[Turning your hobby into a business]

3 hours ago, Min said:

+1.

I would expand this to include hands on experience with everything from making pots and glazes, working on kilns and selling pots. Real world experience. 

Wouldn't this depend on who and where ones market and / or audience is?

indeed it would

cheers

[Turning your hobby into a business]

3 hours ago, GEP said:

These are the most “successful Instagram users.” Not to be confused with “successful potters.” You can’t deposit instagram likes in the bank. What looks shiny and pretty on social media can be 100% a facade. 

I know successful potters from my real life, because doing lots of high-level shows allows you to meet the real deals. Some of them are great with social media, some are bad at it, and some of them don’t do social media at all. There is no correlation. 

My advice to anyone who wants to be a serious pro: don’t place any value on social media popularity. Do it for fun, if you want, but that’s all. 

 I try to avoid knee ######## blanket statements so thanks for picking up on this one.

[Turning your hobby into a business]

With all due respect, insert disrespectful comment, the most successful people right now are instagram(algorithm) savvy and photogenic.

Good technique and form doesn't matter near as much as it did even just 10 years ago. The people flooding youtube with shiny vidoes get traction in spite of any traditional skill set.  It's great people can make pots in however manner pleases them or their buying public but lets not kid ourselves about what separates good pots from bad.

Well produced videos properly promoted will overcome a lot of what defines well made pots.

I always wonder if I should send these comments. Sometimes my honesty is poorly worded. 

[Wet clay, wheel wedging, and other miscellanea]

23 hours ago, Hulk said:

what a difference the uniformity/homogeneity of the clay makes

You are absolutely right here, wedging is often botched or neglected which makes struggling even worse.

Thanks for putting up that Clinton video. Your video led to Gabriel Nichols throwing long toms.

A very few alive today will know what 1000 pot production looks like.

 

 

 

 

[QotW: How savvy are your customers about pottery?]

I'm glad this hasn't devolved into too much of a tear down of Joe customer. It's easy to make fun of people and I do it too often for my liking.

a person recently spent a few minutes asking some questions about some new work. They were new to ceramics but enthusiastic. They left without buying anything but did request a card.

this one person made my day. They were one of the clueless I'd love to find at every sale. The rest I try to be easy with. I don't always succeed as much as I would like.

[excessive manganese]

20 hours ago, Callie Beller Diesel said:

I think when it comes to these really unbalanced glazes, it’s important to remember that not everyone working in clay is a functional potter.

this is important

some glazes are definitely for non-functional or sculptural work only. the ones I'm most familiar with are clearly labeled first and foremost.

I'm hoping people starting out will recogonise the importance of durable, well-fitted surfaces in contact with food. Call me  Nancy or Karen but I try understand and respect the material I work with. not trying to suggest other pepole don't just putting my cards ont the table as they say. I'm certainly not here looking to win the upvote popularity contest.

I also understand in some regards I'm a bit of a hypocrite.

I'm unsure why atm the playground analogy sits poorly with me. Maybe sculptural work is more playful or maybe fucntional work needs more play. maybe something about kids with matches

regards

[excessive manganese]

Thanks for the responses. I'm glad it got people talking.

I wanted to get a sense of how people felt about these metallic surfaces. I know the disclaimer was added but it seemed ot me more of a cya than psa.

this:

13 hours ago, High Bridge Pottery said:

is absolutely how these glazes should be published imo. There's no reason for a glaze like this to be used for functional surfaces imo. trying to make it food safe is only asking for trouble. the use of other metal oxides in this fashion deserves the same very explicit warnings.

I'm biased of course and remember the fallout from the use of lead so I'm sensitive to how ceramics are perceived. We make nice things but waste of bunch of stuff doing it.

lots of us are still just lemmings and goodness knows I've fallen off a few cliffs in my life  and no doubt will again.

hopefully I'll have a bunch of suitable cautions to help avoid any pitfalls. physical or otherwise

[excessive manganese]

this Gold Metallic (No Redart) on glazy immediately strikes me as irresponsible

I'm wondering what more people feel about these toxic oxides getting used in high amounts to satisfy extended UMF glaze requirements?

Am I just a bit of a codger when I want to tell people just because you can doesn't mean you should?

[Newly discovered Clay in backyard - Firing results]

12 hours ago, BobMagnuson said:

Instead of figuring out where the clay "matures", why not just use it for terracotta?  If it's plastic enough make pots, handmade or thrown, firing to around cone 04 often makes a beautiful clay body.  It won't be vitrified, but could be great for flower pots or sculpture.  Otherwise, a 50/50 mixture with wood ash will probably make a decent stoneware glaze.

even a simple 3124, silt, tin oxide makes a great glaze at cone 6.

some silts show promising oil spots on their own and with additions get even better. high fire oxidation though

I used to work with a very nice tenmoku using ~70% silt...iron saturates too in oxidation

There were areas of a triaxial with wood ash and silt that indeed showed promise at ^10 in reduction

i didn't really mean to blurt all this out but wanted more to support the suggestion there are indeed many decent glazes to be found using these silts.

 

 

[Is it possible to make a living?]

