06/17/2026
If you are a lover of pottery and enjoy a particular glaze color or texture, then you might be surprised by how fragile that finish really is.
Behind every surface you love is a fair amount of quiet formulation work. For generations, potters have relied on specific mined materials—clays, feldspars, and natural minerals—to make glazes melt, shine, or turn a specific color. But over the last decade, those raw materials have been shifting under our feet. Mines close down, veins run out, and classic ingredients vanish from the market.
To keep making our work, we have to become studio scientists. We find a new material, study its industrial oxide breakdown, and completely rewrite the chemical math of our recipes to match the original.
For 35 years, a single free public database called Digitalfire was the global library that made this possible. It has been the invisible infrastructure behind thousands of pottery studios worldwide.
This week, the ceramics community was stunned to learn that Digitalfire is closing down on June 26th due to a complex corporate licensing conflict.
I’m sharing this because it says something profound about the hidden world behind the handmade objects we collect. The ability to keep making good work is fragile. Someone has to do the unglamorous work of gathering and protecting that knowledge, and for over three decades, a single potter named Tony Hansen did it for free. That kind of deep dedication rarely gets noticed until the gates begin to close.
The library may be closing, but the knowledge itself isn't erased from the world. We will keep adapting, recalculating, and firing the kilns. But today, the studio is a little quieter as we honor an incredible, invisible legacy.
