The 21st Century Glaze Project

Quick Facts

• Address: www.glaze21.org/
• Procuced By: Paul Miller and other ceramic artists
• Domain Name Registered: November 10, 2007
• Alexa Rank(?): Unranked
• Inbound Links (?): Approx. 6

Overview

Glaze21.org - glaze recipes

The 21st Century Glaze Project, found at glaze21.org is a collaborative effort to collect and organize ceramic glaze information.  Users can submit glaze recipes, articles, and other information and get credit for their submission.  Registration is required to use the site but it’s free.  The most useful feature for most will probably be the ability to search glaze recipes by material, environment, firing range, color, opacity and surface.

Features

• Over 600 glaze recipes and counting!
• Many glazes have been tested and include pictures of the fired glaze.
• A batch size can be entered and the recipe will be calculated to match the size in grams.
• Surface Tweaks and Cool Tools offer additional ideas for decorating ceramic pieces.
• The Literature and Videos pages offer links to a lot of helpful information about glazing and other aspects of pottery.

Final Thoughts

• Content Quantity: B- (Glaze recipes are targeted to a specific segment of the ceramic industry but it is a vast collection of recipes.)
• Content Quality: A- (A great resource for anyone that is interested in creating glazes.)
• Navigation: A (Very clean, clear, and intuitive.)
• Presentation: B+ (Nice clean layout, ads are reasonable, scroll bars might be annoying for users with high screen resolutions.)
• Interaction: C- (Registered users can submit glaze recipes or links.)

Overall: B

Clay Art

http://lsv.ceramics.org/scripts/wa.exe?HOME

At first, Clay Art might seem a little mysterious, especially if you’ve never been part of an email discussion group.  You sign up at the LISTSERV page which will let you receive and send messages to the group.  It has about 4000 subscribers and plenty of wide-ranging discussion.  Messages are archived at potters.org and the yahoo group will also let you view messages but not post messages to the group.  There are many clay experts that peruse the list and offer excellent insights.

• Topic Range: Extensive
• Amount of Discussion: High
• Organization: Low
• Aesthetics and Features: Low/Depends on your email system

Ceramic Arts Daily – Forum

http://ceramicartsdaily.org/community/index.php?/index

Ceramic Arts Daily is a great site for potters and ceramic artists.  There are plenty of great resources and they recently added a discussion forum.  It is well moderated, organized, and visually pleasing.  There are close to 2000 members with many well known potters and ceramic artists.

• Topic Range: Broad
• Amount of Discussion: Medium
• Organization: High
• Aesthetics and Features: Very High

Pottery.About.com – Forum

http://forums.about.com/ab-pottery/start/?lgnF=y

About.com has a whole subdomain about pottery and ceramic art.  The forums are well organized and you can upload files as attachment and post a message as a guest.

• Topic Range: Broad
• Amount of Discussion: Medium
• Organization: High
• Aesthetics and Features: Medium

Claystation Forum

http://www.claystation.com/forum/forum.php

Claystation offers a lot of great features and gives community members many options to interact with each other.

• Topic Range: Broad
• Amount of Discussion: Low
• Organization: High
• Aesthetics and Features: Very High

Dave’s Garden

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/allfiredup/all/

Dave’s Garden is actually a gardening site which has a number of discussion forums, one being for Pottery, Clay and Ceramics.

• Topic Range: Broad
• Amount of Discussion: Medium
• Organization: Medium
• Aesthetics and Features: Medium

Yahoo Groups

Full list of groups in the Ceramics category: http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/Entertainment___Arts/Fine_Arts/Visual_Arts/Ceramics

Pottery Basics

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/potterybasics/

Pottery Basics is a Yahoo Group with over 1900 members.  Membership Required (You have to be a member of the group to see the messages, attachments, and other features.)

PotterBarter

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/potterbarter/

Potter Barter is a Yahoo Group with over 2700 members that focuses on buying and selling pottery equipment.  Membership Required.

Ceramics3

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ceramics3/

About 1500 members.  Membership Required.

Slip Dipper Ceramics

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/slipdippersceramics/

About 1300 members.  Public – you don’t have to be  a member to view messages.

NakedRaku

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nakedraku/

Over 1000 members.  Membership Required.

Google Groups

Clay Craft

http://groups.google.com/group/claycraft

WoodKiln

http://groups.google.com/group/woodkiln

Social Media

Facebook

Ceramics (Entertainment and Arts)

Ceramics (Business)

Pottery (Entertainment and Arts)

Pottery Critiques (Common Interest)

Listorious (Twitter Lists)

Ceramic Pottery

Potters

Smaller Pottery and Clay Communities

Crystalline Glaze Forum

http://s3.excoboard.com/crystal

UK Potters Forum

http://www.ukpotters.co.uk/forum/

Pottery Chat

http://potterychat.org/

CraftBanter – Pottery

http://www.craftbanter.com/forumdisplay.php?s=8f342457656b0abdca1c78ce1b7bb325&f=12

