Welcome to my web site. I'm John Hesselberth, the potter of Frog Pond Pottery. I focus my work on functional pottery influenced by my attraction to African art, textured surfaces, geometric patterns, and subdued slips and glazes.
Portfolio of Stoneware Pottery
The gallery of my work is reopened. Please visit to see some of my most recent work as well as some from several months ago.
GlazeMaster 2.3 is now shipping. There are lots of improvements vs earlier versions. The upgrade is free for current owners and is available for purchase for a potter-affordable US$50. To learn more click here.
Mastering Cone 6 Glazes is the book Ron Roy and I published in 2002. Over 12,000 copies have now been sold and it is available from us or from many pottery supply dealers. Potters from all over the world tell us they are having great success with our glazes and with the information about glazes contained in the book. It is truly unique from any other glaze book ever published. To learn more visit our web site: www.masteringglazes.com I am very interested in the subject of glaze stability and durability. I have had several of my own glazes tested and have collected data from others who have tested their glazes. I have made a lot of progress in learning how to make glazes more stable.
In Indianapolis I gave a presentation titled "Great Results from Electric Kilns". I have posted it in full; however, a word of warning. It took about 35 minutes to present and will take that long to view here also.
If you'd like to know more about making pottery, pottery terminology, caring for pottery and what to look for when you buy pottery visit my Pottery Talk section. I enjoy writing about pottery-making and related crafts. I have published articles on drip-free spouts, minimizing cracking and warping and how to take high quality photographs of pottery. Coauthored with ceramic consultant, Ron Roy, my latest article is titled Making Stable Glazes for Functional Pottery and was published in the September 2000 issue of Ceramics Monthly. There are also links to a few sites offering technical information about the craft of pottery.
There are a lot of excellent potters in all parts of the world. A few of them now have web sites and I have collected links from those sites I particularly like.
