George Lewter

75, Male

Lansing, MI

United States

Profile Information:

What is your experience with ceramics in general. (Long answer encouraged)
Now that I've retired from my day job, I'm hoping my work in clay will provide a little secondary income, or at a minimum, pay for itself. I studied ceramics at San Francisco State University in the early 70s, and then tried to scratch out a living as a potter for several years, and finally went on to other pursuits where I could actually earn a living. For the next 30 years I never touched any plastic clay.
In 2004 I took a 10 week class at the Greater Lansing Potters Guild in Michigan, and discovered that I still really enjoy working with clay. I have taken several more classes and slowly put together a basement studio with an electric kiln, a small slab roller, and a used electric wheel.
My early experience was in the cone 10 reduction, gas-fired arena.
I founded the cone6pots network in the Spring of 2008 to provide a rich, highly interactive, online meeting place for mid-fire potters. The first couple of years saw very slow growth of membership, but now we're adding members at about fifty a month.
What is your current involvement with electric fired ceramics? (long answer encouraged)
The switch to cone 6 oxidation has led me in a whole new direction of glaze development, and it took me the best part of a year to start getting some results that I felt were acceptable. I have tested several hundred glaze recipes off the Internet, and from the books of Michael Baily, and John Hesselberth.
Using an aftermarket programmable kiln controller has allowed me much more control of my firing cycles and improved my results immensely. My introduction to single firing in 2009 has been a great boost my creative energy by compressing the creative process and making glazing more integral with the forming process instead being divorced from the raw clay processes. Attending a Steven Hill workshop in the fall of 2009 helped refocus my work on glazes that interact in complex ways and hover on the edge between chaos and control.
All our content is viewable by the public. Why do you want to be a member, when you can already see everything as a non-member?
Great interactions with other members. An online community of friends that will spill over into the real world.
Where do you work on your ceramics projects?
home studio
How did you find this network?
other

Comment Wall:

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  • George Lewter

    Good topic. Please reply to the new discussion http://cone6pots.ning.com/forum/topics/glazing-the-foot-from-joanna...

  • gordon ferrie

    hi george just gordon from chichester england i think you are doing a great job for potters working at cone6 thank you

  • Ivan

    Hi George

    can you please send me a temp id and password

    my computer crashed and the other details don't work anymore

    apologies for the inconvienience

    Hope you make a speedy recovery and back to normal quickly

    Cheers Ivan Watts

  • Marla Stroup

    The meeting burner thing sounds very interesting. Please let me know when the second activity gets scheduled. I'd like to learn how to use the technology.

    thanks, Marla Stroup

  • Desiree

    Hi George,
    Thank you for all your hard work. You will be in my prayers as you recover. The resources you offer have really helped my pottery improve. I would like to see some articles on the art of displays for greater sales. Or hints from potters who set up and show a lot at festivals.
    Thank you!
    Desiree
    Good Shepherd Pottery
  • eleanor akowitz

    george - could you send me the  login info to the group recipe database. and i don't have or forgot my user ID and password. this is embarrassing but not the first time i have forgotten this sort of information.

    thanks,

    eleanor a

  • Elaine Carroll

    Please send me the information I need to access Insight. I promise, promise, promise I will put it where I can keep up with it. Thank you for all you do. Pretty sure I have sent money for this year, but if you don't see it, I'll glad pay now. Thank you, Elaine
  • Tobla Howell

    Hi George..here is the project.

     

    The Accidental Glaze Project

    “Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.”

