Community Resources
We feel so lucky to get to do what we love every day! And it’s all because of the support of our amazing ceramics community!
Stay up to date with our blog articles, podcast, and newsletters below!
If you didn’t know, Ceramic Materials Workshop is a small business.  Our mission is to provide our community with a solid understanding of their glazes and clay to make your studios the best that they can be.  In order to do that, we do all of our testing, research, editing and production in house.  If you find our content helpful, please consider supporting our mission by taking some of our online courses or supporting us via our Patreon.  Our team thanks you for your consideration!
Commercial Ceramic Stain Research
Stop guessing and start choosing stains with confidence. CMW’s newest digital e-book – Stain Spectrum – is a research-driven visual reference library built from two years of rigorous testing by the Ceramic Materials Workshop team. Inside, you will find visual references for 90 ceramic stains, documented within a controlled system to isolate and showcase the true nature and effects of each individual stain.
Each stain is shown through a consistent testing matrix designed for clear, side-by-side comparison. We held the clay body, fit-adjusted base glaze systems, and application method constant—then varied the conditions that actually change color: Cone 6 vs Cone 10, oxidation vs reduction, stain loading from 2.5% to 10%, and thin vs thick application (one dip vs two dips). The result is a practical studio tool for artists, students, and educators who want more predictable outcomes and fewer wasted tests.
Free Courses
Batch, please!
Learn how we mix and batch a glaze!
Self Absorbed
Learn more about clay body absorption and why it’s important.
Glow Up!
Rose shows you how to make a glow in the dark glaze.
Make a Plaster Slab
Learn how we make a plaster slab for testing.Â
CMW UMF Calculators
UMF glaze calculators are designed to assist potters in formulating glazes with specific surfaces and textures in mind. At their core, these calculators utilize the concept of Unity Molecular Formula, which represents the molecular ratios of the materials in the glaze. By inputting the desired materials and their respective proportions, you can generate custom recipes that perfectly align with your artistic vision.
Commercial Clay Body Profile Testing
Over the past several years, the CMW team has collected and tested scores of commercially available clay bodies.  The results are meant to help our students understand how these clay bodies perform to make their studios the best that they can be. Click below button to find results of the bodies that have been tested to date. We plan to add additional profiles as we continue to test additional clay bodies.
Free YouTube Course Content
The CMW Blog
Behind the Scenes of What We’re Working on!Â
Your Kiln Is Not Just a Hot Box: How Kilns Control Heat Work, Atmosphere, and Glaze Results
A kiln is one of the most important pieces of equipment in a ceramic studio, but it is also one of the easiest to misunderstand. From the outside, it looks simple: a chamber, some heat, a controller, maybe a vent, and a final firing number. Put the work in, fire the...
Crazing in Ceramic Glazes: What Tiny Cracks Tell You About Glaze Fit
Fine cracks in a fired glaze are easy to blame on the kiln. Maybe the cooling was too fast. Maybe the glaze was too thick. Maybe the piece looked fine at first, and the cracks appeared after washing or use. Those details can matter, but often are blaming the symptoms...
Kaolins: The Material Behind the Material
If you spend enough time around ceramics, you'll eventually notice that kaolin seems to show up everywhere. It's in porcelain bodies. It's in stoneware bodies. It's in glaze recipes. It's in slips, engobes, and casting bodies. In fact, it would be difficult to find a...
For Flux Sake Podcast
Listen to Our Latest Podcast Episodes.
Ep 136 – How do I reassure customers that I don’t use lead?
We start off season six of the podcast with a great question about customer service around ceramics. The gang answer a question from a paint-you-own pottery studio about reassuring customers that they don’t use lead and using the full range of cobalt and copper...
Ep 135 – Why do cone 10 reduction glazes all look similar?
We start the episode with a quick trip to Materials Corner to hear good news about the mining of Red Art. The gang also answer listener questions about firing cone 6 clays to cone 10, finding vitrified commercial clays, and the aesthetic origins of cone 10 glazes in...
Ep 134 – For Flux Sake Live from Harvard Ed Portal!
Join us for the special live recording for For Flux Sake hosted by the Ceramics Program - Office for the Arts at Harvard and held at their neighbors, the Harvard Ed Portal. The team dives deeper, gets more personal, and explores the topics you want to know more about...
The Megan Whetstine Memorial Scholarship
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