Indeed, it is not to soon to plan for the upcoming ceramic show season.

Phoenix AZ —- Jan 8 - Jan 9
San Bernardino CA —- Jan 15 - Jan 16
Orlando FL —- Feb 4 - Feb 6
Atlanta GA —-Feb 26 - Feb 27

Many companies offer special discounts for pre-show orders, so get with your favorite companies now and verify their attendance to the upcoming shows, their new products and for new mold releases.

Now is the time to get a jump-start to provide your customers with the newest and the latest items available. Get those budgets made, start saving $$, pre-advertise if you find something new and exciting for you customers.

Surf that net and reel in the savings.

If you are in the business of ceramics, at any level, a new trade magazine is being launched in January.

BLUEPRINT was originally a newsletter for the CAG (Ceramic Artist Guild) and is now expanding to a full online e-magazine.

BLUEPRINT will be published Jan, Mar, May, July, Sep, and Nov 2010 the opposite months of when CERAKANVAS is published.

BLUEPRINT is FREE, as well as membership in the CAG. But you must be a registered member of CAG to get your password to acess the site. You can register today at http://www.ceramicartistguild.com

The Raku technique has its origins dating back to the 1500’s in Japan. Historians feel it was probably developed by Koreans under Japanese rule but the circumstances remain a mystery. Raku is a firing process that has been primarily associated with pottery, but in the last couple decades, ceramists have increasingly explored and experimented with the technique with positive results. So positive in fact, that it has recently become very popular with those artists involved with cast-ceramics. The exciting thing about Raku is that no two pieces turn out exactly alike.

The primary difference with Raku and other (glazed) finishing techniques, is the firing process. Normally ceramics and pottery ware are loaded into a cold kiln and the temperature is raised slowly until it reaches a set maturity level usually controlled with pyrometric cones, or electronic controllers. This process can take anywhere from 8-24 hours to complete the heating and cooling cycle. The Raku technique requires the item be either pre-heated and then loaded in a hot kiln; or loaded into a cold kiln with a fast heating process. The ware is ‘finished’ when it is removed from the kiln after reaching temperature in as short a period as 15-25 minutes. Sometimes, some effects can take considerably longer, but most normally it is a fast firing process.
Temperatures are not controlled by cones but rather by the ‘experienced eye’. Raku firing is always done on pre-fired ware, or bisque – NEVER on greenware.

When the glaze is ready, it is in a molten condition. The items are then removed with the use of long tongs and gloves and then they are plunged into some form of combustible material such as dried grasses, leaves, shredded paper, straw, etc. Each type of material creates different effects on the finished piece.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

Horse Hair Pottery

Horse Hair Pottery dates back many years and is credited to the Navajo. Some believe its origin was an accident when an Indian’s hair had been blown by the wind and attached itself to an item that had just come out of the firing pit. The Indian then, liking the effect, began applying hairs from their horse to their pieces.

This technique is very popular in Southwestern cultures and decor. Quite a few people have enshrined their favorite horses by having pottery made using their animal’s hair.

Basically, the process involves removing bisque from the firing while still hot (about 1300 degrees Fahrenheit) and carefully draping single strands of hair over and around the item. The horse hair will burn and shrivel up and will leave permanent imprints of its presence on the item.

To read more about how to make your own Horse Hair Pottery, click here.

Did you know that your comments play a vital role in the success or failure of a blog or web buisiness?

For as far back as I can remember, and that is a mighty long time, businesses have asked for comments from their customers. There are several purposes; but primarily it is to communicate with their clientele in order to evaluate their own performance. A happy customer is the best advertising a business can have.

Today, it is more crucial than ever. Online businesses can measure how many people visit their websites, but getting the word out to new clientele is a challenge all face. The more competition there is out on the wide wide world of the web, it becomes very difficult for the smaller business to get exposure.

When you did your last search online for a particular item or business or even basic researching a question, how many links show up? Hundreds and thousands of links will appear for most of your searches. How many do you click on or visit? Do you give your attention to just the first page or two of links or do you check each one? Most people don’t go beyond the first ten or twenty results that show up in any of the popular search engines like Google or Yahoo. So how do the smaller, lower ranking sites get found or get exposure?

Many people do not know that the search engines send out automatic spiders or crawlers that routinely visit all the domains on the internet. These computerized ‘bots’ (robotics) go to the domain and seek out all kinds of data and from their analysis, the domain will get ranked higher or lower in the search engine.

Among the things that these ‘bots’ measure and analyze is the amount of traffic AND the amount of activity happening on the site. Blogs become popular not because of the number of visitors, but because of the ACTIVE visitors. Blogs that have frequent posts and visitors who make comments rank higher than those sites that sit stagnant.

Many businesses have figured out that if they include a blog on their domain or otherwise allow customers to make posts and comments, that it will help them to secure more visibility and draw in more traffic. This is a great advertising tool. If you have your own website, you may wish to incorporate a blog or comment area.

So, next time you visit a blog like this one, head on down to the comments or read comments link and let your voice be heard. Be it good, or bad, or ugly, your opinion is important.