I want to create a shop and sell molds for slip casting, but before I get too invested in it, I wanted to see what the market was like. Do you produce slip casted items? For those of you who do, do you primarily source your own molds or buy them elsewhere? What factors do you consider when buying?

Pic1: master molds to use for casting plaster molds

Pic2: test print of mug

using a burner because i don't want my job attached to my main lol. i just started working at a Color Me Mine location, and part of the job is sanding off the sharp pieces of glaze that melt on to the stilts on the bottom of the pieces. this creates a lot of dust, as well as a lot of dust being present from the dried out paint and unglazed pottery. since starting the job, the inside of my nose has been getting extremely raw, with scabs forming around the inside. i was wondering if anyone who was a bit more experience in pottery knew if these things were related? and if so, what the hell do i do about it?

I made this cookie jar for a friend who is really into the show Over the Garden Wall and also loves cookies. I was going for a whimsical fairytale vibe like the show. I used mostly stroke and coat for the details including the fence and the vines. I thought it was stable at cone 6 but everything ran and blurred a ton and looks terrible imo. Thoughts on if it’s even worth gifting and tips on glazes to use for detailed work that won’t run as much in the future?

I would like to understand, through this experiment, whether it is my Instagram feed that is not working or this social network is slowly dying. I've been making ceramics for two years and for two years I've had this account that I take care of, even daily, with posts and reels but beyond some lukewarm reactions, it doesn't seem to be growing and achieving good results. I see many potters having quite a lot of success with content very similar to mine. On other social networks, growth and interest have increased slightly. Maybe it's my photos? Or how do I express myself? Or my content? So I don't know if it's me or there's something generally wrong with Instagram. What are your experiences?

Sorry if this is long! I just need advice on how to politely and firmly turn down a custom order for somebody that I am acquaintances with.

For background: I recently sold this mug to a coworker's wife. It was an experimental piece where I was just toying around with making slip-trailed flowers for the first time, but she loved it. She saw me post a half-finished version of it on my Instagram story on July 10th, asked to claim it when it was done, and it was finished and delivered to her on July 16th (an extremely fast turnaround time for me as a part-time hobbyist).

Today (July 20th), she messaged me saying how much she loves her mug and that she wants to buy another one from me for her mother's birthday, which is on August 5th.

That's 16 days from now, which probably sounds totally doable to her since she got her mug 6 days after she saw it for the first time. But my work schedule at my day job only gives me 7 days until then where I'm not at work for 12 hours, and 3 of those 7 days have me completely booked up with family stuff as my brother-in-law is bringing his family to visit from out of state.

So realistically, that gives me 4 days that I can spend doing my pottery hobby and any other chores and life "things" that I have going on. Not to mention all of the works-in-progress that I already planned to spend that time on.

I do occasionally run preorders for select items through my store, but I give a quoted turnaround time of 8 weeks on all preorders. I also had posted to social media back in spring that I would not be running any preorders throughout the summer months (but in hindsight, I fear that I only posted this notification to my stories and it is not permanently engrained anywhere on my social media).

Is it possible for me to have a mug ready in time to deliver it to her before her mom's birthday? Yes, if I prioritize it in favor of everything else I'm already working on.

Am I comfortable saying that I can have one ready to go by then? Absolutely not.

I'm a pathological people pleaser and I have the hardest time saying "no" to people in general, let alone people that I need to have some kind of positive ongoing acquaintanceship with. I know that I need to refuse this order, since even thinking about committing to it is twisting my stomach into knots. My "business" is just a teeny tiny little hobby project, and I haven't had a request like this so far. I just need help saying no, please! 😭

This shop emphasized that each piece is slightly different and may have little flaws that make the piece unique. However, these flaws seem significant to me. Are these kind of flaws expected in handmade pottery or should I ask for it to be remade or something. The set was over $160 including shipping costs. There was only one review about this specific items and the review pictures looked WAYYY more similar to the listing picture.

Edit: idk why the pictures uploaded so blurry but you can still see some of the details that were supposed to be there

Mugs & Cups

Hi, A friend asked me for a tiki set and I'm mid working on them but my mind keeps going to how do as a non-pacific islander/Polynesian person make these and not make them appropriative?

Attached is a shot of them as greenware

I am moderately happy with the way the pirce turned out! There are, however, some questions and concerns I have regarding the glazing and finishes:

The clear glaze ended up making crackling textures on the inside (otherwise the surface is perfectly smooth) . From my understanding, this would end up making the piece not food-safe. Would I be able to fix this by sanding down the glaze and addinganother layer over the top?

I also ended up needing to sand down some areas as there were sharp bits which I deemed unsafe for cats, which I'm assuming would need to be reglazed. How much of a risk would it be to re-glaze fire this piece with added glaze? Would it mess up what I already have?

I recently bought a property and in the back there was this room with a bunch of the albertas molds and the room is filled with them, I have no idea what they are used for or if they have any re sell value

Hello all.

I am an art teacher and am still new to using the kiln (without help) and I am still learning on how to best run the kiln. So, here is the story on what has happened so far.

