This page and sub-pages listed in Table of Contents contain my reflections as a beginning potter and reminders for steps through the procedures. On July 30, 2016, I retired after 42 years of research as a grant funded researcher. I received a Speedball Artista pottery wheel as my retirement gift. I started painting china about 3 years before retirement and felt pottery might be fun activity in retirement. I purchased a Skutt 822-3 electric kiln to handle my expected increase in production.
My production rate varies depending on other activities and seasons. Pottery has become my activity that fills my time in retirement and I have no desire to return back to the working world.
The best advice is to keep practicing. It took me a ton of clay before I really felt good about my pottery.
Raw materials used to make pottery are only commercially available because another industry is using the material for something else. The market for supplying potters is not enough for mines and processors to survive. Work with what is available and support local as much as possible. Ask if you really need Cornwall Stone Feldspar shipped from the UK to make a glaze or can you use a local grinding sludge from polishing granite (feldspar) for counter tops or headstones.
There are many youtube videos showing professional potters gathering their own raw materials to make clay and glaze. There are hammer mills costing $2,000 to $3,000 producing 100 to 200 mesh material. Maybe some day but still purchasing processed components.
Prepare yourself for the bad batch of raw materials by developing workarounds. It will happen because most of the raw material used for pottery is dug out of the ground and not pure anything. Learn what can be substituted with another source or locally mined when you formulate a clay body and glaze should the source goes bad or dries up.
I like it when people discover use for my pots. The true value comes with use. Function does not belong to the object, but the user makes function. I hope my work asks the user to look at themselves, the world and their place in it. Our hopes, our dreams, our failures, our success, what makes us sad and what makes us happy. Each generation must discover the function of pottery ware anew to preserve it for the future. We have saturated the market with stuff of our Grandparents and Parents because we could not discover a use for it. Renew value by making function. It is repeated use that makes a great pot.
There is no single way to make pottery. Each potter must find what works for them. I find perfection very boring. I look at pots with imperfections as coming from the heart of its maker. The pot should be a visual and feel thing with a clear indication it is hand made rather than a duplicate of another. The kitchen or office where pottery comes into our lives and brings beauty into the rhythm of the everyday is more important than matching sets or display in a museum. Rough edges give it lasting charm that results in permanence and long life.
For 42 years, I cranked out research projects in medicine and agriculture but found a new path in retirement the most rewarding. It has been an amazing journey to discover non-market gifting distributed my pottery worldwide and grants helped cover costs. My pottery is priceless and all I ask is a donation to a cause. Looking forward to the next non-profit fund raising project.
I am having fun making pottery and hope you have just as much fun using it.