26 minutes ago, Pres said:

It is possible, check out the postings of @Mark C.. A lifetime commitment for certain, but he takes time to travel, scuba, and fish. A well balanced life of working hard with a focus on ceramics.

 

best,

Pres 

trouble is the cost of entry has gone through the roof

it'd be easy to go on a rant here but even just the advantage of cheap energy cannot be understated here

everything is more expensive and less available

truth be known I'm a bit turned off when I constantly hear about the dozens and hundreds and thousand of w/e is not even possible for many of us

the last few years has only made the situation worse

 

[Newly discovered Clay in backyard - Firing results]

8 hours ago, Kelly in AK said:

it’s Albany slip

some of the secondary glacial clay or silt over here fires to a nice brown slip glaze on their own at cone 10. I imagine you have secondary clay in silt deposits in Alaska as well

Plainsman also markets Alberta slip as an alternative to Albany.

some secondary marine clays work well at cone 10 too

[Why my clay acts like this?]

On 11/2/2022 at 12:54 PM, Babs said:

You are overthinking this I feel.

you have a clay body .

It is not the best to work with.

You add a temper to it, or temper it by

adding the substance of your choice, or want to test,.

this substance is the temper which can be a grog or any other substance you find helps you to work with the clay body.

Ceramics is difficult enough without getting bogged down in the semantics imo.

I agree completely and appreciate this opportunity to help clarify the term. If I can avoid unnecessary complications and confusing language I am able to better explain myself if need be.

I like to consider myself somewhat well read and have a nice collection of books and magazines but it's very possible I just haven't been paying attention.  In the decades I've been involved in ceramics the discussion has always been around grog. I'm not super educated from any official ceramics program and I also don't prospect for clay for any sort of structural work so this is a good lesson.

I better leave this thread be or start my own.

thanks OP!

[Why my clay acts like this?]

1 hour ago, Callie Beller Diesel said:

@suetectic grog is one thing: fired ceramic that’s been ground up to a sand like consistency. Temper is lots of things that can get added to a clay body to adjust it.

so mullite(from kaolin) is a grog while kyanite is a temper? nvm both are ultimately derived from kaolin if I understand correctly so both can be grog if ceramic includes kaolin.

I want to be able to explain this in simple terms in possible.

I should have probably suggested previously that temper 'also' includes to help indicate temper includes refractory and non-refractory material.

[Why my clay acts like this?]

43 minutes ago, PeterH said:

Not the way I read it, I think it's the clay/body that is tempered.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tempered
tempered (adjective): limited or controlled, or made less extreme.

So you achieve  a tempered clay by adding temper to a less manageable one.

From Hamer & Hamer
Temper. An addition to clay which improves work-ability, e.g. sand and grog. Temper will also affect the fired result but it's introduction is essentially to assist forming and uniform drying.

 

 

This helps.

So maybe only clay and refractories can be grog and temper includes organic or non-refractory material?

[Why my clay acts like this?]

32 minutes ago, PeterH said:

This gave 12 examples of types of temper, only one of which is grog.
Temper (pottery) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temper_(pottery)

Whoops thank you for pointing out the wiki already posted.

So now I wonder if the 'grit, sandstone, limestone, igneous rock' are considered temper because they are not 'tempered'?

Referring to "Some clays used to make pottery do not require the addition of tempers. Pure kaolin clay does not require tempering.^[5] Some clays are self-tempered, that is, naturally contain enough mica, sand, or sponge spicules that they do not require additional tempering"

Florida looks like a good place to study 'tempering' in ceramics. In particular the archaeology department at the University of Florida.

[Why my clay acts like this?]

On 10/31/2022 at 6:58 AM, glazenerd said:

Tim:

Temper is well known among those who collect and process natural clay; and those who fire primitive pottery. Temper is added for malleability; in lieu of known clay formulation methods. Grog is added to increase green or fired strength, or it can be added to control warping, and or increase thermal shock properties.  Hardpanning is more associated with glaze than clay; although it can happen in soil deposits if conditions are right. Processing natural clay rarely comes up on this forum: although it has gained popularity in the last decade. 

Tom

I'm unsure what malleability means outside of degrees of plasticity.

I'm wondering too further regarding.

On 10/30/2022 at 9:14 AM, Callie Beller Diesel said:

all grog is temper, but not all temper is grog

I'm curious as well what an example of temper not grog is.

I'm better with tldr versions so please forgive me if I'm trying to over simplify. I'm continually trying to uncomplicate my understanding of things.

I'm wondering how much clay particle charges go into flocculating or deflocculating glaze slurries or if there is a more important mechanism working.

So many threads to hijack.

as an edit I was searching something unrelated exactly but found a post "The locals added fiber from cat tails or cat tail fuzz to make handles. They wedged it in.  It worked.  It help bind the clay. It was an earthenware."

Can this then be temper? as it improves the malleability but is not grog?

[Molybdenum and tungsten glazes]

for those concerned about conflict minerals:

https://www.3blmedia.com/news/conflict-minerals-101-tin-tungsten-tantalum-and-gold

https://justmetalart.com/conflict-minerals-definition/

some outfits care more than others

cobalt is problematic too:

https://www.cfr.org/blog/why-cobalt-mining-drc-needs-urgent-attention