Clay FAQs

Answering all your Who, What, Where, When, How, and Why questions about clay!

Advanced Ceramics

Understanding Glaze Components Part 5: Opacifiers

Welcome to our fifth and final installment of our series Understanding Glaze Components! We’ve been taking a deep dive into the primary parts that go into making successful glazes to help you increase your confidence when working with glazes. So far we’ve looked at our three foundational elements, glass-formers, fluxes,

Beginner Ceramics

Understanding Glaze Components Part 4: Colorants

Welcome to Part 4 of our blog series, Understanding Ceramic Glaze Components, where we demystify the basic construction of glazes. In Parts 1-3 we looked at the three foundational components of all glazes: glass-formers, fluxes, and stabilizers. In today’s post we’re taking a look at a glaze element that is

Clay FAQs

Understanding Glaze Components Part 3: Stabilizers

Welcome to Part 3 of our exploration into the primary components of ceramic glazes! In our previous articles we covered the role of glass-formers and fluxes, and today we’re going to examine another fundamental aspect of glaze chemistry: stabilizers. Also known as refractories, we’ll explore the importance, types, and impact

Clay FAQs

Conserving Water in Your Ceramics Studio and Practice

As you may know, we are building a pottery studio over here in Austria – and with all the planning involved, we naturally have been looking at the use of water in a community ceramics studio, in order to see what we can do to optimize it’s usage and make

Beginner Ceramics

Understanding Clay Types Part 3: Porcelain

Welcome to our third and final installment of our “Understanding Clay Bodies” series! Having previously had a look at earthenware and stoneware, today we’re exploring the development and use of the highly-prized and frequently romanticized clay that is porcelain. With a name originating from the Spanish ‘porcellana’, meaning cowrie shell,

Beginner Ceramics

Understanding Clay Bodies Part 2: Stoneware

Welcome to Part Two of our “Understanding Clay Bodies” series, where we’re doing a deep dive into the unique features of the three main types of clay: earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. Having unraveled the uniqueness and historical significance of earthenware in our initial installment, we now turn our attention to

Beginner Ceramics

Understanding Clay Bodies Part 1: Earthenware

As you’ve begun your exploration of ceramics, you’ve likely discovered that clay is primarily divided into three different categories: earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. But what exactly separates these clays, and how do you know when and how to use each one? In this new blog series, we’re embarking on a

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Featured Ceramic Articles

How to Throw a Sodium Silicate Vase
Advanced Ceramics

How to Throw a Sodium Silicate Vase

A post shared by Kris Neal (@fire_and_earth_pottery) on Sep 21, 2016 at 2:06pm PDT In this video, Kris Neal from Fire & Earth Pottery demonstrates