CraftsForum – Pottery

http://www.craftsforum.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?45-Pottery-ceramics

Craftster – Pottery, Ceramics, Polymer Clay

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?board=359.0

CeramicsArtists.com Forum

http://www.ceramicsartists.com/Forums_Main.asp

Statuary Place

http://www.statuaryplace.com/dicussion_frame.html

WetCanvas – Clay

http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=342

Clay Arts Utah

http://clayarts.websitetoolbox.com/

Deviant Art – Ceramic Maniacs

http://ceramic-maniacs.deviantart.com/

Deviant Art – Ceramic Art

http://ceramic-art.deviantart.com/

Conclusion

There are many great communities for potters and clay artists.  A lot can be learned by asking questions to people that actually work with clay and it can also be very rewarding to help those in need.  This is a pretty good sampling but there are probably more clay communities out there on the web.  If you know of another great group leave a comment and let us know!

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 - 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.

Features

• Over 3,000 links organized in almost 70 categories.
• The “Newly Listed” page shows the most recent sites that have been submitted.
• There are a few good articles submitted by experienced potters or ceramic artists.
• You can create a ceramic listing on the “Classified Ads” page for $5 per month.
• There is a list of Amazon pottery books in the “Bookstore” and a blog with many listings for workshops, openings, and events.
• You can submit a ceramics site to be listed in the Clay Art Web Guide for a one-time payment:
  • $15 will get your site listed in one category and requires a reciprocal link on your site.
  • $25 will list your site in two categories and does not require a link to the Clay Art Web Guide.

Final Thoughts (?)

• Content Quantity: C (There isn’t a lot of unique content on the site other than the links.)
• Content Quality: B+ (There are some good articles and most of the links are worth checking.)
• Navigation: A- (Pretty clear and intuitive for such a large collection but links in each category are only viewable  by most recently listed first.)
• Presentation: B- (Pretty clean layout, there are a lot of ads per page but most are related to the content and not overly annoying.)
• Interaction: D (There isn’t really a lot to interact with.  You can contact the site owners through email to make suggestions or add your link.)

Overall: B-

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

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.

Features

• The site is built with vBulletin, a powerful and feature-rich piece of software designed to build communities.
• High user interaction – many tools to express your thoughts and interact with other ceramic artists.
• Forum – a place to discuss with other potters and ceramic artists including sub-forums like Clay and Glaze, Kilns and Firing, Forming Techniques and more.
• Links – a wide variety of ceramic and pottery links sorted into categories in a complex hierarchy.
• Opportunities – an interactive section where jobs, classes, conferences and other clay related events can be posted.
• Classifieds – an advanced system to post, browse and search for anything clay-related that can be sold.
• Blogs – visitors can sign up and manage their own blog as part of the Claystation community.
• Claypedia – a Wikipedia style collection of ceramic information which can be edited by any registered user.
• Claystation TV – a nice collection of pottery and ceramic art videos.
• Book Store – find and order pottery and ceramic art books through Amazon.com. Books are categorized and can be sorted by best selling, newest, or most noteworthy.
• RSS feeds – there is an RSS feed for just about every feature of the site including links, forums, and articles.

Claystation Community Page

Final Thoughts (?)

• Content Quantity:  B (a large amount of ceramic/pottery links, some articles, the Claypedia, and other community based content.)
• Content Quality:  B- (some good articles, videos, etc. but the links to other sites are one of the more important aspects for those searching for information.)
• Navigation:  C+/B+ (The old version took some getting used to.  New layout is more intuitive and easier to find information.)
• Presentation: B-/A-  (The old version was a little cluttered and somewhat confusing at first glance.  New version seems really clean and polished but still gives you a lot of information at once.  Some ads but nothing too annoying.)
• Interaction: A- (There is an amazing amount of interactive features: forums, blogs, community – but not a lot of people to interact with.)

Overall:  B

Quick Facts

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.

Features

• The “Daily” section of the site contains the recent features, videos, and a place to browse information by topic.  There is also an extensive glossary.
  • Many different techniques are covered all along the ceramic art spectrum.
  • Articles and videos cover real artists and their personal styles.
• A ceramic arts bookstore is available and many of the quality books have a free excerpt for download.
• Under “Education” you can find long lists of ceramic classes, colleges, guilds and some upcoming workshops.
• There is also a section of the site devoted to galleries and artist listings.
• If you sign up for an account you will be able to download extra information from a list of interesting articles and excerpts.
• Ceramic Arts Daily offers an email newsletter subscription which will send you an email almost every day with news and updates.
• An RSS feed is available as well.

Final Thoughts

This site is an extremely valuable resource for any potter or ceramic artist.  You could spend days surfing the site and still have plenty of things to discover.

• Content Quantity:  A+
• Content Quality:  A+
• Navigation:  B+ (so much content might be overwhelming, some navigation isn’t where you might expect it at first)
• Presentation:  A (very clean layout, easy to read, no over-the-top ads)
• Interaction:  B (visitors can leave comments on most items)

Overall:  A