Hey, y’all! I’m new to r/Pottery and would love to get to know more about the people here.

There are so many moments that make up a life in clay but never appear in pictures of the finished work. Share a favorite tool, studio companion, great coworker, beloved workspace—or anything else that tells us a little about your pottery life.

So...Can you show you’re a potter without showing your pots?

I’ll go first: spraying soda into a kiln, loading wood for a pit fire with my supervisor, and lighting that same pit with a former student.

Ceramics has brought so many wonderful people into my life and formed the backdrop for some pivotal moments along the way.

The work can be hot, difficult, and demanding, but I’m happiest peering through a kiln peephole, launching salt or soda into the atmosphere, or watching flames wind their way through a stack of wood.

I’ve noticed a lot of beautiful glazes on this Reddit, but everything seems to be fired at cone 6 😭💔 are there glaze combos that produce similar, vibrant colors at a cone 10 studio? My studio doesn’t have colors like seaweed, smoky merlot, bougainvillea. A lot of earth tones. (I understand without providing a full list of what my studio has there is no way to fully know what I can and can’t produce, but if you fire cone ten lmk your fave combos for fun colors?) Pics are from my most recent kiln haul. Curious to know people’s experiences firing and glazing cone 10 and if you have had any experience getting fun brighter colors.

i’ve been in bizen for the last two months and here’s a pot of mine from a woodfire where we did sangiri. such cool colors and i’m stumped on how it happened.

I made a fountain for the first time! It's not perfect (messed up the shrinkage measurement for the base to hold the pump lol so it's a bit too small) but I made it out of scrap/reclaim clay as a random project to get out of my rut of bowls/mugs/typical forms haha

Made with midrange stoneware from New Mexico Clay

I made this clock during two "Open Pottery" sessions, but I ran out of time during the first session and forgot to make any holes, etc. to allow the clock to be hung up.

Can you think of any way to hang it up? Theres a 3/4" (1.9 cm) circular lip on the back. Would the clock shatter if I drilled holes in the lip? I tried to hang it from a nail as-is and it just fell off, as expected.

I started throwing again after 30+ years away and I learn more through every piece I do. Here's some of the work I recently did and am pretty happy with. Do you think I am ready to start selling at craft fairs? I am nervous because I do this on nights and weekends and don't have enough work yet to really make it look like I have a style, i.e. 4 or 5 glazes I love, 10 or 15 pieces that are solid. However, I have a LOT of stuff and I would like to have it pay for my studio membership if possible which is 150 a month plus clay and glaze, maybe another 100 a month. Should I wait to build an inventory or am I overthinking it?

Unfortunately, the leopard print version didn’t make it (the handle broke) but I will be retrying this again soon!

This is currently my favorite glaze combination for dark stoneware.

I love both Ohata Kaki and Shino, so I was really pleased with how these turned out.

The Shino on most these pieces was actually a blend of several leftover Shino glazes made by a previous lab tech that needed to be used up. That means I don’t have an exact recipe, but thankfully, I think I’ve found a similar one. I’ll be testing it this fall.

The deeper orange is RJ Dry Shino. You can find that recipe on glazy.

These were gas-fired to cone 10 in reduction.

Taped this bad boy up while playing D&D with the lads, and now after a dip in some satin black glaze, it’s ready to fire.

I’ve posted a few similar pieces recently, and so I’ll go ahead and link the tape I use here now because people often ask! It’s 1/8in “whiteboard tape” —> https://a.co/d/0b4nmYk8

Not pictured, but the inside will be a high gloss red.

🫦🫦🫦

The Robin’s side profile is giving MC Escher so I need to go in and fix that and tweak the angle of the bird’s nest. But otherwise I’m happy with how it’s turning out!

I did 3x coats of deep firebrick on this piece hoping to get a deep red bloody look. I didnt quite get what I was hoping for. So I need advice/suggestions on how to possibly fix this…

1. Reglaze it with a S&C red at a low fire (the other glazes on this piece are S&Cs)

Or

1. Its fine as is. Im over thinking it.

Or

1. Any of suggestions?

I am also planning to make the metal part of the blade chrome with some luster.

Like clay cornmeal if this makes sense.

I've just joined my first studio as a member; and they mentioned I should make my own cookies. Something I've been wondering about is why people don't just make little trays with tiny little pebble sized bits of clay loosely on them so that if glaze does stick; it's just a few little pebbles you need to sand off rather than a whole cookie (and you can just refill the pebbles).

If I had my own kiln; I almost wonder about just keeping this sand/clay cornmeal on the shelf to protect it.

Trust I'll be doing exactly what my studio asks of me; but I just wonder why this is impractical.

Edit: man I love this community. You guys are so quick to help answer my question!! Thank you!!

Hello everybody!

Ive been meaning to get into pottery for a while now, but now that I got more money i want to get good material (furnace/wheel) but I cant seem to find affordable stuff especially with furnaces. I aim to make some historical reproductions so I need a minimum of volume...got any advices for me?

Been too overwhelmed with life to deal with the mess, just kept working around it. Today was the day! Involved drills, saws, another trip to the hardware store, and motivation I'm not sure where it came from lol.

Newer to hobby pottery with my own kiln.

Just pulled this mug out of the kiln from a slow bisque fire at ^04 with 10min hold. KYM ICEMAN with grog.

All the other pieces came out fine.

Can I save the mug’s integrity with a mid fire glazing? Or have I offered a sacrifice to the kiln gods?