Pres

Mine is a drill with blunger, a giant whisk, a pouring measuring cup from the dollar store, a turkey baster and a large tiling sponge.  I also occasionally use wax!  No brushes or tongs though, I should probably get some sometime lol 

or hand building , I'd also include a sur-form good, and a rasp.
Marcia

My basics list is the same as everyone else's basics list, pretty much. In addition, my essentials include a variety of wood sticks (chopsticks, skewers, round/square/triangular rods, pieces of thin decorative molding etc.); also scalpels, dental tools,  and, mostly, my fingers.

Wow Marcia. good to see you posting. The piece is phenomenal! Surface depth and color, contrast and transparency all so subtle and yet defining the orb form so well.
 
best,
Pres

Getting ready for my exhibition as one of 3 signature artists for our local Art Center Fundraiser; Art in the Beartooths. I have been firing and doing a few re-firings. Making interesting discoveries , at least for me regarding slight differences in temperature for soluble salts.

I'd include a small section of hacksaw blade. 1.5-2"  for scoring and refining edges.
Marcia

Okay, Okay, I did forget the cut off wire, and the chamois even though I often use a the web between fingers, and a japanese style throwing rib for bellying out the mug and jar forms.
 
 
best,
Pres

Okay, Okay, I did forget the cut off wire, and the chamois even though I often use a the web between fingers, and a japanese style throwing rib for bellying out the mug and jar forms.
 
 
best,
Pres

I use pretty much the same basic tools as others but also a section of a metric tape measure. I make all same type pots with lids have a standard size lid, I set the callipers to the measurement for that particular type pot or just use the tape measure. (I find metric is so much easier to measure with than imperial)

There was not a recent QotW question in the question pool, so I will pose one that I have been thinking of lately. What would your basic tool set be for handbuilding, or throwing? I have been throwing a lot lately, simple things, mugs and honey jars. I find that I use only a short list of tools: water bucket,  sponge, needle tool, a bamboo spatula blade(handle cut off) with a pointed edge with a notch for foot establishment, and a pair of calipers for the jars.  This short list is supplemented by a bunch of odd stamps and textured surfaces for pressed in pre-shaping decoration. A rather short list I believe, but all I really need to do to throw @1# mugs or honey jars. 
For handbuilding, there is another short list: slab sticks, rolling pin, fettling knife, a bevel wire( used to do this with fettling knife angled on table edge), and some magic water with tooth brushes and regular bristle brushes and a round wooden rib to work edges. Again, I would supplement this with the texture tools, and often decorate before final stretching of the slabs.
So I will post the same question to you: What would your basic tool set be for handbuilding, or throwing?
 
best, Pres

Couple soda jar re-fires, there were some wadding bits from the lids that fell inside the jars that needed to be dremelled out. Touched up the glaze in the bottoms and fired them to ^6 in electric kiln. Lost a bit of the flashing colour but came out okay. 

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've been busy filming and editing YouTube videos.  Need to get back on the mugs and bowls wagon though, so will get back to normal making soon.  
I also need to finish my website and get things moving on the business end, I just only have so much time in the day, someone clone me please!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRyK3g9rImtTJfaI5iGAP4w

Right now 40 jars sitting in the shop waiting for honey/spoon lids, 26 in the kiln, Mug throwing next week 75 for the order, probably get them thrown on Tues & Thursday. Recycling thawed out clay is rougher this year, but doable. Now use a heavy wiggle wire to cut bread slabs, spray and slam. Used to put finger holes in the slab, this is quicker and easier. Wiggle grooves hold water well.
 
best,
Pres

Right now 40 jars sitting in the shop waiting for honey/spoon lids, 26 in the kiln, Mug throwing next week 75 for the order, probably get them thrown on Tues & Thursday. Recycling thawed out clay is rougher this year, but doable. Now use a heavy wiggle wire to cut bread slabs, spray and slam. Used to put finger holes in the slab, this is quicker and easier. Wiggle grooves hold water well.
 
best,
Pres

Very informative topic about Teaching Ceramics to Adults. Soon I will be 50, and I think it is time to learn a new hobby. Ceramic Arts Daily community has a great forum of learning from experienced artists, art  educators and enthusiasts. I'm looking forward to learn more.

Right now 40 jars sitting in the shop waiting for honey/spoon lids, 26 in the kiln, Mug throwing next week 75 for the order, probably get them thrown on Tues & Thursday. Recycling thawed out clay is rougher this year, but doable. Now use a heavy wiggle wire to cut bread slabs, spray and slam. Used to put finger holes in the slab, this is quicker and easier. Wiggle grooves hold water well.
 
best,
Pres

I would vote on a red clay with wax resist or some other resist as you can see the change in thickness in the white areas.
 
best,
Pres

And country please.

Just a gentle reminder folks:
This entire conversation at its heart is meant to be about showing each other compassion and respect.  No name calling, and remember this is all in the service of learning . If someone who knows better tells you you’re doing it wrong, it’s worth listening to them if you want to expand yourself. 
Admitting you’re doing something wrong or hurting someone inadvertently is uncomfortable, but necessary for healing and growth. 

You understood me just fine. But it’s not just silence/restraint, it’s also the politeness and a desire to not insult. And I’m not your sister.

As a person of Korean heritage, I wholeheartedly endorse every word of the blog post.
I also get raging mad when people use the term “wasi sabi” to describe something that is simply a poorly made pot. This is the heart of the matter for me. Asian cultures involve a culturally required politeness. We are programmed not to confront, or to express our offense. In my life, I've met many non-Asians who misinterpret this as approval, and somehow manage to extend the misinterpretation as “lower standards,” and  take advantage of it, 
I appreciate her mention of Euan Craig as an example of someone who would never call his work “wabi sabi.”
I don’t think she’s being vitriolic at all. She is offended, and expressing it with reasoned and tempered words. Maybe if more Asian people would stop holding their tongues, and express their offense, it wouldn’t seem vitriolic. 

One of the skills I'ld like to have training in is decorative brushwork, sumi-e type work. Not necessarily black like traditional sumi-e paintings and calligraphy but I'ld love to have the skill (no small ask there!) and instruction to make fluid graceful brushwork with underglazes, stains, slips etc. 
edit: I realized I only answered half the question with my first reply. I would call it a trait not a skill but I can be very determined, relentless, persistent when it comes to trying to figure things out. I think this helps with sorting out the never ending ceramics related issues that arise. 

I just want to be doing more pottery and making more things that I love.

if i am still around in 5 years, i will be 83.   i have a small pension and social security.   the control of neither is entirely in my hands so the future is very hard to see clearly.   i would like to  put a small apartment upstairs over my studio to turn into an Airbnb.   i can hope to do that but need cash to build it.   maybe i can get on wheel of fortune and luck out.   that's the only way i see to get the $50, 000 to do it. 
so, if i am still around, i hope i can still enjoy the sunshine every time i see it and the beauty of the natural world as well as making useful things in clay.