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Many Small Site Updates

Pottery Making Info has undergone a number of small updates recently.  Here is a quick rundown:

  • The Video feed has some new sources and is running the new Pipes engine.
  • The Working Artist/Potter Feed has been drastically improved.  There are now over 170 blogs that are incorporated into the feed.  Initially this caused a very slow load time (at least 40-60 seconds) but after doing a little research I found a helpful hint from Hapdaniel and his idea to use a Google spreadsheet.  This reduced the load time but other options are still being explored to improve the feed.
  • A Delicious widget has been added to the left column of the site.  Delicious is a social bookmarking site.  Now it will be much easier to share interesting or useful sites while surfing the ‘net.  When a bookmark is added to the Pottery Making Info Delicious Bookmarks, it will show up automatically on the site.
  • There is also a whole new Links page devoted to Delicious Bookmarks.  It should become more interesting as new sites are added.
  • An “AddThis” bar has been added to some of the pages on the site.  This was done after the Sociable buttons seemed to stop working.  The blog might also get an upgrade in “share buttons” soon but at least the sociable buttons still appear where they’re supposed to be.
  • Two images were added to the home page.  Maybe it’s a little less boring now?
  • There were also a few minor design tweaks… probably too minor to notice.

Let me know if there is anything else that can be added or improved!

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How to Mix Pottery Glaze

Intro to Mixing Dry Glazes

Mixing a glaze powder with water allows you to apply the glaze to bisque ware quickly and easily.  It is a relatively simple process.  The main steps, in more detail below, include: measuring water, mixing the glaze powder with the water, sieving, adjusting viscosity or density and letting the glaze sit for a while before it is applied.  There are many variations and some people execute these steps in a different order.

First of all, follow the instructions that came with the glaze if you are using a premixed powder.  Many commercially prepared glazes can now be purchased as dry powder in 10, 25, or 50lb increments.  Generally, dry glaze powder is formulated for dipping and pouring, while premixed liquid glazes are formulated for brushing (3,20).  The following instructions assume that you have a glaze in dry powder form which is mixed well and ready to be mixed with water.  If you are not using a whole batch of premixed powder make sure it is mixed well before taking part of the powder to mix with water.  Some of the glaze ingredients might settle to the bottom of the container during transport (20).  There are also many suggestions for keeping the glaze suspended in water or improving brushability.  These suggestions include Flocs (7), bentonite (3,11), epsom salt (13), brushing medium (10), CMC (11) and Macaloid (13).

Continue reading ‘How to Mix Pottery Glaze’ »

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Site of the Day: Clay Art Web Guide

Clay Art Web Guide

Quick Facts

  • Address: clayartwebguide.com
  • Produced By: Vicki Hardin / Clay Art Pottery
  • Domain Name Registered: March 9, 2002
  • Alexa Rank (?): Approx. 1,500,000
  • Inbound Links (?): Approx. 75

Overview

Clay Art Web Guide

Clay Art Web Guide - Home

The Clay Art Web Guide is a large collection of ceramic and pottery links.  In it’s own words:

Clay Art Web Guide is a leading online ceramic portal serving the clay art community since 2000. We serve over 20,000 visitors a month on a wide variety of clay related topics in over 60 categories with more than 3,000 unique listings.

Submitting a site requires a one-time payment and the directory seems to be well maintained so visitors don’t have to sort through a bunch of worthless links.  Links are sorted into categories and usually presented in order of submission date, most recently submitted sites are first.  A few of the larger categories seem to have sites listed alphabetically.
Continue reading ‘Site of the Day: Clay Art Web Guide’ »

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New Feed – Working Artists

A new feature has been added to Pottery Making Info.  It is an RSS feed of potter and ceramic artist blogs.  It combines the feeds of many blogs by potters and ceramic artists into one continuously updated stream of information.  It would be similar to what you would get if you subscribed to a bunch of artist blogs with a feed reader like Google Reader.

The initial goal of this “working artists” feature is to provide an easy to access source to show what other artists and potters are doing.  Whether it be for inspiration or to learn a thing or two from other artists and potters, you should be able to find the freshest clay work from around the globe.

If you, or someone you know, work with clay and you would like to add a blog to the feed contact Pottery Making Info.  Include the artist’s name and the blog address.  There aren’t a lot of requirements.  Your blog should be mostly about your process or the finished work you create as a potter or ceramic artist.  Your technique, materials, firing method, post frequency, blog software, experience, skill level, or location do not matter.

Eventually the blogs and artists will be listed on the site so it will be easy to see which blogs are already included.  There are also some Pottery Making Info graphics in the works so be on the lookout…

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Link Roundup: NCECA 2010

2010 NCECA – Philadelphia, PA

NCECA is the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (facebook page). Every year there is a huge conference for educators, students, artists, and industry-type people.  This year the 44th annual conference was in Philadelphia from March 31 – April 3.

Here you will find links to analysis, reviews, pictures, and stories from the 2010 NCECA conference.

