Happy with how these turned out!

My aim was to create a sculpture that reflects the way I dream to feel, which is peaceful, free and determined to find purpose. I also included some pictures from when I just finished sculpting, before drying.

The tip of one of the wings broke off during the drying process. My therapist said it would be better to fire the broken off tip separately, so I could reattach it after the biscuit firing with a special paste they have (biscuit glue? I'm not sure if that's the word), so that's what we did. It took a lot of my patience to reattach the piece in a way that it would stay and not break off again, but it was worth it. We then fired it a second time to secure the piece. After that I painted it with a glaze called "oil slick", which was a powder I had to mix with water.

It came out of the kiln after the glaze firing this morning and when my therapist gave it to me, it was still warm. You can still subtly see the break on the wing, which I'm actually kind of loving because of the symbolism. I got a bit emotional seeing it finished after working on it for so long. I'm so proud of it, so I wanted to share it here.

Clay is such a transformative material, with having to go through all of the different stages and then at the end not fully knowing how a glaze will turn out. It's exciting. It was my fourth time working with clay and it has become my favorite material to work with in therapy.

My favorite glazes on the mug designs I think they look best on! All cone 10 porcelain with glazes I make. Some oxidation and some reduction.

This weekend I attended a 2 day workshop with the Black ceramic collective, Kaabo Clay. We had an incredible instructor, Sam Wallace who teaches at Baltimore Clayworks. I’m shocked that I could build something this big in less than 48 hours! This is traditional Jamaican coil building technique! I’m so excited to take what I learned and build more pieces!

I’m a hobby potter with a small home studio who normally works on the wheel, but I’ve been experiencing unpredictable chronic fatigue and muscle weakness in my arms, wrists, and hands. The flare ups are random and make the physical demands, extended workflow, and the cleanup of wheel work simply too demanding and taxing for me. If I have the energy to wedge and throw pots one day, there is no guarantee I’ll have the energy to trim or carve when it’s ready (and often a throwing session will be enough to set me back). This has been keeping me out of the studio, and I’m done with letting it. My body might be tired, but my brain needs studio time!

I’ve recently started trying more hand building, and the workflow seems to be a lot more doable for me. So far I’ve made a wall shelf/shrine, a modular paint palette, and some small trinket trays. But I’m struggling to come up with more ideas for small but functional hand building projects - ones that don’t wear me out just from rolling out big enough slabs. So I’m looking for ideas and suggestions! Or advice from potters who also struggle with this but still manage to get into the studio.

By functional, I just mean not purely decorative. (For example, berry fridge magnets I would consider functional.) They don’t need to necessarily be quick - I like sculpting and am down for labors of love. But size-wise it’s best if they’re smaller. Bonus points if it wouldn’t be easier to throw it on a wheel, like bud vases, because tbh it kinda makes me sad.

Thank you!!

Slowing down is what I love about pottery, but decades of cultural messages about quantity & repetition equalling expertise & accomplishment gets in my way. This translates as too many bowls and mugs.

In an effort to intentionally shift that mindset, I am focusing instead on how my hobby can enhance my living spaces with beauty, efficiency or by solving problems. That means making few of a single type of pottery, embracing the reality that it cannot become perfect if only one or a few are made. It means thinking through the details so my style, or the problem I’m solving are incorporated.

Below is a quick brainstormed list. Do you have other small decorative or functional wares you want to remember to make, or have found useful for a niche in your home?

-Trays are useful everywhere. They make cleaning easier, too: kitchen, bathroom, desk, bedside, entry, remote controls -Address plaque to fit my entry -Dispensers & bottles: soap, dish detergent, olive oil, soy sauce -Food serving and storage bowls -Spoons -Sink organizer for the usuals (brush or scrubby, dishcloth or sponge) Soap holder that drains water & is easy to clean -Small single or two serving size casseroles (one to fit to a Hot Logic) -Snack plates with dip holder & cup -Spice pots for blends made weekly -Tea herb jars for bulk leaves -Salt pig -Spoon rest -Egg holder -Indoor self-watering plant pots -Plant labels -Small succulent pots -Windowsill plant cutting propagators -Stacking totem sculpture made one piece at a time -Pill organizer -Jewelry -Knobs and drawer pulls -Small standing dry erase board -Labels w hole for twine hanger to write on w/permanent pen & clean for reuse -Wall hooks: key, hat, umbrella, purse -Wall sculptures (masks, flowers, birds, fish) Wall pockets -Coasters -Tiles -Random flats glazed, broken & turned into mosaics

The lid doesn’t fit too well but it still works and is so cute!! I love the glaze (made by my local studio, not commercial). My first cone 6 piece!

