Ceramics Monthly Articles (Simple)

When I walk into a museum or gallery I often walk through it too casually, my cavalier consumption of art creating a satisfying illusion of ownership. Something like visual speed-reading, the voices o

When I begin each new piece, I have a few expectations for the final result. It must have structural integrity, balance, and aesthetic virtue. I want to express the awe I feel for the beauty in the wo

Many of us keep day jobs and dream of that week we can pour into an anagama firing, only to emerge utterly exhausted and back at the daily grind. The goal here is to make “wood-fired” pottery at home,

Berry bowls are perfect for any season. They can be used for washing and draining fruit, and then serving them in the decorative bowl on a matching drip plate. Many potters have punched the holes into

Drilling through ceramics is actually not as hard as one might think. I’m talking about the task of course and not the actual material. It’s a matter of having the right tools and a little patience.

New Mexico-based artist Lauren Karle shares the low-fire recipes she uses to make her clay body, wash, slip, and glaze. You can also check out her article in this issue, co-written with Simon Levin, o

That must be a record in the gallery business—I started at age 20 as an artist and morphed my business model with the evolving marketplace. As an independent entrepreneur, I have the fortune of follow

When I was in college, first learning to make functional work, I was living in a dorm. I knew I loved working with clay and that making things by hand had a powerful effect on me, but I had a hard tim

It began with a phone call. “What would you think about working on something about growlers?” Alexandra (Alex) Jelleberg, who is a resident artist and coordinator at Project Art in Cummington, Mass

Sutter Stremmel wanted to get his hands dirty. It was 2010, and he and his wife, Samantha, had both just earned English literature degrees from the University of Montana. He’d been studying pottery of

She renovated an existing outbuilding into a studio, and constructed the following: a clay shed, a kiln shed, an office space, and a gallery.

Being from the Midwest, agriculture and farming are a part of my culture and visual landscape. I have always been interested in mechanical farming implements, left out to pasture after a life of labor

In ceramics the relationship between form and function is rarely simple. When the latter encompasses conceptual and aesthetic purpose its scope can be as vast as thought and as infinite as art.

In Japanese ceramics the literal reality of an object as form, texture, and material is always important but these exist with an abstract or traditional spiritual meaning; the work points beyond itsel

When I opened my full-time studio in 1981 I envisioned, perhaps naively, that I would be able to work solo without employees for my entire career. I planned to have retail space through which I would

Our second annual readership-wide contest asked artists to share their creative process—from photos and paintings to sketches, paper cutouts, and layered patterns through to the finished piece—in a c

Why are some materials transparent and others opaque? Light can be thought of as a beam of light particles called photons, each one a packet of light energy. When a photon of light hits an atom, it ca

Making handmade beer growlers is something many potters have found a growing interest in, a natural response to the rising popularity of craft beer and local breweries. A properly functioning growler

Kira Kalondy and Andrew McIntyre, who were both included in this year's From Idea to Finished Form contest, each share their favorite recipes.