Ceramics Monthly Articles (Simple)

I love creating round, full-bellied vessels and try to make them as big as possible. These large forms can be difficult to lower into the kiln when they are dry, fragile greenware.

The artists featured in this issue strive for an evolving balance in their practices, using their skills to express creativity and ensuring the forms they make maintain both the passion for what they do and function in generative ways for their audiences.

Pattie Chalmers shares how her three types of work are linked by her interest in narrative and in suggesting a story that the viewer has an active part in completing.

Deadlines for exhibitions, fairs, and festivals.

Erin Furimsky and Janina Myronova share recipes for an engobe and clear glazes they use on their mid-range and high-fire sculptural work, respectively.

After spending more time at home last year, Katie Cameron decided to update her light switch covers to personalize her space. She shares her process for those interested in doing the same.

Reading, writing, and understanding a glaze recipe relies heavily on knowing what role each individual material plays in the making of the glaze.

Have you ever considered making plates using slip-casting techniques? Artist and master moldmaker Daniel Mehlman explains different techniques, as well as the method he’s chosen for making his own plates.

Through realistic imagery rendered in exacting, pointillist style on vessels and sculptures, Juan Barroso humanizes the contemporary immigrant experience and foregrounds immigrant contributions to society and culture.

Tactility plays a key role in Guillermo Guardia’s creative drive.

This past year, Katie Cameron took advantage of the extra time she had on her hands by creating clay kits for her community, where a set fee gave participants a bag of clay, some tools, and access to firings.

With in-person classes put on hold due to the pandemic, Erin Furimsky came up with a way to engage her community and provide a creative outlet through projects designed to fit into a standard pizza box and related video demonstrations streamed online.

Tony Natsoulas channels his boundless energy, optimism, and love of both art and pop culture into his large-scale figurative ceramic portraits of iconic people.

Exploring her personal experience and Caddo Nation heritage in monumental coil-built figurative sculptures, Raven Halfmoon is simultaneously expanding and continuing contemporary Caddo culture.

The colorful, expressive figures that Janina Myronova makes reflect her Ukrainian and Russian background, as well as her interest in pre-Columbian figurative sculpture and contemporary graphic novels.

Kazu and Yuka Oba create tableware and sculpture for their business, O’baware, in the studio attached to their home. The space blends indoor and outdoor work areas that make the most of the sunny, semi-arid climate along the Rocky Mountain foothills.

Images from Current and Upcoming Exhibitions

I went home and filled several tube socks with grog and began using them in a similar way—to push, stretch, and prod soft slabs of clay into forms.

The articles in this issue demonstrate how the artists developed a self awareness, then used this knowledge to focus on subjects of importance to them, while creating narratives that invite the viewer’s participation.

With thoughtful attachment and blending, handles made with a loop tool can be consistent and reliable.