kswan

Hi @Callie Beller Diesel, I didn't know about doing that, but I wasn't too attached to my website as it was. I was always thinking I wanted to change it and never got around to it. It's now about as basic as it can get, which is fine with me! As far as email, it's just my personal one. I put ceramics related emails in a separate folder. I was thinking of making a separate email address for ceramics using the Hostinger one, but I'm scared to fix what ain't broke. My system has been working for me and I've had the same email address for 25 years!

Hi Lee, I just went through the process of switching web hosts. I had a Weebly website, but since I have a custom domain they went from no fee to $16 per month, which was more than I wanted to pay. I was looking at two hosts with website builders: HostGator and Hostinger. I went with Hostinger, which has a starting price of $3 per month, then after two years it's $7 a month. I'm not selling online, though. It's just to give people a view of work I do and other information. The templates are pretty basic, but it was easy to figure out. It includes an email too, but I haven't used that yet. I just ordered business cards and I don't want to change them yet. Kathy

@Jeff Longtin Those are nice! Have you tried also just clear glazing over the stained clay body? I wonder if that would intensify the stain color in the porcelain. I took a class where a student was trying to match the clay body and glaze color, and he discovered that just clear over it made a nice effect. I look at all the lovely possible mason stain colors and feel frustrated when they don't turn out right. Purple is still giving me headaches when trying to make my own underglazes. They keep disappearing when it's not applied thick enough, but I don't want it so thick. I can't remember which website it was, but I bought some of the remaining discontinued colors they had. They're sitting in a box waiting for me to try again to make them work. My plan this year is to mix up successful underglazes and glazes. Gotta keep working on that chemistry (not my strong suit). I don't use it in my clay body though, just painted on the surface. Kathy

My clay says to bisque to 04, but I usually do 05. Once when firing to 04, it overfired to almost 03, and it was nearly impossible to glaze it right. I don't see much difference between even 06 and 04 for glaze application and firing results with my clay, so I slow bisque to 05 and whatever variations happen are acceptable to me. I have also got my specific gravity and dipping times consistent, although I don't actually count, it's just how I got used to doing it.

@Pres That's a fabulous shape! Good design. The flared pedestal could work for the bowl as well.

It could be that your clay may never be able to hold that cake stand shape. Many people make a cake stand without the pedestal by having a downturned rim. That would be simple enough to throw on the wheel upside down. You might try that and fire a pedestal separately and epoxy them together if you want, or just have the shorter cake stand. The bottom of your bowl should be thicker where the walls are curving upward, and then attach a wider pedestal there. If the attachment point is horizontal, it will be more likely to sag. You could also attach a coil of clay around the outer seam where the bowl meets the pedestal for extra support. If possible, fire in the coolest part of your kiln to reduce warping. I'd also suggest making slightly smaller versions of these items as you learn the physics of them and the limits of your clay. Good luck with them! I hope you'll share your successful results.

You can also use your own body as an analogy about feeling the weight of gravity. If you hold heavy weights, you can hold them longer straight up as opposed to straight out. The same happens with clay, it needs support to not sag. An upward curve at an edge instead of horizontal will help. If your edge is thick, it is heavier and will sag down too. As Kelly said, thick in the support area like the base is important, and then thinner edges where possible.

That's called dunting. You'll be able to tell if it happened during the heating cycle or the cooling cycle by looking that edges of the cracks. If they are sharp, it happened in the cooling. If they are melted and rounded, it happened during the heating. Either way, the process needs to be slower. You kind of have a perfect storm for that to happen: glaze refiring, one side glaze application, maybe a too thick glaze layer. You may not have the best glaze fit for that clay too. If you're set on using that glaze/clay combination, I'd add a foot ring to your plate to glaze both side and apply a thinner glaze layer. If you know there's a spot in your kiln that reaches the right temperature, make sure it goes there.

8 billion and counting -- yikes!

