Clay talk after art school.
The Potters Cast follows potters through the practical and personal parts of a clay life. Episodes move from conference encounters and studio stories to market decisions, travel, improvisation, and the business questions that keep potters working.
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The Potters Cast is an interview show centered on ceramics, working potters, and the communities that form around clay. Its point of view is practical, but not sterile. Paul Blaise speaks as someone embedded in the pottery world, often beginning with travel notes, conference fatigue, memories from a large archive, or a moment of connection that happened before the official conversation began. Then the show settles into what potters actually care about. How does a piece begin? What happens when it fails? How does an artist respond to the market without losing the thread of the work? Recent episodes carry the afterglow of NCECA, with stories from Detroit, the podcasting room, vendors, pop-up shows, hallway meetings, and unexpected conversations sparked by a clay studio shirt. The show also travels through individual practices, including porcelain work in Fort Collins, ceramic growth in India, and Diego Armentano’s relationship to landscapes, deserts, scale, complexity, and play. The interviews are not only about finished objects. They spend time with process, doubt, memory, improvisation, business decisions, and the systems artists build to keep themselves organized. The register is casual and intimate. Listeners hear the coughs, corrections, tangents, and enthusiasm rather than a heavily compressed interview product. That human texture suits the subject. Clay is physical, iterative, and social, and the show mirrors that. It is best for potters who want to hear how other makers think through a life in the studio. It also works for collectors, teachers, students, and visual-art listeners who prefer craft talk with real-world mess still attached. Across a large archive, The Potters Cast has become less a narrow technique show than a living oral record of contemporary ceramic practice.
Made for: For potters, ceramic artists, clay students, teachers, collectors, and craft-minded listeners who care about studio life as much as finished work. It especially suits people building or sustaining a ceramics practice.
What sets it apart: Its scale and intimacy set it apart: direct, conversational access to working potters. The show keeps the craft world grounded in airports, conference rooms, markets, materials, mistakes, and real artist routines.
Pottery
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A bilingual studio conversation on desert landscapes, failure, and the rules that emerge through making.
The Potter's Cast moves through a bilingual conversation with Diego Armentano on the landscapes that feed his ceramics and the playfulness behind his practice.
Memory, sunlit work, and reduction firing shape this loose pop-up episode.
Episode 1217 keeps a pop-up-show mood, moving from Belen Arari's fruit imagery to Drew Hurstam's work at an easy pace. Belen Arari links oranges, papaya, and ceramic fruit bowls to family memory, giving a mug the sense that it can hold a personal story as well as a drink.
A modular glaze system for potters who want recipes they can tune.
The episode starts with Paul Blaise sounding drained after NSEKA, then settles into Five Glaze, a modular system built around five bases and a widening range of color impacts.
Art historian Tamar Avishai interviews critics, curators, and writers about single paintings and ideas.
Russell Tovey and Robert Diament interview artists about their materials, biography, and process.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins and James Deakins interview film crew about the craft behind specific shots.
Robert Bound interviews artists and reviews new film, book, and music releases with critics.
Sound art from places, recordings, and memory.
Host Paul Blaise visits the Not My Hobby pop-up at NCECA in Detroit, interviewing multiple ceramic artists about their work and inspirations.
Host Paul Blaise interviews Rainy Bray and Ella Watson, founders of the glaze company Five Glaze, after meeting them at the NCECA conference.
The Potter's Cast episode 1247 features host Paul Blaise interviewing Esther Drone about building a wholesale ceramics business on Southern Vancouver Island.
Madison Smith tells Paul Blaise how a rare childhood disease and years spent in hospitals shaped the sculptural creatures she now makes in Portland, Oregon.
The Potters Cast host Paul Blaise interviews Portland-based photographer and potter Jordan Gale about returning to ceramics in August 2025 after nearly ten years away.
The Potters Cast host Paul Blaise interviews Yoonhee Kim about Korean-style moon jars, her Black Moon Jar series, and the ceramic traditions she studied in Korea.
Paul Blaze shares his experience attending the NCECA conference and meeting a fellow potter while traveling.
Paul Blaze talks about being sick and previews upcoming episodes from NCECA.
Paul Blaze hosts the Potter's Cast, discussing his return from NSEKA feeling unwell and previewing an interview with Rainy Bray and Ella Watson.
Paul Blaze returns from NCECA with a cold and shares his experience at the conference.
Paul Blaze interviews potter Cathy Franzi about staying true to your artistic vision while responding to market demands.
Host Paul Blaze introduces an episode featuring potter Neeti Gokhalay Kheny, who is making big moves in India, just before the NSEKA conference.
The Potter's Cast episode 1210 features Buenos Aires ceramic artist Diego Armentano through a Spanish-English translation with Maria Cecilia Silva.
Paul Blaze interviews Adeline Engelstad about working with porcelain in Fort Collins on the Potter's Cast.
Paul Blaze interviews ceramic artist Rebecca Gerendasy about her work and wisdom in pottery.
Paul Blaze shares his excitement about the grand opening of his pottery studio and the support from a local bakery.
Paul Blaze discusses the upcoming grand opening of his pottery studio and building a mug wall to showcase pots from past podcast guests.