A practical guide to the studio and workshop by the English-born ceramist who founded the New York State School of Clay-Working and Ceramics. Often called the father of American studio pottery, Binns wrote a manual that trained a generation of American potters.
Collection thread: Workshop Practice
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Reader guide
Published here in its 1922 second edition, The Potter’s Craft is a practical studio and workshop guide by Charles Fergus Binns, founder of the New York State School of Clay-Working and Ceramics.
Why it matters
Its sequence from materials and forming through glazing and firing preserves a process-based studio curriculum, showing how working potters and students were taught to connect hand decisions with kiln results.
What you will find
A working account of pottery materials, forming, firing, glazing, and studio practice rather than a general collector’s history.
Available edition: Read the public-domain second edition in the Internet Archive.