Ceramics Monthly Articles (Simple)

In Shigaraki, we mass-produced pots for the commercial market. That was not necessarily what we wanted to do, but we had to do that in order to make a living. We were interested in wood firing and too

I have been pursuing art as a career since I was teenager. A middle- school assignment propelled me to study ceramics, after I made a sculpture of a local artist and I discovered clay. The clay got in

Pottery found me in high school as a rather indifferent kid. I was disinterested in anything related to school. When I encountered something that did not rely on the mundane basics of education, I tho

The ceramic scholar, Philip Rawson, gave the keynote address at the Iowa Wood Firing Conference in 1991, and compared contemporary wood firing to a 19th-century cult in which artists, who were appalle

Bob Briscoe and his wife Mary purchased property in rural Stark, Minnesota in 1987. Once he was set up with a home and studio, Bob started an annual fall sale.

When I saw them, the first four images of Bouke de Vries’ lecture (presented at 2016’s New York Ceramics and Glass Fair) took me through a trial of his work as a professional conservator. A patron’s h

Once, during a sunny outdoor concert, I was privileged to hear Sun Ra and his Jazz Arkestra perform. The notes that Sun Ra played on the keyboard seemed suspended in air. It was as if he had transcend

Duluth Pottery, my studio and retail shop, was in the historic Trade and Commerce Marketplace in Superior, Wisconsin, for 17 years. I rented the space to make work to bring to fine art fairs and galle

David MacDonald's high-fire clay and glaze recipes.

Wood firing is an arduous task. One way to help reduce the time and labor it takes to process wood for a firing is to build a metal rack that holds the wood in place and allows it to be quickly cut to

Traditionally, shino-glazed works are fired in reduction kilns—as a reducing atmosphere must be created for iron to be drawn into the glaze from the clay surface—unless the glaze is formulated with su

Images from Current and Upcoming Exhibitions

This mug by Royce Yoder was the first pot I purchased that was made by a professional potter. His studio is located close to where I went to undergraduate school (Kutztown University) in Pennsylvania.

Tokyo University of the Arts’ Professor Ryo Mikami is a master of the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi. In addition to making his own clays and glazes using local materials, he also makes his own kana,

In 2005, I was an art director and potter so I was heavily involved with administration at the time, as well as making pottery. I have been making ever since but not as a full-time endeavor.

Cone 3 clay and slip recipes shared by Zak Helenske and high-fire flashing slips and glazes for atmospheric firings shared by Chris Chaney and Kirk Jackson.

Naomi Clement, Stephanie Galli, and Travis Winters share their clay, casting slip, and glaze recipes.

Dufala makes works that combine his strong interest in drawing and ceramic assemblage—utilizing handbuilt and cast parts—with a complex, multi-step, monoprint-transfer process to achieve objects of re

My pottery is located in an old, cream-colored brick building that housed horses and carts for a butter, egg, and cheese business established in the 1880s. Sue Messer and I bought the building in 1999

There is no sign marking the entrance to Twante Pottery Village in Myanmar, but when you cross the village boundary it’s clear you’ve arrived. Brick kilns begin to emerge from the bamboo-thatched huts