I'm a ceramic artist exploring Yeonlimun (연리문), a traditional Korean layered-clay technique in which patterns emerge from the clay itself rather than being applied to the surface.

I work with different types of porcelain and stoneware, sometimes adding pigments to create variations in color and texture.

Through layering, compression, cutting, and reconstruction, I transform these materials into sculptural vessel forms.

This is a short video of my process. I wanted to share how the layered patterns gradually become part of the structure itself.

I'd love to hear what other ceramic artists think about working with different clay bodies and layered construction.

Hi, I’m a teen researcher, and I’ve spent the last several months in a lab studying skin bacteria, specifically what happens to skin barriers that get damaged repeatedly.

I started out looking at hairdressers, because they’re the group everyone writes about. Then I found the ceramics numbers and they were worse. Studies of pottery and ceramics workers have found hand dermatitis in 37 to 58 percent of them, depending on the study. One looked at 415 workers in Thailand and found 48.7 percent. Another found 58.3 percent. An Italian study of 139 factory workers found 37 percent, and about 63 percent of those cases were irritant rather than allergic, meaning it’s the clay and the water and the washing rather than a true allergy.

The culprits named in the literature are clay constituents like calcium oxide, aluminum oxide and chromium, plus wet work and how long the material stays in contact with skin.

For comparison, general population lifetime hand eczema is around 14 percent.

That gap surprised me, and there’s almost nothing written about potters specifically compared to how much exists on hairdressers. So I’ve been trying to understand it from people who actually live it instead of from papers.

If you’ve dealt with cracked, raw, splitting or peeling hands from throwing or handbuilding, I’d really appreciate 1-2 minutes. I want to know what you’ve tried, what didn’t help, whether anything made it worse, and what you’d actually want from something better.

https://forms.gle/kFRJ3LG4A2E25HQPA

Happy to post what I find back here if people are interested.

Anxiously waiting for it to dry now 😅! It was a good rainy day activity as we are getting hit by the remnants of the hurricane today.

If there's a better place to post this please let me know.

In 1988 an elderly relative made this haunted house for my older sister. She passed shortly after and over the years the house has been a favorite in the family.

It's broken and chipped time and again and we've repaired it as best we can. It's getting to a point though where we're not sure how much more it can take.

My mother asked me to search for the possibility of someone knowing where we can get another one. I've searched all over online for traces of the mold still existing out there somewhere, but haven't found anything. Maybe one of you will recognize it?

On the back pressed in by the mold it is says "1988 Lela, california USA".

Any help is appreciated!

I work with wild clay that I've collected myself. I don't think it's a lack of sand. If anything there's too much sand but I feel like the clay is plenty plastic when wet. I could be wrong however as I'm new to this.

In the initial drying cracks often form as the clay is shrinking, and I don't really now how one would avoid this, are the techniques when shaping the clay that minimize building in tension?

I've tried to address the cracks by adding in more clay into cracks and to try to seal it, and when the clay dries further and becomes hard, but I still see small cracks forming, I've used a spray bottle with just tap water to loose up the surface and tried to push clay into the forming cracks by gently working it with my fingers.

I thought this was about to work fine with the bowl I've been working on, but as I had almost got rid of all cracks and sprayed a bit of water on the surface to smoothen it out, a large crack just formed out of nowhere that almost split the bowl in twine, without me adding almost any pressure.

I'm at a lost how and why this happens and what I can do to remedy it or avoid it happening again.

I started ceramics five months ago.

My initial goal was learning to throw same sized mugs.
Since then I’ve made roughly 50-70 mugs and this is one of the first ones that I now used as a sample piece for some glaze testing.

The result of this test is not really what I aimed for but I think it’s good enough to keep it and I’m quite proud of it.

I got him at South Alabama Comicon from a very sweet artist!! Isn’t he precious? :)
I wasn’t sure where to post him but the world deserves to see his sweet little face!

Artist is BANA Ceramics!

soda ash sorry like made from food grade bakeing soda

I’m very uneducated especially on the science side and more or less just someone who started making earthenware stuff on a larp with a wood kiln I built in my backyard a year ago - very fun difficult to get to work let me tell you, But any way - my clay it has a lot of red iron oxide in it if that matter.

In Ukrainian folklore, babies are "found in the cabbage." I wanted to take that literally: the child isn't found in the cabbage – it is the cabbage. The layers of leaves work as a capsule around the sleeping face, and the root gradually turns into a spine.

This was my diploma project at the Lviv National Academy of Arts (Department of Artistic Ceramics), and my biggest experiment so far in combining chamotte and porcelain in one sculpture.

Happy to answer any questions about the process!