Chip and Dale! We have a heat pump. I didn't know anything about them until we bought our house 12 years ago and it had one. The output doesn't get as warm as a gas furnace. I used to sit by a vent and read as a kid when we had a gas furnace. I called it the fireplace. Good times. I made the mistake of storing bird seed in the garage. Then I kept finding mice putting stashes of bird seed all around in the basement where my studio is. I'd open a drawer, look in a box, uncover a corner and there would be millet and sunflower seeds. I even found stashes in the kitchen around the stove. They found a little hole to get in there and were saving seed in the casserole dishes. Meanwhile the cat is just sleeping away oblivious to the work he needs to do. Sigh.

Hi @Babs, just a thought but could copper be toxic to birds in a birdbath? They often drink the water too.

Something else that may help you is to get the surface smooth after you trim. It looks like you have grog raised above the rest of the surface, maybe from wiping with a sponge. Trimming can also drag grog across the clay and leave grooves and holes. After you trim, smooth your piece with a flexible rib (metal or silicone) to even out the trimming lines and push grog back down into the clay.

Thanks, Mark, for explaining details of your business process. It's enlightening to read about how you've structured your pottery business, including its eventual end for your retirement. Thanks to everyone else for adding your strategies and advice as well.

As a kid back in the 80s, my dad had a sheepskin cover for the steering wheel and seats. I was always petting the inside of his car. Needless to say, they were in his BMW, not the family station wagon!

Happy new year to all! Are you all using the same glaze inside and out when doing the magnet method? My liner glaze is different, and I've always hated when I dip something upside down and then it burps on pulling out of the glaze bucket. The burp slops glaze onto my liner glaze and I have to carefully get it off without also removing the liner. I tried practicing methods to reduce that effect, but I gave up. I know you can wax the lip, but I don't want to deal with that. Now I put my hand (or both if needed) inside the piece and lower into the bucket. It took practice to not let glaze flow inside, but it's better results for me since I can see what's happening. If there's a bare spot where the two glazes didn't overlap, I just dot glaze on with a brush, but most of the time it's fully glazed. I could see the magnet method being really helpful for a wide flared bowl where I can't get good friction on the insides to hold it while dipping. In those cases, I hold it by the top of the rim to dip and then brush glaze near the rim afterward. That's not such a great method, though, I'd say. It doesn't look smooth, and it's time consuming. My current goal is to find a permanent dipping container for my main glaze. I would love to have a rectangular container wide and deep enough for platters to go in dipped straight down. Not too big, maybe 6-8 gallons, sturdy and with a lid. I should probably do a separate post on that. I'm sure people know about resources I haven't heard of! I want to save strain on my body not to lift my whole bucket and pour it into a pan for glazing plates and platters.

@Kelly in AK Wow, that's gorgeous! Nice find! Beautiful oxblood (?) glaze and nice carving.

I think of ceramics as artworks that draw me in. Like Callie, I think about the potter's personality in addition to the work they make, because they are really intertwined. For me, I can get really amped up by seeing the first spring ephemeral flowers coming up, and that motivates me to create work, even if my work may not be directly related to what I see. I can sometimes feel that from someone else's pieces. For example, Noel Bailey makes porcelain pieces that look like ice as it has frozen and melted over a cliff face. He does ice climbing apparently, and my husband used to ice climb. This connection made me purchase one of his pieces although I've never met him. He sent a very nice note in the package, and he seems like someone I'd like if I met him. I also don't buy large quantities of work from specific potters because I want a little of everything! My cabinets are a lovely mishmash of things I made as well as other potters' work and purchased pieces. I don't have any space left in my cabinets, so I've got things on shelves and in bookcases too. I also tend to purchase mugs or other small or nesting pieces that I can fit into the kitchen when I admire someone's work. I've seen people build specific beautiful shelving units to store their mugs collections.

You should consider what type of show setting you are going to as well. Some people I've seen use an RV that they camp in if it is in a place where RVs are allowed, to save on hotel fees. In a city, you'll have to think about available parking for your vehicle. For example, a trailer in a parking garage costs a lot more than just a regular vehicle. When you apply to a show, check out whether or not they have dedicated parking for you. I have a 2010 Subaru Forester that worked for me as long as used my Tetris skills to pack it. I got a 2005 Honda Odyssey minivan now as well (for free from downsizing parents, thanks mom and dad!) that is also comfy, as @GEP says. I can now leave tables and shelves in there since I have another car to drive.

