rox54

Another trick for accessing Adobe products (Lightroom will also resize images I believe)  is to just subscribe for the free month and then cancel when you’re done. If you have trouble remembering to cancel subscriptions like this, use a visa gift card number that has a zero balance  where they ask you to enter your credit card info. When they go to process the transaction in a month’s time, you’ll get a notification to update your payment info, and you can cancel or subscribe.

Thank you! I feel better that their requirements weren't clear to someone with more experience. The 4x6 threw me off, but setting the pixels at 600x900 max is very helpful. I save my images in JPEG so I think I should be ok then. I use Windows and will look for a good free app.  I really appreciate the sharing of knowledge here!

The language they gave you leaves a lot to be desired, in terms of clarity. 
“between 72 and 150 px” refers to “pixels per inch.” For a 4x6 inch image at 150 pixels per inch, resize your image to be 600 x 900 pixels. 
JPEG is the default file format for most digital cameras, so chances are you don’t need to change anything there. 
Photoshop is the most popular image editing software. The language they used sounds like they expect everyone to have it. But it’s not feasible for many people (very expensive and steep learning curve). If you have a Mac you can use Preview which comes for free on a Mac. I often use a free app called Image Size on my iPad which will do the resizing too. 

If these are for jurying, they look “proper” to me. 
My one suggestion, invest in a backdrop that gradates with more contrast. Whiter in the front/bottom and much darker in the back/top. It will give the photo more depth, and make the pot stand out more. I like the Flotone “Thunder Gray” backdrop. 

While teaching at the HS I had a handout for teapots. . . .as my advanced classes had to make one for a MP benchmark. I had it posted on my blog
 

 
best,
Pres

I epoxied a wood disc to the back of a 16" porcelain platter last year, lots of surface area joining, and it fell off in just a few days. I prefer a mechanical system- wire through a hole in the foot or something like that.

I have had arthritis in my hands beyond memory at this point. Using your hands is whay I consider a key element to life and hands. My guess is you are not a professional with clay so you will not be using.8- 10 tons a year which. puts a hurt on the hands . I would  not worry about clay and your hands. Mild Artritis is in all us old timers who use our hands in life. 
I am 100% a believer that clay can help  strengthen and exercise the muscles . As you age no matter what your artritis will continue
Clay has kept my hands strong . They do not like cold but thats also an aging issue.Heck I do not like cold-never have liked heat either-I like it just right.

Ceramics by Nelson was our text at Mansfield State College. A small school near my parents home in north central PA. I was taking ceramics as part of an undergraduate program for my Art Education BS. The school had several good, albeit lesser known professors. My ceramics professor was Stanley Zuchowski, a graduate of Alfred. He threw large, and was a big man often hefting barrels of slip from one end of the room to the other when making clay.  In order to keep anything in the class from the wheel he had to see a 9 inch cylinder out of 3lb of clay. After that we were allowed to throw almost anything. I believe I got some of my prejudices from him: There are only 3 forms off the wheel, the cylinder, the bowl, and the plate. A bowl always has a round bottom, if the bottom is flat it is a lowly dish.  
My true introduction to ceramics books came when perusing the office of the ceramics department at Penn State University where I began graduate classes. I took them within the Fine Arts department as non degree. There were several texts i there that I knew I would one day own: Clay and Glazes for the Potter, by Daniel Rhodes; The Potters Dictionary of Materials and Techniques, by Frank and Janet Hamer; to name a few. To be honest, I first looked at these books for the pictures of pots, I had been interested in art all my life, but had very little experience with ceramics until that first class in college. It wasn't until I started reading beyond the pictures that I understood the art, craft and science beyond the pretty pictures. So my library has grown to fill much of a room.
best,
Pres

+1! It's easy to be verbose, being concise takes much more finesse.
Pres's question of the week has a lot of similarities to a post I did a few years back asking new members to give us an idea of their experience / knowledge in relation to the question they are asking. Information overload is going to do nothing but confuse people who come here for a simple answer to a basic question. 
There is always room here for lengthy questions, statements and replies as there are many potters on this forum with decades of experience and expertise;  finding the balance between what should probably be answered with a simple reply vs a lengthy one is key.
 