Personal Accounts

Clayart:  Kelly in Ohio, Priscilla, Elizabeth, Antoinette, Bill, Lillian, Cheryl, Dolita, Tony,

Potterybasics (you must be a member of the group to view): Nancy, Dana: day1, day 2, day 4,

Ceramic Arts Community

Photographs

Flickr: tagged with “nceca”, recent search results for “nceca”, woodfirer, May Luk, zapoldesign, niso30, odhusky, earline_green j_bussman, libbyrosof, funcpottr,

Rachel Campbell’s site, Party at Steve Tobin’s studio, Linda Stauffer’s site, Pre Conference by Dave Thomas, Chris Morgan,

PotteryBasics (you must be a member to view): NCECA Philly 2010  album,

Videos

slideshow, Kim Young Soo, cup sale, dis/arming domesticity exhibition, opening ceremony, Baltimore Clayworks Exhibit,

Social Sites

Twitter: NCECA on twitter, tweets about NCECA,

Facebook: posts about NCECA,

Presentations

Social Networks, The Clay Studio: List of exhibitions, Flash and Ash,

Blogs

Mary Obodzinski: day1, day2, day3, post conference, Ceramic Thought, Christa Assad, these2words, sawdust & dirt: nceca envy, glen adamson part1, part2, Slipcast, Harmony Chapman, Meagan Chaney, Pinchpots, Pots & Dishes, homefry sketchbook, Adam Yungbluth, Art for Non-art Students part1, part2, The Art Blog part1, part2, Connie Norman,

Surely there are more reactions, pictures, and accounts of this great event.  If you know about a 2010 NCECA link that is missing leave a comment or contact Pottery Making Info.

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Small Site Changes

In the past few weeks Pottery Making Info has made a few small changes.

There is now a Links page with a number of good links to ceramics and pottery sites. In the future more links will be added to this page and more specific link pages will be created. If you have a site that could be added to the link pages contact Pottery Making Info.

A small script has been added to some of the pages and at the bottom of the blog posts called Sociable.  It should make it easier to share interesting things you find here on popular social sites.  For example, if you want to tell all your friends on Facebook that you think this update about Pottery Making Info is really cool, you could click the little Facebook square at the bottom.

There have also been a few small cosmetic changes.  The “greater than” bullets that used to show up in the news section are now gone and the news section looks more like the rest of the site.

More changes are on the way.

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Site of the Day: Ceramic Art Directory

Ceramic Art Directory (claystation.com)

Quick Facts

  • Address: www.claystation.com
  • Produced By: Andy Clift
  • Domain Name Registered: May 4, 1999
  • Alexa Rank (?): Approx. 800,000
  • Inbound Links (?): Approx. 170

Overview

Claystation Home Page

Claystation Home Page

The Ceramic Art Directory, also known as Clay Station, is a large collection of links, resources, galleries and more.  As of this posting, it seems to be in the midst of a transformation.  The home page and most of the other sections of the site currently have the same look that you have come to love in the past: a color scheme of browns and light blue, the clay-lump main navigation at the top with secondary navigation underneath, and a white middle column with smaller columns at each side.  If you click on the classified or  forum “lump” in the navigation you will see a slick new layout of blues and white with many new features.  If you’re interested, here’s Andy’s note about the new version.  This new version should offer many improvements and allow some interesting interaction between potters, ceramic artists, and fans of clay.

Continue reading ‘Site of the Day: Ceramic Art Directory’ »

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Site of the Day: Ceramic Arts Daily

Ceramic Arts Daily

Quick Facts

Ceramic Arts Daily Home Page

Ceramic Arts Daily Home Page

  • Address:  ceramicartsdaily.org
  • Produced by:  The Ceramic Publications Company (part of the American Ceramic Society)
  • Domain Name Registered:  August 11, 2006
  • Alexa Rank:  Approx. 112,000
  • Inbound Links:  Approx. 160

Overview

Ceramic Arts Daily is a fantastic resource for potters, students, and ceramic artists.  It is the online home to popular magazines Ceramics Monthly and Pottery Making Illustrated as well as the Potters Council.  Informative and interesting content is added almost every day, usually in the form of a short article or video.  There is an incredible amount of free information available.

Continue reading ‘Site of the Day: Ceramic Arts Daily’ »

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Pottery Making Info: The Blog

If you’re reading this you have discovered the brand new feature of Pottery Making Info.  The past few weeks have been spent installing, setting up, and tweaking WordPress to act as the News section of this site.  WordPress is a very popular open source blogging software.  One of the great features is reader comments which would allow potters and ceramic artists to easily share their knowledge, make suggestions, and help others find great information about making ceramic art.  WordPress also offers important features like RSS feeds, media management, and guest authors.

After the initial install there was a lot of testing, tweaking, and updating.  Essential plugins were installed and activated, a theme was chosen and the style was changed to look more like the original Pottery Making Info site.  There is still a lot of work to do but so far everything seems functional.  If you have any creative ideas or suggestions for the blog leave a comment.

To find out more you can go to WordPress.org.  The theme that was chosen was F2 by Srini.

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