Clary illian ceramic handles on pottery

“No other book has the specific focus of this one. Clary Illian addresses what are perhaps the most difficult and probably the most important aspects of pottery making: the questions of shape, structure, form, and forming.

The practical exercises are particularly valuable, as are the discussions of learning to see as well as to make.”—Val Cushing, professor emeritus of ceramic art, State University of New York College of Ceramics at Alfred University

“…I would highly recommend Clary Illian's A Potter's Workbook.”—Warren Frederick, Ceramics Technical

“What is the heart of the matter in pottery making?

To call into being an object and to ask the object to have qualities that evoke in the viewer a sense of rightness, beauty, or vitality is to tinker with the divine. Making pots offers a constant challenge to search for the mysterious underpinnings of the physical world itself.”—Clary Illian in her introduction to A Potter's Workbook