    Mark Twain

    Has this happened to you? Out of the kiln comes a new set of glaze tests. One of the tests is incredibly beautiful!! It’s a blood red at cone 6 or a green glaze with only cobalt as a colorant or maybe it’s just the best glaze you’ve seen. You want to share it with the world! But then you realize:

    a)      That was the test you tossed in 10 grams of… (oh gosh what was that) just to see what would happen.

    b)      It’s the garbage (scrap) glaze

    c)       You know what’s in it then try to reproduce it and it doesn’t work. It could be the firing cycle but you can’t be sure.

    d)      You were sure you would remember that formulation

    Usually when we design glazes we do just that. There is a huge amount of information out there to help you guide your testing process. What we don’t do often enough is go outside those guidelines. Over 30% of great discoveries are accidental. Scrap or garbage glazes are a perfect example, rarely are they just 5 or 6 ingredients in intelligent well thought out proportions. Likely you will have upwards of 15 different ingredients. This large number of variables can have the most amazing results. Remember how hard it was to reproduce “Albany Slip”?

    Enter “The Accidental Glaze Project”

    Project goals:

    The goal of this project is to gather a very large number of accidental glazes (any glaze with an accidental component to them). Through the efficiencies of numbers and the donations of volunteers (testing and administration) we reduce the cost of a full spectrum mineralogical analysis from $100 USD to less than $15 USD (The goal is $10 USD)

     From this we make a publication and you or your studio can get full credit for its discovery.

    PS (This is a green project encouraging potters to keep their cast away glazes instead of discarding them.)

    There are many roles to take in this project. You can be a partner, participant or something in between. If you are interested in finding out what your accidental glaze is, or you want to be published or you just can’t wait to see what everyone’s accidental glaze contains, or you’re a glaze intellectual and want to see what new discoveries this project can uncover.

    Let me know if you would like to participate and what role you would like to play. This is definitely a group project.

  • Kathy Ransom

    Just a comment George but there is so much distraction on the internet (for me anyway!) that I find myself just going to sites like fb, pinterest, and ceramic arts daily because I get regular email from them that gives me links to their sites that I just have to follow.  Especially ceramic arts daily because the links take me to interesting things I need to check out.  Have you thought of a newsletter cone 6 members can opt in/out of that goes to their email and contains links?  Once I get into cone 6 I always find more to look at and if you want to encourage activity that may be one way to do it?

  • Kathy Ransom

    Sorry George, it wasn't criticism but just something I had noticed as sites like Pinterest generate so much activity because they are in your face all the time. My settings email me about almost everything on this network so it's all good. 

  • Troy Bungart

    I was wondering how your back surgery went. I hope all is well. I am hoping for warm weather so that I can get back out in my studio. I have plans for testing a lot of stains this year.

  • cp dunbar

    and good evening

     Reply by George Lewter on November 16, 2011 at 7:43pm in single fire interest group

    is this one of our best current firing schedules.  Going to try once fire. cp

  • Amanda Sullivan

    I live right next to there off Lamberth! Thanks for the add. I am not trying to bug anyone just trying to learn what I can!

  • Keiko Stusnick

    I will visit PayPal again adding another $9.00 for this year.
  • Fong Choo

    You're welcome. thanks for the introduction. The Splendid Surfaces Conference was pretty hectic but fun having one group after another. Just wanted to chime in to see what's a happening over here.

  • Ann E. Vreeland

    Hi George-

    Thanks for the welcome!  When you mentioned browsing pictures did you mean pictures of the glaze recipes on the Sankey glaze database or pictures of other potters works?  I don't see any pix with the database and a keyword search just leads me to a conversation about my topic not to a recipe.  Speaking of which there are no recipes on the data base.  I would think the database would start with the recipe and then add technical commentary.  Sorry, I know I'm rambling but as a newbie it's hard to find the specific information I'm looking for.  Ann E. V.

  • Ann E. Vreeland

    thanks for the clarification, George.  I'm not sure I would live long enough to organize the whole data base.  Must be some computer way to sort it out!  Keep makin' pots, its the only way we learn!

    Ann E, V.

  • cp dunbar

    George, which iron oxide did  you settle on for your C Harris Temoku ?  ie which gave you good results ?

  • Angela Davis

    Hello George!  You drove right by Pepper Creek Pottery on the way to the Freezer.  If you can swing by on your way north please call ahead to make sure were there.  Usually open from noon to 5pm but earlier or later as the clay requires.  