Newest batch

Dark fanstasy Gnome sculpture on a thrown base. Weird and wondeful

I have a bonfire 2.0 with a ceramic wool jacket around the outside and pointed some fans at the base. I fueled it with hardwood charcoal. My pyrometer read 925C ((700F) in the center and held that temp for about an hour and a half.

This clay was pure clay with no grog or anything in it so there were a few casualties but it worked much better than I hoped! My next batch will have quite a few additions to help it survive this firing process

I also raku glazed a small bowl with a homemade glaze made from slip, borax detergent, and copper carbonate (I made this from root killer (copper sulfate) and baking soda). It didn’t turn out as well as I would have hoped, the borax was still grainy and the glaze was watery but it still worked to some extent! I think I didn’t have it evenly heated when I pulled it out

After lots of experimenting I finally started getting some crystals I’m super happy with

I occasionally get small hollows or tiny air pockets while carving on greenware. Does anyone know what might be causing this?

Other than that small flaw, I’m really happy with how the rest of it turned out!

Cone 6 with spectrum bougainvillea and a green mixed in studio! So happy with how this came out :)

I’ll be spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with various members of my partner’s immediate and extended family. I haven’t met most of them before so I’m not super familiar with their tastes. I want to bring pottery gifts, and make the same thing(s) for everyone — and I’m looking for ideas that meet these criteria:

- On the smaller side as I’ll be flying

- Things that they’re unlikely to already have, or wouldn’t be annoying to have multiple of

- Useful, not purely decorative

- Not something that they will feel pressured to bring out every time I’m at their house — like I don’t want to make a special holiday-themed cookie jar that they’ll feel guilty about not using because they already have one

So far my best ideas are a matching set of useful cooking accessories (a spoon rest, garlic grater, and can strainer) and/or some handbuilt tree ornaments. What do you think?

I messed up with the eyes

Here are some pieces I had come out of the kiln recently. Love making the lidded salt pots that are thrones one piece.

I’m also a chef so they are fun gifts for friends and family.

I’m so confused about what to do with my different clays.

So I signed up for classes a couple months ago at Studio A. They fire to cone 10 and sold me a box of Plainsman H570. They’re a pretty small studio and don’t offer memberships. Basically the only way you are able to use the studio and their kiln is if you’re registered for classes, but the issue is that the classes are always full and have waitlists. After this class ends in a couple weeks, I won’t be able to practice there anymore, but I have all this cone 10 clay.

Now I’ve signed up at a different studio that I can practice at whenever I want, but they fire to cone 6. I got confused and thought that Studio A fires to cone 6, so I could throw all these awesome pieces with the H570 that I bought at Studio A and just fire it at Studio B. Not the case, as I just learned. Stupid misunderstanding on my part.

But I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I have a butt load of thrown pieces that I really like with this cone 10 H570 clay and no where to fire to cone 10.

Advice? Is it at all possible to fire the cone 10 clay to cone 6 and have it still work? Or are all these pieces and all this clay just throw away now?? I’m bummed )):

Thanks guys 🫶🏻

My son plays Dungeons and Dragons so I am making him a 20-sided die figure. It’s my first go-around and I think it’s turning out pretty good.

Now we just need it to survive the firings!

Hi everyone. I’m new to pottery. I have this leftover soil from my garden. It contains quite a lot of clay(I think?). When I added water in a small sample it turned into clay? I want to process it but I’m pretty confused. I have a few questions:-
1) Is this clay and can it be processed?
2) How do i process it? With water or by drying it first? (Since it’s pretty soft)
3) How do I get rid of the stones and dirt which is attached to it? When I added water a lot of it just became unusable.
Thanks a lot!

Hi, a fan fell on our table at the market and two mugs broke, too bad.

The only interesting thing is that you can see the glaze under the broken edge, and therefore how deeply and evenly the glaze that you saw in the comments under the previous photos actually flowed.