Ceramics Monthly Articles (Simple)

  • Call for Entries: September 2022
    Information on submitting work for exhibitions, fairs, and festivals.
  • Recipes: Terra Sigillata and Majolica
    Mark Arnold shares the recipe for terra sigillata that he uses to create the colorful, patterned surfaces on his work, the majolica recipe he uses as a liner glaze, and the magic water recipe he uses for joining attachments.
  • Tips and Tools: Wheel Table
    For a truly custom and functional workspace, inset your potter’s wheel into a table surface to keep buckets, tools, and works in progress close at hand.
  • Techno File: Acid-Etching Crystals
    Interested in expanding on the glaze chemistry and firing techniques associated with crystalline pottery? Try acid-etching the colorants from surface crystals to create curious silver effects.
  • Elemental
    This year, our readership-wide contest features selected work from ceramic artists inspired by those things critical and essential—from everyday routines, to the visual foundations of art and design, to the earth and its forces.
  • BMX Culture Meets Clay Culture in Mark Arnold’s Abstracted Surfaces
    Finding parallels between BMX and clay while taking constant inspiration from the landscapes around him, Mark Arnold creates handbuilt vessels that tell stories through their construction and the abstracted patterns on their surfaces.
  • Bridges to Other Realities: Salvador Jiménez-Flores’ Provocative Sculptures
    Making artwork helps Salvador Jiménez-Flores continue his search for identity as a bicultural, bilingual person. It also provides a way to explore complex topics including migration, colonization, immigration, and futurism.
  • Tina Curry: A Gift of Horse Sense
    A lifelong focus on observing and interacting with animals and a desire to convey the feelings experienced while viewing the living animal have influenced Tina Curry’s figurative ceramic sculptures.
  • Kat West: Healing and Generational Belonging
    Kat West’s experience working in healthcare, her upbringing as an immigrant, and a move to a new community as an adult led her to explore questions of identity and kinship in her thrown and handbuilt earthenware forms.
  • Studio Visit: Cybèle Beaudoin-Pilon, Montréal, Canada
    A formerly dilapidated garage has been transformed into an efficient studio space where Cybèle Beaudoin-Pilon works with earthenware to create colorful, functional works that explore her interest in reclaiming things that are not valued.
  • Clay Culture: Nature Collaboration
    To celebrate the Potters Guild of Ann Arbor’s 70th anniversary, guild members collaborated on a series of sculptures, which were exhibited at the University of Michigan’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens.
  • Clay Culture: The 2021 Brick in Architecture Awards
    The Brick Industry Association recognizes extraordinary clay-brick structures with the Brick in Architecture Awards. Learn more about the types of innovative projects that won the 2021 awards.
  • Exposure: September 2022
    Images from Current and Upcoming Exhibitions
  • Quick Tip: Polymer Stamps
    I have made custom promotional mugs (including 130 that a local company used as employee holiday gifts), spoon rests, and other products for local businesses and an online store.
  • From the Editor: September 2022
    As you explore the vessels, sculptures, and installations presented on these pages, take the time to ask yourself about how materials and meaning are intertwined in your own work.
  • Spotlight: Recent Collaboration
    Dick Lehman shares how recent collaborations have provided insights on his work and new creative opportunities.
  • Call for Entries: June/July/August 2022
    deadlines for exhibitions, fairs, and festivals
  • Recipes: Functional Surfaces
    Justin Rothshank and Rich Brown share recipes for slip, glaze, and added flux that they use to finish the surfaces of their utilitarian pots.
  • 2 Sanding the surfaces of a fired mug to soften edges and enhance tactile appeal.
    Tips and Tools: Post-Firing Cleanup
    There are a number of approaches to removing flux and bits of wadding from soda-fired works after the firing. Neil Celani discusses the ones that work best for him.
  • Techno File: No Grind Crystals
    Want to fire pots with mesmerizing crystalline glazes, but are put off by running glazes, catch basins, endless grinding, and firing up to cone 10? What if you could achieve great crystals at cone 6, without all the hassle?