Tao Kawase, right, carefully arranges wood in a pit fire on Ocean Beach for the 10th-grade pottery class at San Francisco Waldorf School. Students use the traditional process to fire their sculptures ...

Before you get into pottery, you have to understand that a single piece, regardless of size, takes at least eight weeks to make. That’s roughly two months of waiting to see the end result of shaping ...

“The Complete Potter” by Steve Mattison, 2003, Quarto, Inc., $29.99, softbound, 224 pages: This well-illustrated book is designed to guide the reader through each process of pottery and ceramics.

Pots of Arsi (Arusi) people are considered essential utilities in their daily lives. Women artisans, who belong to the socially segregated group called mana, are exclusively engaged in pottery making.