ceramic.wiki is a reference for pottery: glaze chemistry, materials, firing, and the defects
that show up when something in that chain does not fit. The goal is real depth: traceable,
mechanism-level explanations, not another thin overview page or a forum thread repeating folklore.
What clay bodies and glazes are actually made of, and why it matters:
How a workable clay body actually becomes a piece:
How glazes are formulated, applied, and the most common ways they go wrong in the kiln:
- Glaze: what it is actually for, and a short history from Egyptian faience to modern glaze chemistry
- Glaze chemistry: thinking in oxides instead of raw recipes
- Dipping, Pouring, Spraying, Brushing: the standard ways glaze actually gets onto a piece
- Crazing: a network of fine cracks from a glaze that is expanding more than its body
- Shivering: the mirror-image defect, a glaze compressed too tightly and flaking off
- Crawling: glaze pulling apart during firing, exposing bare clay
- Pinholing & blistering: craters and bubbles from trapped gas
- Environmental impact: kiln energy, silica dust, glaze heavy metals, and studio waste, honestly assessed
- Events: markets, classes, and workshops, searchable by location and date
- Opportunities: studios hiring, and potters looking for work
Early and public
ceramic.wiki is growing fast and every article here is still a first draft, published early
rather than held back until reviewed. See each article's footer for its review status, and
the left sidebar for the full, current list, which already runs well past what is linked above.
Homepage, early draft
See REVIEW.md in the project repo for the review status of every article