Creative Ideas for Clay Artists: A Collection of Articles from Ceramics Monthly

Looking for new ideas? This Ceramics Monthly Handbook is edited by Anderson Turner and features a collection of articles about creative artists, and ideas to challenge you and inspire your work. Pottery, sculpture and finishing techniques are covered. This is a must-read for anyone involved in clay. Whether looking for new designs, new inspiration or renewed creativity, you will find it here through these talented featured artists and their unique approaches to clay.

As potters and ceramic artists, we usually get to the studio and make something we're comfortable with. But if you want to try something new every now and then, you'll love this inspirational and informative book. There's a little of everything - throwing, handbuilding, finishing. And trying out something new or just adding a twist to your current work, will keep the studio calling you back over and over again. Here's an idea of what you'll find.

Pottery

Creative Ideas begins with pottery because pots are pretty intergral in our studio lives. It's what we think of most when we say we're going to the studio.

Kristin Doner provides a step-by-step on how to make these really big pinch pots. She rakus them but you could use the technique anywhere.

If you're looking for something that will get the attention of others in a group studio, you should try Dannon Rhudy's technique for Handbuilding inside a thrown leather-hard form.

Have you ever made miniatures? Jane Graber makes incredible ones. And to think you can put scores of them on a single shelf!

Mold made work takes a new turn as Sara Friedlander decorates a mold then dips it into slip so a pot forms on it. The result is a decorated piece ready for glazing.

If you're lured to the beauty and simplicity of Japanese flower arranging, Shuji Ikeda's technique for creating elegant containers is sure to inspire.

Kari Hagen uses molds shaped from sand that has been packed firmly into a wooden box. The cast forms pick up the texture of the sand and any reliefs you've carved into it.

Sculpture

Using spray guns designed for the building trades and auto paints, Lowell Baker sprays paper clay and slips onto combustible forms that burn out in the firing.

Finding inspriation from her kids, Janis Mars Wunderlich's expressive sculptures may freak out the average viewer, but her work with slips, stains and washes provide a rich visual.

In Vince Pitelka's factory building sculptures, he explores the use of clay marquetry as the ideal technique for any hard-edge, linear imagery or decoration.

Spring-like coils from clay? An unlikely form is tackled by Michael Garnes and a technique fully explored.

Anna Calluori Holcombe brings the still life to clay in her vignettes formed with a simple tarpaper technique.

Nan Smith adds a new dimension to forming work with flexible molds an exciting alternative to complex plaster sectional molds.

Finishing Techniques

Elaine Alt says she wants her decorated vessels to convey the tension between whimsy and seriousness. She gets it right and shares her technique.

If you've ever considered spraying glazes, Hanna Lore Hombordy offers some valuable insights.

Taking a lesson from nature, Dick Lehman discovers a technique for transferring natural elements onto his work.

Linda McRae combines ceramic and photographic processes for a unique look.

From a mountaintop in West Virginia, Brian VanNostrand demonstrates his trimming and decorating techniques.

Impressing impressions highlight the work of Collin Rosebrook of Oklahoma and his impressive 3 to 4 foot disks.

Before glazes were ever invented, potters burnished their work. Norbert Turek reveals the secrets handed down through the millennia.