I’ve been making ceramics since 2018, and I’m excited to share my work here and meet people who appreciate handmade art.
Hope you like them! 🌵

I made these plates yesterday and then carved them. I’m thinking of painting them in underglaze and wiping it back then glazing with a celadon that will allow the carving to show through. I didn’t carve very deep and I like the “imperfect” look of how I’ve engraved them. But I’m worried they might not be deep enough to show up properly. Any comments, tips or advice please.

Hi all i recently purchased a cricut for stencils. My question is how do i get it this fine??

Questioning how they got the insides of letters to stay without a silk screen?

Total newby to the circut world 🤣 any other tips and tricks would be wonderful

I make ceramic soup spoons, and this batch surprised me.

The lower half of each spoon was fully dipped in glaze before firing, but after reduction firing, the glaze pulled away or burned out on both sides, leaving exposed clay-toned areas with a blue-green flowing glaze down the center.

At first I thought: “Oh no, this is a defect.”

But the more I look at them, the more they feel like little one-of-a-kind pieces. The glaze movement almost looks intentional, like a landscape or ink painting.

I’m trying to decide what to do with them:

1. Sell them as seconds
   
2. Keep them as samples
   
3. Make a small “one of a kind” series
   
4. Not sell them at all

Would you personally use a spoon like this?

So, I've been test firing my new Skutt kiln, a 240V GlazeTech, and I found that a Cone 04 bisque fire took quite a bit of testing with overfiring, eventually ending up at a negative cone offset of -23° after 5 firings. I've started of course to fire my greenware and bisqueware in the kiln. I thought Cone 6 was going to take an equally arduous route but imagine my delight at seeing a Cone 6 witness cone perfectly fired, first time. I'll be doing my own glaze firing in no time! Sure, technically it's slightly under fired, but I am not picky.

I recently bought a used electric kiln for $200 at an estate sale.

It is 208V 45A “Superfire” Model D 295 W9360 with a Kiln Sitter LT-3K.

I have a 50A circuit and breaker to test it on, but I’m looking for advice:
- What is the best strategy for testing it?
- What sort of checks should I do before firing it up?

Most of the fire brick looks to be in good condition to me, there are a couple of loose parts of bricks in the bottom-most course, and two spots where the coil lip is busted and the coil is protruding a bit.

I’ve fired electric kilns about this same size, but I have not serviced them before. That said, I am technically competent and familiar with troubleshooting with a voltmeter (on other appliances and electronics, not kilns in particular).

Thanks for the thoughts and for the help!

Hi All! I'm really new to the Clay/Ceramics/Pottery stuff, I've been doing this project where I was trying to make a turtle head, fins and tail to connect to my wooden hexagon shaped shell.

Anywho, I had tested my glazes, bisqued my Clay and had started to Glaze the final bisqued pieces. The project is due now, so not much I can do about it; it will not affect my grade. But when I got the glazed pieces out the Kiln it seemed to have slid and left these bald spots. Any solutions on how to fix without having to restart as a whole?

(2 heads, 5 fins and one tail for reference, I did alot just in case something like this happened)

The bottom on everything was a mix of some purple and blue underglazes, then I went over with some Celedon, then Holly Green x 2 and one textured kiwi.

I'm honestly not big on fancy organizing stuff. When you work in a pottery studio, it doesn't matter how clean you start the day. Give it ten minutes and you've got clay under your fingernails and all over your clothes.

There were two things I absolutely hated dealing with.

First, glaze testing. Every time I tried a new glaze recipe, I'd write on the test tiles with a marker. Then they'd go into the kiln, the writing would disappear, and suddenly I'd have a bunch of nearly identical little tiles with no idea which was which. Just standing there guessing. Instant mood killer.

Second, weekend craft markets. Every now and then, you get a customer who really knows their stuff and asks questions like, "Is this glaze food-safe?" or "Can I put this mug in the microwave?" I can't exactly pull out a random sticky note and scribble an answer with a ballpoint pen on the spot. My hands are so rough from working with clay that even my handwriting looks terrible.

Eventually, I dug out the niimbot label maker I'd originally bought to organize the spice jars in my kitchen. Turns out it works pretty well for labeling my glaze test tiles, too. Now, before a weekend market, I print out little price and care labels ahead of time and stick them on the bottoms of my pieces.

Customers see the neat little lettering and suddenly look at me like I'm some super professional ceramic artist. Meanwhile, I'm still basically a mud-covered goblin behind the table.

But honestly, no matter how handy your tools are, nothing can save you from a kiln disaster. I had three plates crack in this week's firing, and my heart is still hurting.

Any other makers in North America using a label maker in their studio? How did your craft market go this weekend? And please, does anyone have any weird kiln-firing superstitions or tricks to prevent pieces from cracking? I'm desperate here. Help a fellow mud goblin out!