Pottery Making Illustrated Articles (Simple)

In this issue, we focus on handbuilding techniques.

Excerpted from Functional Pottery by Robin Hopper, published by The American Ceramic Society.

There’s no longer a need to rush my coffee time, and no reheating my coffee when the kids distract me and I forget about it for the fifth time (it’s inevitable).

A Pottery Making Illustrated Readership-Wide Contest

A Pottery Making Illustrated Readership-Wide Contest

A Pottery Making Illustrated Readership-Wide Contest

A Pottery Making Illustrated Readership-Wide Contest

A Pottery Making Illustrated Readership-Wide Contest

A Pottery Making Illustrated Readership-Wide Contest

My prior pottery focused almost solely on eating, drinking, and serving, but now I think more about preparing and storing food as well.

Though not as spherical as a traditional Korean moon jar, I have called my flatter forms “moon vases” for their moon-like allusions.

In my home, a pedestal bowl often takes center stage, beautifully displaying seasonal fruits and vegetables as both decor and an invitation to indulge in a healthy snack.

I wanted to create a vase that helped keep the flowers looking wilder and more variable than manicured and arranged.

The inspiration for a ceramic and brass wire stand came while deep in the design and DIY stage of planning my wedding last fall.

The beauty of something that is designed so well it can go unnoticed. Being outside, routine, slow change, process, craftsmanship, good conversations, poetry, travel, and seeing something for the first time.

The history of ceramics in Virginia and the surrounding area is long and rich— think of the immense Native American contributions, Jamestown and Williamsburg potteries, and a shared shard history with reaches up and down the East Coast.

New ideas usually begin when I find something interesting in normal life and try to recreate my version of that object or device.

My forms are reminiscent of the architecture of my Rust Belt childhood, the swoop of the local skatepark features; they can conjure up a Pittsburgh bridge or video-game graphics.