 

Short form that stays on topic as much as possible with elaboration if asked for.

Went to a orthopedic surgeon last week. My biggest concern was some cysts that have appeared on the lt wrist, and the rt second finger knuckle. X-rays of both hands have revealed areas of arthritis on second joints of fingers. In the end the Dr. asked about my pain, I  answered that there was discomfort, not pain, and that I would work in the clay when things got sore and it would go away. He said that when it got bad to let him know and he could fix it.  How I asked? "fuse the joints causing the pain. I said Why  would I do that, as I got up to leave!
 
best,
Pres

Tough decisions as we get older @Dottie. Most o f this is personal decision, but I will let you know what I have been doing. Retired 2009, do part time pottery mostly in the non Winter months. I have had cysts, with bone spurs, one operated on, and it killed the joint on the rt thumb. I recycle all my clay with wedging, and throw most of my pieces. I used to pull handles with my rt hand, but now use an extruder to make handles for mugs and other pieces that require handles. I used to take NSAID for pain, mostly just before bowling, as I am an avid bowler at 3 times a week. I have found that the pain of the hands goes away when I am using them. The more I use them the longer the pain seems to stay away. However. as I used to teach most handbuilding techniques in HS, I know how much the pinch pot forms can affect the hands, especially as you get older. Maybe you could resort to a hybrid form with coils, or extruded forms working on the sculptural pieces that way. I think if you love what you do you will find ways to adapt.
 
best,
Pres

Great question, Pres. I’ve been thinking about this issue a lot lately.
I do not share my exact glaze recipes, because I feel that keeping them to myself is necessary when running a business. If you have some aspect of your work that makes you stand out as individual and original, that’s a very valuable asset. However I will freely tell people that my main glaze is a modified version of a semi-matte base recipe from MC6G, and that they can figure out their own modification. I also share all of my glazing techniques (though not for free).
I agree with Denise that it would be impossible for anyone to copy another person’s pottery, but that doesn’t stop people from trying. 
In recent years I’ve been leaving most of my shows with very few pots, and one time with no pots, and I can (sometimes) see other artists looking at my near empty booth with some confusion about how I managed to do it. Most of the answer to that is shared freely on my blog, for those who care to read it. But it is scattered around, and some of the most important bits are in videos that are not free. So I am planning to write an in-depth blog post soon, where I consolidate all of it into one place. This is the kind of stuff that I don’t mind sharing. 

Lately I’ve really been into hakeme.
 

I like making textured objects-stamped, incised, carved, run over by a cat----whatever produces nooks & crannies, rips, cracks, scraggly edges, holes etc., and then brushing glaze just across topmost surface  so a little--or a lot---of the bare clay shows. I also single fire electric at cone 5 or 6, with a slow cool. The sample pic is a spoon holder. 

I accidently came upon a technique that buyers seem to love; I love it too. I was a real novice and just playing around on one piece in which I scraped off some glaze on a bisqued and dipped piece resulting in texture and a view of speckled clay. I tried avoiding the dust of dried glaze by using wax as a resist for slip instead, but the look isnt nearly as beautiful. For now, I'm wearing a respirator and performing the task outside, changing my clothes after. I am not a mass producer, so I am ok with this til I find a new aesthetic; not always easy to do!

I accidently came upon a technique that buyers seem to love; I love it too. I was a real novice and just playing around on one piece in which I scraped off some glaze on a bisqued and dipped piece resulting in texture and a view of speckled clay. I tried avoiding the dust of dried glaze by using wax as a resist for slip instead, but the look isnt nearly as beautiful. For now, I'm wearing a respirator and performing the task outside, changing my clothes after. I am not a mass producer, so I am ok with this til I find a new aesthetic; not always easy to do!

what would result from using the oxides mixed with water, but without gertsley borate? 

