Photo © 2009 Beth E Peterson

Share your favorite pot with others! You can both show us and tell us all about it.... It's easy and fun!

Potter Jane Osti, a member of the Cherokee Artists Association, recently got together with bunches of kids to help them make Christmas ornaments from clay. Not only was this an opportunity for Osti to introduce a new generation to clay's magic, but also a way to affirm their shared cultural roots.

The kids used rocker stamps, sharpened chopsticks, and cut-outs to decorate clay disks cut from slabs. Decorations included Southeastern-Woodland designs and the Cherokee syllabary -- designs that were developed in the original Cherokee homeland of the southeastern United States.

The finished ornaments will be sent to the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, OK and will be used on a "Tribal Holiday" student tree for the Philbrook's annual "Festival of Trees." (You can read more about it here.)

Do you have kids or have younger relatives and friends? How could you show them something magical this holiday season? Can you think of ways that perhaps you could incorporate a hanging ornament project into it, the way Osti did?

Image Courtesy of blackdachshund / Pottery Forum

Can you guess what this bowl is used for? Take a guess and leave a comment, then go to the Pottery Forum to find out! (Would you like to throw your own?)

Extra bonus feature: More Wordless Wednesdays on About.com and other Wordless Wednesday Blogs...


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Pyrometric cones are a fundamental tool for those who fire pottery. If you are new to pottery, or firing pottery, be careful to avoid some common confusion.

• It's all about the zero! --- That zero (often spoken as "oh") in front of a number makes a huge difference! For example, there is a difference of 425 degrees Fahrenheit between cone oh-seven and cone seven.
• The word "cone" is often notated as a triangle or by a "^" --- so cone seven looks like ^7 and cone oh-seven looks like ^07.
• Be aware! There are different cone systems. In the US, Orton cones are the standard. In Europe and other countries, the cone standards are slightly different. If you are sharing with potters outside your area of the world, it tends to be wisest to stick with temperatures, noting Fahrenheit (F) and Celsius (C), with both parties understanding that heat work is what we potters are really after.

I don't watch Top Chef as a norm. Perhaps you do. If so, You probably know who Robin Leventhal is...one of the contestants on this cooking competition reality show.

Did you know she was working on her Master of Fine Arts in ceramics when she became enamored of cooking? (I sure didn't...but then, I didn't know who she was until a few days ago.)

Well, Leventhal was recently culled from the contestant herd. What brought her to my attention was her exit interview on the TV Guide website. At the end, she says, "I'm putting my art lifestyle back to the forefront of my goal and doing design work that will hopefully transform into a dishware line. As a ceramics artist, I never really made functional ceramics. My pieces were sculptural. But now I'm really embracing the notion integrating food and the dining experience."

Having heard a bit from my sister (who does watch the show), I am experiencing a bit of trepidation at the thought of a Leventhal dinner or Leventhal dinnerware. What do you think?

The Stanford Archaeology Center Pottery Workshop Series consists of six campus-hosted pottery replication events. In these workshops, early clay and firing technologies used in the Americas, Europe and Anatolia are examined and replicated. The second workshop of the series centered around a serious dilemma involving pottery.

The Incan Empire was overthrown by Spanish conquistadors in the 1530's. Ravaged by disease and unrest, by the 1570's, the people needed relief. The Taki Unquy priests opposing the Spanish told the people that these evils were a result of them no longer following the old ways of religion. They needed to begin their worship and offerings again.

The offerings needed the fine pots that had been made before the conquest, but those potters stopped working 40 years before. They were now gone. The indigenous potters in the 1570's began trying to find ways to replicate the pottery from before.

This ancient, short-lived revival was recreated in the second workshop. Authenticity to the original potters was preserved, from importing the raw, stony ceramic material from the Incan pottery production site of Choquepukio in Cuzco to the use of alpaca dung and pine needles as a firing fuel.

The full article makes for fascinating reading, especially if you are interested in potters from the past. And if you are in the Stanford area, you may want to see about attending some of the upcoming workshops! Email Melissa Chatfield (chatfield at stanford dot edu), the research fellow in ceramic geoarchaeology who is presenting them, and ask to be put on the workshop mailing list.

The British government's data reports that "17% of the population took part in a craft activity in 2008/09." Think of that. In a busload of thirty people, two may be crafting something right there on the bus! If they aren't crafting then and there, I'll bet they are thinking about it!

Are you interested in the crafts (like pottery) and live in the UK? If so, consider signing the Craft Matters petition sponsored by the UK Crafts Council. They want to demonstrate the great support there is for the crafts across the UK, and are asking for your help to do so.

Packing pottery for shipment takes some careful forethought, whether it is going by commercial carrier to Auntie Nin's place as a Christmas present or you are taking pots to a craft show in order to sell them.

Pack your pots so they can be transported safely. Rose (Pots4MyPlants on the Pottery Forum) uses upholstery foam, bubble wrap, and heavy-duty cardboard boxes.

Potters and gardeners have a lot in common. Both groups of people like to play in the dirt. We both love to watch things grow and evolve from said dirt. And many of us are concerned about that biggest pile of dirt, Earth.

Two potters in San Antonio, TX have married their love of dirt and dirt. An article from My SanAntonio.com describes how Hank Drennon and Diana Kersey have begun making and using a type of pottery as an irrigation system...a system with a lot of history behind it. The Spanish settlers in their area used it for hundreds of years.

This irrigation method uses ollas, porous, bottomless, gallon-sized, earthenware jars that are buried in the ground then filled with water. The water slowly seeps out, giving moisture to the earth and plants surrounding the jar, which needs to be refilled about twice each week.

Drennon and Kersey are still refining the pots, working to perfect pre-industrial technology whose time has come...again.

I think nearly all of us tend to spot "favorites" as we unload our latest glaze kiln (or pit firing or raku buckets). I know I love to see what other potters are doing, and I'll bet you do, too.

And let us admit it. We also like showing others what we are working on, especially when they are successful.

So, now's the time! Share your latest favorite pot(s)!