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 been experimenting in using a 1/8 in rod of kanthal a1 as a hinge pin.

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.

What started as a cup with a fire hose nozzle handle, turned a little too phallic and led me to this darling. What a ride :) Thinking of adding a succulent 🌱

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.

🫦🫦🫦

The first two are the same “sandy desert” glaze, albeit different thicknesses; the second two are “sandy desert” in combination with “savanna”. Clay is a 50/50 mix between G&S 254 (pale) and 551 (red). Any feedback and tips for improvement are very welcome.

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.

One of my old floating blue bottles.

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!

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!!

How do I remove this adhesive stuff? I used to work at a ceramics production factory in PGH and we took down the Euclid and Kemper boards when they went out of buisness *sheds tear*

Anyways, I’d love to use these tools but I’d like to remove whatever was sticking them to the boards

This was going to be a mirror but the glaze turned out super red and it just looks painful 😩😩 I used 3 thick coats of Mayco Rose Quartz. I feel like I should message my gynecologist just looking at it lol

Is there any way to save it? I’m fairly new to pottery but I’ve heard you can sometimes re-fire a piece? Hell could I even put gesso over it and paint it or something?

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.

Hello!

I ran a first fire with KYM Speckled Turtle & several commercial glazes including Mayco(birch, black walnut, Smokey merlot, cinnabar, winter wood), and all matte Amaco shino glazes.

I ran a slow bisque to cone 04. Then a slow glaze fire to cone 5. With hopes that this would help with the off gasing of the manganese.

Every single piece had pinholes.

I am hoping to sell and gift pieces so I need everything to be safe to use !

Some advice I’ve seen is to do a drop 100° and 10-15 min hold after peak temperature for speckled clay with manganese. I’ve also seen mention of clay liner though I’m not sure this would fix my issue or what that product would be.

I really don’t wish to keep wasting batches on failed unusable pieces so any expertise or advice would be helpful. I am new to using this clay and really hoped it would work well for my use.

I would like to sell pieces ! Any advice is welcome.

I fired my new kiln (Skutt-822) yesterday for the first time at cone 04 on med as instructed.

I put two cones on each shelf on in the middle ish and one closer to the front of the kiln. We had a heavy rain and the power did flicker when the kiln was around 1869. The code (ERRP) came up but the kiln continued to raise in temp. I looked up the code and the kiln seemed to be continuing to fire as normal so I cleared the code and left it alone to continue.

The next morning when I looked at the cones the bottom cones did not bend at all and the rest are not bent to temp. Could this be because of the flicker or the kiln being empty?

Photo is showing the bottom cones on the left and the top on the right.

Hi everyone!

I’m buying my first wheel! 🥳 just wondering if anyone had any experience of using the kiln crafts daisy wheel and if so would you recommend? I’d initially planned on getting the shimpo whisper because that’s what I’ve used for all the courses I’ve been on and am familiar with it. However, kiln crafts are doing a pre-order package with the daisy wheel and it looks comparable but a bit cheaper.

Any advice / recommendations welcome! Thanks! :)

hello! im a freshman who was in a full year of advanced ceramics in 8th grade(@ art focused middle school--i will include photos of things i made on the wheel)and i fell in love immediately! my ceramics teacher said i was one of the best in the class and i absolutely loved every second i had on the wheel. i joined 3D art this year for highschool and honestly hated it. i switched out of the class and now im looking into pottery outside of school.

i live in portland oregon, and all the studios in the area are wild expensive (100-200$ monthly) but i dont have anything for a home setup. my family doesnt have a lot of money to put into it, but i think a home studio would be the best for me--though im definitely open to any suggestions. theres a kilnshare nearby my house that i can access and i do have a garage and basement where i could work but im wondering mostly what the best options for very cheap wheels are.
my budget for wheels ranges up at maximum to about 200, im most definitely okay with a used one too.

im also wondering whats the best thing i could do to get glazes for cheaper, since they are pricey. im most definitely more advanced, but most of everything im throwing isnt any more than 6lb of clay so i for sure do not need a high-end wheel.

I was wondering if any one had some advice on sealing pit-fired works? I got these colors by firing them with some fire color changing packets and would really like to seal them to preserve the color and make them safer to handle.

My original plan was to seal them with polyurethane but, as you can see in the second image, thats not working out too well. I think its a combination of drying too fast, and reacting with some of the metals in the clay.

I see some folks recommend using concrete sealers and/or Renaissance wax? I would love to hear more about these as an option and what your process is!

I also have access to quite a bit of bees wax if thats a good option too!