    352 293 7756, would be great to meet you and give you the tour.  You can also check us out on FaceBook, Pepper Creek Pottery.

  • L.A. Starr

    Hi George.  Happy to be a 'test tile' so to speak.   I did find the questions somewhat probing and perhaps just encouraging details responses is less useful than asking specific questions.   One of the areas that would be good to ask is where we feel our strengths and weaknesses are - so that we can help and be helped by others.   And the questionnaire doesnt address how we feel about our chosen medium and how we are either making a living, just making some money or what we do with our wares.  Hope this helps and Im looking forward to connecting with this group.  My town is sort of thin on ceramics so outreach to others is key for me.   Kind regards,  Laura

  • Nadine Mercader

    It just hit me that you could gain a great deal of space at the top of our main page if you did away with the large buttons for what the member can do and simply add the functionality on the right side as small choices along with the existing login,  mail etc...That would allow for large image and less scrolling. 

  • Liz Wolfe

    Hello George,
    Your finally getting some spring weather. Yeah!
    Thank you so much for the glazes, tenmoku and the fake ash, that you asked Eric to make. I am having good results with them. I have not been able to duplicate that gold glaze again, but since I am in a red phase that experimenting will have to wait for fall as I only have a few more weeks left in Fl before I return to NY. I got great drippy blue glazes and I have pots ready to fire with the tenmoku and fake ash combo. I am trying to post on my page but I am not able to do so yet. When I get the hang of it I will post my glaze results.
  • Ersatz Soubriquet

    My only sesquis are silicates.

  • Patricia Bridges

    Can't loginto INsight? did we lose it?

  • Norm Stuart

    I just logged on to the Insight-Live glaze database and added a piece of Juli Long's work to the Maggie Moo recipe.

    Perhaps it was offline for a short while.

  • Brenda B Hardt

    HI.  Yes. I was in the same class with Cyndy Shorter in TN this past June.  I have been struggling wiht glazes for years and also only had a low fire kiln for ages so I love the watercolor runs in SH glazes/// hope to branch out and find other glazes soon as I am tired of making everything have a big catch "foot".

  • E. Preston Rice

    Thank you for your kind comment George.

    best,

    Preston

  • juli long

    can we get a link to John Britt's new book via amazon?  Its great!!!

    juli long

  • Ron Ball

    Hi George, I have been following Electric cone 6 for quite a while.  I have two questions that might help we out with my  spraying process. Can you give me a hint of the spray applications that you use on your pots. ie the sequence. And is it possible to contact Cindy Shorter to find out her sequence of spraying.  Thanks for any assistance.

    Love all the work your doing.

    Ron

  • Ron Ball

    Thanks George

  • eleanor akowitz

    george - you mentioned the TCP brand HVLP spray gun from amazon.  what compressor would recommend to go with that.  i have a few extra $'s and am interested in buying a compressor that is recommended by someone who uses an like it.

    thanks for all the info.

    eleanor a.

  • Ron Ball

    Hi George, I did forget to ask you, where is your spary set up.  Outside or in your basement.

    Ron

  • Ron Ball

    Hi George, I would to thank the group for all the information on spraying glazes, spray booths etc., I now have some reading to do.  Again thanks everyone for the info.  I would like to pass along some information the Crickett spray guns users.  There factor is located about 15 minutes from where I live here in Ontario, Canada.  One of my spray guns stoped working, I contacted the company but I never heard back.  So I went to LeeValley, the only problem, they did not carry all the spare parts.  Just an fyi.