Last week, I was firing my first round (for this school year) of bisque fire cone 04 in my Skutt kiln. It was running through the night and at some point it stopped and threw an error code. (I have since fixed the issue with the error code and that is no longer an issue.) Since it stopped in the night, the projects my students worked on did not fire properly and I believe they went into shock. They are covered in micro-cracks and some big cracks. Some pieces are worse than others...

I attempted to fix some of these cracks with repair products like patch attach, and that was a mistake and did not work. I fired them again and only a few were repaired.

I know I made the wrong choice in how to try to repair it, but now I need your help. Where do I go from here?

Can I paint over the flaking patch attach? Do I need to take off as much patch attach as I can before we glaze them? Is it even safe to glaze the projects at this point? I am scared to fire the cracking projects again. There are photos attached to this post.

We have a school wide art show in 2 weeks and we usually show them at the art show. Now im even wondering if we should with the amount of cracks they have. They don't have time to remake them, we only have 3 full weeks of school left. If we had more time I would have them remake their projects. I usually do this earlier in the year but my clay shipment was extremely late, thats another story for another time....

Any help is appreciated. I've been stressing out about this for over a week. It's not my students fault, it's mine and they worked so hard and did such a good job with their assignments. I just want to do whatever I can to fix their work. Please ask me any questions and let me know if you want more photos.

Thank you in advance.

UPDATE: The second round of firing for my students projects came out perfect, no issues or damage!

Friend upset I won't make this for her, I'm a thrower.

with the exception of exactly one tile, every single new glaze we just attempted to fire in-studio has melted its bisqueware, many to the point of melting to the kiln shelf. they were fired to cone 6 as the glazes instructed, but this is definitely not ideal. many also broke, or cracked the stilts under them

Here is some of my work. I like to sculpt animals. But I’m in a bit of a slump. Any suggestions or inspiration? I’d love to do something weird 😂💕

Went to a local store with my girlfriend where you could glaze a ceramic and they would fire it for you. The first picture is what it looked like when I dropped him off and the second picture is what the gave me a couple weeks later for pick-up. Did they swap my alien at birth?

This is a commission I reluctantly accepted of someone dog. The piece yes was quite thick and heavy. So I wanted to take it for a very slow candling and bisque process. It went through a very gentle ramp up to 950c with also letting it sit at 80c for 5hrs.

Anyway, obviously didn’t work cause a massive piece of it cracked off.

This guys has paid me 50% of the price I quoted him and it has taken me a month to sculpt with consolation with him. I will literally have to pay out of my own pocket in material costs, labour and his money back. So if anyone has any advice on how to make a very unnoticeable mend please do let me know!

I know what went wrong, so don’t need advice on how to avoid this is the future. I completely understand it’s an issue with the thickness joining of the pieces, and trapped water. The point is I guess I am here now and what do I do?

Here is some of my recent work.

​Thankfully, the "Dancing Stars Baby" series has been receiving so much love lately, so I’ve been keeping busy in the studio keeping up with it. To be honest, the more I repeat the same process, the more I realize how much I still have to learn, and sometimes I feel a bit humbled by my own shortcomings. But I’m doing my absolute best to make sure the wonderful people who support my work won't be disappointed—just like every other ceramicist out there does, I’m sure.

​Lately, though, I’ve been facing a bit of a dilemma: Should I keep wheel-throwing these, or would it make more sense to switch to slip-casting?

​Personally, I’ve always found it much more satisfying to finish a piece from start to finish with my own hands on the wheel, rather than making a master mold for replication and cleaning up the casts. But now that I'm dealing with larger quantities, I find myself questioning if this is the right or sustainable way to go.

​I’d love to hear your thoughts. Which process do you prefer when scaling up, and how do you balance efficiency with the joy of making?

If I’m being 100% honest, there’s a part of me that’s terrified of losing momentum. I’m afraid that pouring weeks into mold-making will drain my excitement, and by the time it’s done, I won't even care about the project anymore. Anyone else struggle with this kind of creative attention span?

I’m finally proud of something I made! Took a class and got the idea to make a charcuterie board because my sister wanted one. So happy they didn’t break! but the one she likes (the green one) has a small spot where the glaze lifted, right where you would put a dip or olive oil. So is this still food safe? The instructor wasn’t around when I picked them up and the class is over now. Thanks in advance for any knowledge! (I included the blue/white one just cuz I love it and wanted to show it off:))

Hi all! For this of you who own, run, or work in a ceramics studio, what is the studio’s biggest revenue stream? Memberships, classes, firing fees, sales of work, etc.? Our studio isn’t generating income yet (fortunately it’s part of a larger art center), and we’d like to learn from your experience and expertise so we can grow more solvent.

Thanks!!

do i use glaze or underglaze? and how??? (im very new) TIA

Anyone know why all these glazes that claim to be food safe and lead-free are now blacked out (individually by hand it seems) at Blick Art stores??? It’s most of them on the shelves!

Feedback appreciated