I have a couple of those as well for dipping. I thought I could do it without waxing an area. Ha. The dent puller stuck nicely on the bottom of my unwaxed piece, but after dipping in the glaze, the dent puller detached and my bowl landed in the bottom of the glaze bucket. Of course, I tried it again to see if it was just a fluke and yes it did fall off.

I've heard the dad joke pretty often so far myself about my berry bowl or pierced fruit bowl not holding soup. Sigh. I just try to picture my actual dad saying those things, because he's come up with some doozies that make me groan in embarrassment even to this day. I haven't had anyone disrespectfully touch my items, though. I'd get pretty upset with a grown adult playing with my work like it's a toy. I put labels next to my items which really helps with the questions like, "What is this for?" when it is a berry bowl or garlic jar. People unfamiliar with those terms will then ask me how it's used, and I enjoy explaining that to them. I used to be an elementary teacher, and answering questions is something I still love. It would be difficult for me to make up some of the wacky questions the kids would ask, so I'm not too surprised by anything people ask me about my pottery.

@Kelly in AK I've been lucky to live near climbing gyms for the past 20 years or so. Unfortunately, that's where I manage to injure myself because it's too easy to just keep pushing myself! Outside, you have to drive or fly to the destination, hike the approach to the climbs, set up and organize your gear, descend back to the base, and you don't want to do that in the dark. My local gym on the other hand is ten minutes away and is open from 6am to 11pm! My husband still climbs, though. I'm not an athletic or competitive person either, but climbing is a mental challenge that appealed to me.

As pieces are fired, the glaze and top layer of the clay are literally melting into one another. In this case, it's your slip. Where it's thicker, it still has enough coverage of the clay underneath that the top part melting into the glaze doesn't show. You need that zone to melt together to make a stronger glaze fit.

I'm 52 and was recently diagnosed with ADHD. So much about me makes sense knowing this. I can work on something like pottery where I'm using my hands for hours at a time, and then forget the rest of the world exists. That's both good and bad, as I don't get around to doing other things that need to be done, and my back or shoulders will get stiff. Thanks for bringing it up and discussing it in this topic. I've got a lot I'd like to learn about this. I've had back injuries where I have to be very careful when I'm working or carrying things, so it doesn't get exacerbated. Sometimes just leaning down the wrong way will have me hurting for a week or more. I got an adjustable seat for my wheel but I know I still need to take breaks and get up every few minutes anyway. I need to keep up with my PT exercises, but ugh it gets boring! I used to rock climb up until about 5 or 6 years ago, and I was really strong. Unfortunately, I also had chronic tendonitis in my forearms and tears in both shoulder cartilage. I went through surgery for one, and once the other one tore I decided I was done. It's too bad I haven't found an activity I like as much as I did climbing. I became even more of a homebody during the pandemic lockdown so now even carrying a 50 box of clay is difficult. I started doing hand building a few years ago out of necessity when I hurt my back again. It was months before I was fully recovered, but I still wanted to do work. I got a slab roller and now that's what I use probably more than my wheel.

Sponging is especially necessary when going over underglaze pencil or chalk. Just a thin layer to keep it in place. I've found that even with dipping some of my dry materials were floating away in my glaze bucket. A brush smears it, so the sponge works best.

I've found that certain glazes just don't brush on well. I mostly dip and pour from a glaze bucket, but I brush glaze on some of my more awkward shapes. Adding a gum to the glaze helps with brushing, although the commercial ones are full of gum. I've noticed that you have to brush those on more thickly than you'd think, so they look like they're going to fall off the pot. You can also try to wet the surface of your bisque a little bit before applying glaze. It can help prevent the first coat from going on unevenly because it keeps the glaze damp for a little longer. I do something similar for wiping the foot ring, except I use one of those flat sponges. It looks like a dish cloth, but it is made of sponge. I found anything thicker than that would hit the area I wanted glazed and make a smudge. It stays flat as I wipe across it and then I rinse it when it gets dirt and lay it out again.