Vol. I, No. 12 
NEW YORK AND SYRACUSE 
April 1900 
HE present issue completes our first year. We 
not only feel that we have reason to congrat- 
ulate ourselves on our success as a magazine 
and the large number of good friends we have 
made, but we feel especially gratified at find- 
ing among our readers a real and active desire 
to make their work conform to received principles of art and 
decoration. This has been our ambition — to help our faithful 
and conscientious workers to raise the standard of the keramic 
art of this country where it may no longer deserve the 
opprobrium it now receives from artists and connoisseurs at 
large. 
We have tried to give something of every style of decora- 
tion in every number of the KERAMIC STUDIO,not because we 
fully approve of every style, but because many have not yet 
arrived at the highest judgment in art, and we trust to their 
innate taste to select, in time, the best, having always 
something of the best for them to see, so that they will 
become familiar with it, and so the change and development 
will come to them in this way without any rude shock. 
With the May issue we begin a new year, and as we have 
more than kept all our promises made in the initial number we 
hope in our next year to do even better. Everything depends 
upon the loyalty of our readers. If we can, as we hope, keep 
them all with us, and they bring to us still more friends as 
they have the past year, we shall hope Avith this support to be 
able to give them in return, as soon as possible, the long 
desired color study every month. We will not give a cheap 
color study, what we give is of the best, we employ the best 
lithographers and artists we can find, and we will not give 
anything that has not merit. 
A partial account of what we have planned for the com- 
ing year will be found elsewhere. 
We are very happy to announce to our readers that Mrs. 
Horace C. Wait is to be one of our interesting and valuable 
contributors in the "Collectors' Department." Mrs. Wait has 
visited the potteries and old haunts of Europe picking up 
interesting bits here and there. She has also a valuable col- 
lection of American china. 
To appreciate more fully the beauties of pottery and 
porcelain, one should begin to "collect." The moment one 
owns even a single good piece, at that moment the interest in 
it and everything pertaining to it increases. 
This is not intended to create a craze for collecting indis- 
criminately, but to show that collecting, intelligently followed, 
brings much pleasure to those who can once in a while add a 
treasure to their stores. It keeps the interest alert and one 
goes deeper and deeper into the study of keramics, then there 
is a whole new world open to those who pursue the study 
with intelligence. 
Aside from the matter of glazes, enamels and color, there 
is the historical side to be learned, whole histories of nations 
and people have been handed down to us in old porcelains, 
and there is nothing in modern decoration that excels the 
coloring of the orientals. 
We were glad to hear Mrs. Koehler express such opti- 
mistic views of American decorations as these: "While color 
in decorative porcelains seems to be a lost art since the fine 
old things given us from the Orient, yet I believe the Amer- 
icans are reviving it and that there is no limit to what they 
can and will do in the future, if the study is taken seriously." 
Mrs. Koehler's enthusiasm and courage on these lines appeal 
directly to artists. 
She does not mean that one is to go to the oriental 
decorations for copies, but one must study them and under- 
stand them to obtain the proper foundation upon which to 
build an individual style. Why should it not be necessary to 
receive a long course of training in keramic decoration as in 
every other branch of art? 
Look at the years of preparation art students undergo in 
learning to paint the human form. Look at the students of 
architecture, mural decoration, etc. 
Everything requires training, yet the so-called " china 
painter," after six lessons from some one who does not even un- 
derstand the first principle of decorative art, feels herself fully 
equipped with knowledge of keramics, and will defy every 
known law of decoration, believing absolutely in her own ideas 
and ability. All this is what has degraded the art heretofore. 
The Keramic Studio publishes a list of reference books each 
month for students and implores all decorators to take advan- 
tage of every opportunity for progression, and to give to the 
world something that is truly artistic as well as individual. 
& *• 
FLORIDA'S RICH KAOLIN DEPOSITS 
ALTHOUGH Florida has never occupied a very prominent 
position as a manufacturing centre, there seems to be 
little doubt but what the next year or so will find it advanced 
several grades in this direction. It is due to English capital 
and enterprise that the treasure is to be made the foundation 
of one of the most extensive manufacturing interests in the 
world, namely, the manufacture of the highest grade tile, pot- 
tery and glass, from the exceedingly valuable deposits of 
kaolin, or china clay, near Leesburg, in Lake County. The 
supply of kaolin used in this country is imported from Eng- 
land, at a cost of 50 shillings per ton, and hereafter can be 
obtained from Florida at the same cost, giving the consumers 
a more valuable material. 
The beds in Florida have been a puzzle to geologists, as 
kaolin has been found heretofore in mountainous regions 
only, and is a product of the feldspar. The theory advanced 
in this case is the decomposition of sand. Another remarka- 
ble feature is the valuable quality of the sand associated with 
it, which has also been pronounced the finest for glass and 
other manufactures. Underneath the layers of the sand the 
clay extends to the depth of perhaps forty feet and is most 
easy of access. — China, Glass and Pottery Review. 
