What is a slip in ceramic? How can you fix your pots and attach your handles with paper slip? How to use stains and oxides to make colored slip? How can you make your own underglaze? What are some of the ceramic techniques that use slip? In this post you will find a list of the ones I’ve tried: sgraffito, inlay, stencils, mocha diffusion, drips, bubbles and more. All create amazing surface decoration on your ceramic piece. You should try them all!

So was I! Here’s my experience so you know what I learned after I bought my own kiln. It’s really not that hard, and it’s wonderful to be in charge or your art journey from start to finish.

What is crypto art? Is it the future of art? Is it art at all? Can we appreciate art through a screen ? Should you enjoy art with other senses too? Should art be unique and perishable? Let’s answer some of these questions and wonder about the other ones.

Art and Sport share a lot of similarities, and yet they’re often considered as incompatible. Can we reconcile them?

Want to sell your art? Let me count all the ways you will have to spend money before you can make any.

If you’re doing ceramics, you’ve probably met a bunch of gatekeepers lurking in community studios with very clear ideas about what you should and shouldn’t do to be a “real” potter . A sample of things I’ve heard since I’ve been doing ceramics (and even believed some of them!)

Is ceramics art or craft? It’s an age-old question. The obvious answer is both, but there are several ways to look at this question and I wanted to take some time to explore the subject.

Since I’ve been doing ceramics, I’ve been struggling to define these terms. What makes an object an art piece?

10 personality traits that make great potters, in alphabetical order. But don’t worry if you don’t fit the stereotypes, you can mold ceramics to your own personality. It’s quite plasticky!

Overall, ceramics gives out good vibes, an earthy feel that seems in sync with a natural life. It’s not plastic. What can be more earth friendly than dirt? Potters always have their hands dirty and are often inspired by nature. Ceramics is around since prehistoric times. It must be good for the environment, right? Or at least not actively bad? The short answer is no, ceramics is bad for the environment, and in many different ways, including mining, shipping and firing.

So should we keep doing ceramics?

Cultural appropriation is a problem. But in our zeal to right some grievous wrongs, let’s not swing all the way to cultural expropriation either.

Why do we make art? Is art useless ? Can a society flourish without artists? Is science more useful than art? What problems does art solve? All these questions are addressed in this post, and some even get answers.

Becoming an artist in the public eye can be uncomfortable. Why is it important to step out of the shadows in order to pursue your art, and what are the challenges in doing so?

1) It’s pretty

2) It’s unique

3) It’s useful

…and 9 more which are not so obvious but quite as important!

10 principles ceramics taught me over the years that you can apply to your life even if you’ve never seen a potter’s wheel, including: 1) Perfection is overrated 2) Good is better than perfect 3) Letting go is part of the process … and 7 more. Ceramics is a surprisingly philosophical process.

I have been creating Art forever, but until recently I didn’t let it take the space it needs in my life. It’s never enough, but it used to be relegated to the broom closet, and now it has a room in the house . My “real” job was to teach a Foreign Language. Lately, while musing about art, I’ve come to realize that those two disciplines have a lot more in common that I ever realized.

I struggle with fear and boredom. I fear unknown places and unknown people as well as rejection, especially in my art.

But I also get easily bored, and I thirst for adventure. My fear and my boredom have been playing this weird dance all my life, one keeping me safe, the other keeping me exploring. Fear kept me away from acknowledging what art meant to me for too long. But the pandemic forced me to confront the truth. Here it is.

And why you should buy it anyway!

Every potter and ceramicist I know has been frustrated by people asking them why their pieces are so expensive. I assume they meant expensive compared to a dish you can buy at the supermarket that was replicated a million time in a Chinese factory. The short answer is “because it takes a lot longer to make and it is unique”. But let’s break it down:

Interested in learning about colored clay, its challenges and rewards? Here’s my experience.

If you are a ceramic lover or dabble in ceramic yourself, you might have encountered striking ceramic pieces made with Nerikomi or Agateware techniques and wondered “how did they do that?” What kind of work and challenges goes into making a piece with this technique? Here’s your answer.

How I got started with the Nerikomi technique and what the different terms used to describe it mean.

I started ceramics more than 15 years ago now, but it’s only in the last five or so that I started experimenting with colored clay. At first, I just used two clays I had on hand, white and red stoneware clays with similar shrink rates (and that is a very important factor). I wedged them separately then stuck them together and threw with them. I loved the result so I kept going.

Why is Ceramics less valued than other art forms? Is it too useful to be art? Devalued as a craft or because it is made of dirt? Shouldn’t your art be valued on its own merits and not the medium you are using to express yourself?

I am attracted to the Bastard Arts. I enjoy High Brow Arts too, especially paintings and literature, but Bastard Arts have a unique unpretentious appeal for me.

You might never have heard of the Bastard Arts because that is my personal nickname for the type of Arts I enjoy that have hybrid origins and are usually looked down on by the tenants of the Well-Born Arts. It’s not “pure”. In a world where diversity is finally getting its due, the Art World is like Voldemort and his Death Eaters who want their art to be pure blood and can’t adapt to a changing world.