    Ron

  • Wayne Herrick

    Thanks George for the compliment. Wayne

  • Denice E. Demuth

    Hi George, Haven't talked to you for a while,  I had and idea about increasing the membership but I didn't know if it is proper etiquette on a forum.  I am on CM daily forum often and find a lot of people with C6 glaze questions.  Most of the people on the CM forum are gas or wood high fire potters and ignore the C6 questions.  I am not able to answer a lot of the questions but I know that someone on this forum could.  I was wondering if it is proper to send someone to this forum.    Denice

  • Ramona Ehrhardt

    I received an email saying to contact you to join (or at least listen to) a live webinar. Is this the correct way to register? Please post the information to access the webinar on March 5, and Thanks for making this happen!
  • Liz Wolfe

    Hello George,
    Yes, I am at Carla's clay in the winter. Now I am in Long Beach , ny. I know what you mean about commuting. The studio here is 45 minutes away and I haven't been there since before I moved to Long Beach. But I knit , crochet and do polymer clay jewelry also. So many hobbies, so little time. I think that I will be back in Florida in October. Are you and your wife going to Florida this winter? Liz
  • denise a mendez

    Hi George,

    I forgot my insight password.  If you have some time could you reset it?

    Thanks!

    Denise

  • susan crowe

    thank you George, Susan

  • Tom Anderson

    TY George;

    Looking forward to picking brains, and exploring the boundaries. Have gone through many of the topics; looks like my cup of tea.

    Tom

  • Joan Klotz

    George, I'm technologically challenged so bear with me.  Although I am a member I don't understand how to make a donation or pay my membership dues.  When I click on the prompt in the last newsletter Paypal pops up - who do I make the payment to?  Sorry for being such a dodo, Joan Klotz

  • Joan Klotz

    Love the Urban Platter.  I may have posted a comment about it - don't know for sure because I'm such an ignoramus about how to do such things.  Anyway it projects such a feeling of life, lots of activity in those buildings with all of those illuminated windows.

  • Tom Anderson

    Hi George:

    Thought you might like to know that I have been discussing with Ron Roy; the possibility of republishing his book, along with John Hesselberth. Lots of hurdles to jump, but we are looking into it. I asked him if he could add some new recipes, and add a section on diagnosing and fixing glaze issues. My wife owns part of a publishing company: so we are hopeful to get this done. Not sure about the feasibility, but I think its worth taking a look at.

    Tom

  • Debbie

    How do I pay my $9.00

  • Norm Stuart

    The link is at the top left of the webpage. Click on Members, then Supporting Members. Then the button Click to Become a Supporting Member Now.

  • Tumay Erman

    Hi George ,thank you for like I m very  glad to be in this group now .Greetings from Turkey .

  • Colleen O'Reilly

    Hello George,  I used your Turquoise Matte recipe on a totem of mine...it looks fantastic.  Thank you so much.  Would like to leave a pic but don't know how to.  Thank you, Colleen O'Reilly.

  • Paula Diaz-Sylvester

    I have several step by step abums in my facebook page

    http://www.facebook.com/potterybypd

    I also have a video, showing how I used the technique to decorate tiles

    https://www.facebook.com/potterybypd/videos/773951149442473/

    If you don't have a facebook account, you can see the video in youtube

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpiA8l26tqA

  • Tom Anderson

    Hi George:

    thought perhaps you might have some thoughts and opinions. Trying to figure out somewhere to put all my clay research and articles. I thought a website might do the trick, but not sure they are big enough. Ceramics Monthly has published three of my clay chemistry articles this year: one or two more yet to come. Looks like I am a regular all of the sudden: although Dave Finklenberg has been too busy these days. Any ideas?

    tom

  • Elizabeth Mostello-Harris

    Hello George!

    I was having some difficulty reactivating my former membership profile, so I created a new one.  I also thought it would be better to use a masked email in case the site was ever hacked...all too common these days, unfortunately.  In the coming week, I'll go through my photos and re-post some images of my work.  All of it is at least several years old, but I look forward to being able to add new work at some point.

    I've truly missed being away from clay, and I tried to minimize the feelings of loss by staying away--letting subscriptions and memberships slide.  But it's time to reconnect.  I won't be able to work extensively with clay for several more years, but I might be able to dabble at some point this year.  And I may well need to change the way I work to fit any lingering limitations.  But that's what we creative people are really good at--working with what we have!  Necessity is truly the mother of invention, and it can lead to some really interesting and awesome creations.  :)

    I hope you and your loved ones have a safe and wonderful holiday!

    Liz