Featured Articles

  • Stoke Hole Pottery Downtown: Serving the Small-Town Market

    In the west central part of Pennsylvania, Indiana County is an enclave for potters.  Dotted throughout the rural area are numerous potters’ studios set in renovated barns and cabins and homes, tucked into the rolling foothills of the Allegheny Mountains rising to the east.  A traveler in the area on the third weekend of October will meander down winding country roads curtained in the reds, oranges, and golds of autumn and catch a whiff of wood smoke from a kiln.  Since 2008, the area potters have joined together to promote the annual Potters Tour, a weekend event in which visitors can observe, browse, and purchase works at over ten member studios.  Debra and Birch Frew, of Stoke Hole Pottery, are founding members of the tour and have welcomed thousands of visitors to their studio and gallery on their farm outside of the town of Indiana.  Last June, in a move planned for and dreamed about, the couple “came into town”, launching Stoke Hole Pottery Downtown in a storefront in Indiana’s business district.

  • The I’m fine. Project: Exploring the Self Image

    The artistic process is one that draws on the whole person, rummaging through the depths of emotion and memory, sometimes ecstatic, sometimes painful, emerging in a thing of beauty.  For central Pennsylvania friends Maureen Joyce and Carrie Breschi, the cathartic value of working with clay has become a life mission.  Through heartbreak and the circumstances of life, these women have come together to offer healing workshops to people seeking emotional wholeness amid life’s inevitable challenges.  I’m fine. uses the creation of human masks to explore the self.

  • Connecting in Creativity: ViaClay

    Anyone who has ever sat down at the wheel or the workbench with a block of clay knows the total absorption of the solitary creative experience.  The intense focus of imagination erases time and funnels the senses toward the target of the created object.  The potter can be a lone figure.  These recent years of pandemic-forced isolation brought forth great productivity in many artists but have left many seeking the connections of community.  Potter John Beck, of the Chicago suburb Oak Park, manages ViaClay, a new studio founded by Oak Park potter Gabe Tetrev, where a resurgence of shared gathering is bringing potters and students together.

  • Chicago Art Girls Holiday Pop-Up

    Don't miss the  Chicago Art Girls Holiday Pop-Up December 10 and 11 at Bell School Look for ceramicist Nancy Gardner:  "Live and in ...

  • Standard Ceramic Acquires Sculpture House Ceramics Division

    Florida-based Sculpture House is a business with a long history in the greater New York area that traces a century old history through the tutelage of two families.  By the end of this summer, Standard Ceramic’s Turnbull family will become the third line of craft-oriented businessmen to extend part of that tradition.  Standard will acquire the Ceramics Division of Sculpture House as Bruner Barrie, the company’s CEO, moves closer to a full retirement.

  • Potter Robert Deane: An Intimate Approach

    While all artists have a personal relationship with the materials of their craft, potters share a special bond with clay that spawns a visceral connection to the earth.  Southwestern Pennsylvania Potter Robert Deane brings this intimate dynamic to his work – in the clay he digs and refines, in the collaborative projects he undertakes, and especially in the philosophy of his teaching practices.  This Media, PA artist teaches adults and children at the Wallingford Art Center outside of Philadelphia.

  • The Power of Clay: Abbie Kasoff and Say It With Clay

    When New Jersey ceramicist Abbie Kasoff was tirelessly working to build her human services non-profit organization Say It With Clay in the early 2000s, she was driven by her determination “that clay would do for others what it did for me.”  In love with the medium since her high school years, Kasoff returned again and again to working in clay, seeking the healing and transformative mental state that is called “flow.”  She came to understand the power of clay as a means of communication, a way to express feelings and ideas and to revisit them in a finished product – in a “second-stage give-back.”

  • Fireborn Studios: Paired for Success

    Pittsburgh institution Fireborn Studios is launching a new series of workshops at their Southside studio.  Owners Dan Vito and Donna Hetrick are potters, educators, and business entrepreneurs who have thrived in a partnership and marriage for over three decades, a veritable success story in how to carve out a life as working artists.

  • Standard Ceramic Expands Technical Department

    Potters and distributors who call Standard Ceramics are familiar with Julie Hregdovic, who has offered expert help from our Technical Department since 1986.  We are pleased to announce that Lindsey Pauline, who came to Standard in July of 2020, will be joining Technical Director Julie Hregdovic in the Technical Department as our new Technician.  This expansion reflects Standard’s commitment to quality control and customer service and will ensure that all customers and distributors will have a timely and expert response to their queries.

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  • Throw Down at Standard

    THROW DOWN 
    @
    STANDARD
    November 12th &13th 10 am- 2 pm
    $10 Registration Fee
    Call 412-489-5240 or email orders@ceramicsupplypittsburgh.com
    to secure your time slot in the Throw Down.
    Only 20 Slots available!
    each contestant will get 5lbs of clay, a basic tool kit, and 30 minutes to make the piece and clean off their wheel.
    Judging will take place a 2pm on Saturday November 13th by Alyssa...

  • A Layered Approach: Philip M. Soucy and Brian Peters

    Two Pittsburgh artists will bring their work to ClayPlace@Standard for “A Layered Approach,” a joint exhibition this coming October.  Philip M. Soucy and Brian Peters share a similar technique of stacking clay coils but have a vastly different approach to the method.  Soucy’s organic works are built by hand; Peters’ precise pieces are created using a 3-D printer.  Each reveals a respect and affection for the material and creates pieces that challenge our ideas about humanity’s history of building and altering its environment.

  • A Layered Approach: Philip M. Soucy and Brian Peters

    Two Pittsburgh artists will bring their work to ClayPlace@Standard for “A Layered Approach,” a joint exhibition this coming October.  Philip M. Soucy and Brian Peters share a similar technique of stacking clay coils but have a vastly different approach to the method.  Soucy’s organic works are built by hand; Peters’ precise pieces are created using a 3-D printer.  Each reveals a respect and affection for the material and creates pieces that challenge our ideas about humanity’s history of building and altering its environment.

    More