I feel like any diagram or 2D representation of my career path should involve crayons, lol!
To say it was indirect for a good long time is an understatement.I did start off being pretty focused, and got a whole BFA in ceramics, but when I graduated, I had what I know now to be the crash that every gifted kid with case of undiagnosed ADHD seems to wind up with. So I worked a bunch of wildly unrelated retail or reception jobs for the next 14 years, and made pots on the side while Life Happened and Was Not-pretty (TM).
After having a couple of kids and coming to the conclusions that 1)I make a terrible employee but an awesome boss, 2) since I can predictably earn a couple hundred bucks every time I resupplied the one gallery I was in, maybe I just needed to consistently get my work in front of people to earn some adult money. 
Once I had relaxed and begun to see opportunities and possibilities again, my work did some pretty rapid growth and development. I built a TON of new forms, I went from cone 10 reduction to cone 6 ox, and went from using a white porcelaneous stoneware to a red stoneware with white slip deco. I challenged myself to keep the qualities of the cone 10 work that I really enjoyed while incorporating some of the easy turnover and colourful elements that cone 6 offers.  
I don’t think I know of an artist that has had direct, linear path. We all seem to incorporate bits of our lives and our loves and our experiences into the work we make.

In my former life, I used to be middle management in a health food/grocery store in an area with a pretty diverse cross section of humanity. Specifically, I was a Cashier Supervisor, and I have management training.  In working the customer service desk there, I couldn’t even make up the things that happened! I have witnessed someone drop $1200 in vitamins and bulk items on the same day we had to remove someone tripping balls on crack from the store who was trying to shoplift very, very poorly. I have kept a straight face while witnessing someone checking the “energy signature” on a day-old muffin by holding it to her forehead (she bought it), and while someone was shopping with a pyramid on his head without a trace of irony. The guy returning 7 organic cabbages that had spent a week in his car in August did manage to bust my poker face though. It wasn’t hot by southern US standards, but 30*C was involved.
So my threshold for weird is probably a bit broken!
Serving demanding customers can pay off when they’re in earnest, but it’s helpful to ask a few screening questions to see what they’re after and to establish if you’re able to help them now, in the future, or not at all. To do this, you have to have your boundaries and service offerings defined for yourself.
If someone is in earnest, I would have no issue with them wanting to check teapot pour, and would probably aid and abet this with my own water bottle. If someone is looking for a specific pot, I’ll ask a few clarifying questions and produce the best available options for them to choose from. It helps them pick faster if the choices are limited. If I know I don’t have the options, I’ll say so. I’ll either offer to put them on a list for when the right thing is back in stock, or send them to another potter who might have something that suits better. My philosophy is to help people find what they want as efficiently as possible, and to be of service to customers in my booth. People seeking things like discounts or to not pay tax are met with a professional responses (“I only offer price breaks on wholesale quantities” or “I do some nice things for repeat customers and my email list subscribers,”  or “The price for cash sale is the same.”). Being of service does not mean undervaluing yourself.
I do not tolerate abuse or cruelty though. 
I have only asked 2 people to leave my booth. One person made an exceptionally crude sexual comment that he then tried to say was “just a joke.” I replied “Jokes are supposed to be funny,” and gave him Mom Look Number 32b (Arched Eyebrow Variant). He backed away in embarrassment. The second lady I think didn’t have any idea what a fine craft market entailed, and had a very loud sticker shock response to a $35 mug. Like..REALLY loud. And rude. And angry. And personal. She used the words “Who the $%^& do you think you are!?” I walked up to her and said in a calm quiet voice pitched for her and no one else “This item is possibly not for you, but there is nneed to make a spectacle of yourself over it. You should leave my booth now.” Anyone being rude or mean to me does not mean I have to stoop to their level.
 

This one's not behind a pay wall:  Ehren Tools War Cups

It very much depends on the colourant and the glaze. You’d have to test it. If you don’t have gerstley to hand, use a frit or other flux that’s already an ingredient in the glaze you’re brushing over.

I have a wash recipe from Bill Van Gilder that calls for .25 ball Clay and .25 Nepheline Syenite. This as weight, and then .50 of various coloring oxides. Use mine quite dilute with water and it seems to work well on my two cone 6 clay bodies from SC.
 
best,
Pres 

@rox54 Some things like iron will flux enough by themselves, but other colourants are more refractory and won’t stick without adding a little flux.

Someone more experienced than me should answer this -- but I think the gerstley gives it a nice smooth melt so that the surface texture is not rough.