery in the world she didn't want to add to it. She was a forthright person and I liked her.
I sometimes garage sale or cruise thrift stores with potters who find their own work. They smile and handover a few dollars and if necessary say something like "ya' - it's ok" all the while thinking how quickly the hammer will fall. I like these people too.
I hope to find something of my own one day and it would be nice to feel as though it deserved a good home away from hammers and rocks and piles of shards.

This requires some brutal honesty and a merciless hammer. A person once told me there was enough crap pottery in the world she didn't want to add to it. She was a forthright person and I liked her.
I sometimes garage sale or cruise thrift stores with potters who find their own work. They smile and handover a few dollars and if necessary say something like "ya' - it's ok" all the while thinking how quickly the hammer will fall. I like these people too.
I hope to find something of my own one day and it would be nice to feel as though it deserved a good home away from hammers and rocks and piles of shards.

This requires some brutal honesty and a merciless hammer. A person once told me there was enough crap pottery in the world she didn't want to add to it. She was a forthright person and I liked her.
I sometimes garage sale or cruise thrift stores with potters who find their own work. They smile and handover a few dollars and if necessary say something like "ya' - it's ok" all the while thinking how quickly the hammer will fall. I like these people too.
I hope to find something of my own one day and it would be nice to feel as though it deserved a good home away from hammers and rocks and piles of shards.

I spent some time on an old estrin one winter and came away with a new feeling for the rhythm of a well made pot. The fly-wheel taught me the importance of wheel speed management and helped me find a rhythm of my own.
I still have access to that estrin and use it from time to time. It's a treat.

I spent some time on an old estrin one winter and came away with a new feeling for the rhythm of a well made pot. The fly-wheel taught me the importance of wheel speed management and helped me find a rhythm of my own.
I still have access to that estrin and use it from time to time. It's a treat.

I tried to think of a few but managed to forget more than i care to admit so I'll just leave this:
 

Matte glazes work for me.
Maybe not underfired, saturated/over-supplied glazes but proper magnesia satin-mattes get me touching and feeling.

YEP----yep, yep, yep.  That, and the underlying intent, the hidden or overt motivation informing the end result. (HMS = Hidden Mask Series) 

Done with this forum

My current fad is the use of soda ash, twenty-mule-team Borax, and  TSP solutions sprayed on to raw clay surfaces - especially surfaces created from dry clay embedded in the moist surface of a clay body prior to the surface being stretched.  Firing is cone 10 gas kiln. 
 

I think that painting everyone with the same brush is inherently inaccurate.  I submit there are many people who do not justify their good fortune in earning a degree by assuming negative things about others who did not/were not able to go the same route.  Just because  someone is educated and has a degree, that does not automatically tell anybody anything about their life, their values, their struggles, their pain (or joy), their economic status (good or bad) or their politics/philosophy/world view. 
 I always wanted to study art and the creative process as expressed in this and other cultures, now and in history. The value of formal education in developing my skills in ceramics is worth 1000xs the price, for many reasons, and it is still paying off to this day.  As someone who earned a BFA from an esteemed art school, while on welfare and struggling mightily as a single parent with a toddler in tow, and 20 years older than the other students, in deep poverty, at times homeless, with many other crippling hardships, plus the add-on of student loans, I must assert how  enriching, valuable, freeing, and supportive of my creative expression and drive, and my very survival, the experience was.
What I got was a sterling education from the best faculty of knowledgible, competant, and skilled artists/instructors one could ever want. I have carried and used the benefits of that excellent education throughout all aspects of my life, not just in art interactions, but in ctitical thinking, world-view, career, understanding people and cultures, and many other areas of functioning. My formal training was invaluable and has enhanced my creative expression and appreciation of crafts & art. It took nothing away from my innate creative drive, my ideas, my self-concept/identity, or my preferences for working with my materials. When someone is being derisive and dismissive of that "piece of paper" Old Lady's line comes to mind:  "putting you down does not raise me up." Or rather, putting me down does not raise you up.

This serves to remind me how lucky I was.
My access to the studio was well worth the money I paid. The time spent  improved my understanding of ceramics from beginning to end. I left with a solid foundation to set up anywhere I can lay down cinderblocks.

Thinking about it, I may have a bias of sorts. . . I still judge a pot by whether it looks/feels overweight, if it is heavier than I think it should be, it goes back in the bucket, as no amount of trimming will make up for poor throwing.
 
best,
Pres