Every slab mold we own, in one place

This is the anchor of the collection and the mold most people reach for when they want one big, generous piece. A slab draped over this dome comes off as a wide, low serving bowl with a soft continuous curve and no hard corners - the kind of bowl that lives on a kitchen island holding fruit, or comes out at every gathering full of salad. At roughly 180 fluid ounces fired it is a real centerpiece, and because the curve is so gentle the slab stretches evenly and forgives a beginner’s hand.

A true hemisphere, and that geometry is what makes it useful - the finished bowl has real depth relative to its width, so it holds soup, cereal, popcorn or a good serving of pasta without anything sliding out. Around 90 fluid ounces fired puts it in family-serving-bowl territory. The steady curve also makes it an excellent mold for practicing an even slab, because any thin spot shows up immediately on a sphere.

The straight flared wall on this one produces a very different silhouette from the round domes - crisp, architectural, more mid-century than farmhouse. Draped over it, a slab becomes a wide-shouldered vessel with a flat bottom that sits dead level on a table. Think utensil crock, small planter, wine chiller, or a bowl for keys and mail by the door. The flat top means the finished piece has a solid, deliberate base rather than a rocking curve.

The smallest of a trio of elongated petal dishes - twice as deep as it is wide, so the finished piece is a long narrow dish rather than a round one. That shape is exactly what a spoon rest, a pickle dish, an incense tray or a row of two or three olives wants. It reads as deliberate on a table because almost nothing else in a cupboard is this proportion, and it takes barely any clay.

A square footprint with all the sharpness sanded out of it, which is a surprisingly hard shape to throw on a wheel and an easy one to get from a slab. The finished piece reads as a soft square bowl - good for soup, ice cream, a nut bowl on the coffee table, or a catchall on a dresser. Square bowls also tessellate on a shelf far better than round ones, which matters if you are building a set.

Deeper than a hemisphere, so the wall comes up steeper and the finished piece behaves more like a cup or a deep ramekin than a bowl. That extra height is what you want for anything you serve hot and want to keep hot - a French onion soup crock, a pot de creme, a small planter with room for roots. It is also the right scale for a first project: enough clay to feel substantial, small enough to finish in one sitting.

One of the two largest domes in this graduated family, and the one that makes the everyday serving bowl - big enough for a shared side dish, small enough to hold in one hand while you eat out of it. Because the six molds in this group share a profile, bowls made across the set stack and nest, so this is the piece that anchors a matched nesting set rather than a one-off.

One of the tallest forms in the plaster collection, and the proportions do the heavy lifting - a 9 inch base rising to 6 inches gives you a genuinely upright vessel rather than a bowl. Slab it and you have a utensil crock beside the stove, a vase for grocery-store flowers with stems that need support, a wine chiller, or a substantial planter. The flared wall also throws a lovely shadow, so carved or stamped texture reads well on it.

The most sculptural mold here. Wrapped in a slab it gives you a tall tapered cone - a bud vase for a single stem, a hanging planter, a lantern with the pattern pierced through, or a set of three at graduated heights for a mantel. Because the form narrows so steeply the slab wants to overlap as you wrap, so plan a deliberate seam and make it part of the design rather than something to hide.

The classic everyday bowl proportion - wide enough to be useful, shallow enough that food sits up where you can see it. This is your pasta bowl, your grain bowl, your roasted-vegetable bowl. Around 9.5 inches across is also the size most people reach for without thinking, so a set of four off this mold will get used every week rather than admired in a cabinet.

A step up into serving territory. The low profile keeps the piece from feeling heavy despite its width, so it works as a salad bowl that lives on the table, a shallow fruit bowl, or a low centerpiece bowl you float candles or greenery in. Wide and shallow also means the interior is a big uninterrupted canvas - a good mold to pair with a poured glaze that pools toward the middle.

Almost a platter with a lip. That flat generosity is the point - bread and cheese, a pile of stone fruit, a bowl of limes on a bar cart. Because the walls barely rise, the finished piece reads as one continuous surface, which makes it the best mold in the collection for a big dramatic glaze break or a slab you have textured edge to edge before draping.

A found-object mold that works in either direction, though a slump is the natural way to use it - press clay down into the open dish and you get a deep rectangular vessel with square-ish corners that would be genuinely difficult to build freehand. Baking dish, bread baker, deep serving dish, or a long planter. Flip it and drape over the outside instead and the slab picks up the chrysanthemum relief on the walls, giving you pattern and form in a single move. Glazed ceramic absorbs nothing, so plastic wrap is not optional here.

Four loaf-shaped wells in a row, and slumping is the natural way to use it - press clay down into the wells and you come away with a tray divided into four bays, or four small loaf dishes if you cut them apart. That makes it a shortcut to a divided server for condiments, a tasting flight or a row of small bites, and to four matching pieces in a single pass. A slab will also drape over the outside if you want the reverse, picking up the chrysanthemum relief on the walls. Getting clay down into four recesses without thinning the walls takes a patient hand and a soft rib. Glazed ceramic, so wrap it either way.

A found-object mold at the smallest useful scale. The teardrop outline gives a finished piece with a point and a curve, which is exactly the geometry a spoon rest wants - the handle sits in the taper. It also works as a tea bag dish, a ring dish, or a soap dish for a guest bath. Tiny, fast, and a good way to test a new glaze before you commit it to something large.

A big leaf or eye shape with real presence. Draped, it gives you a generous serving platter with tapered ends that direct the eye - the piece you build a cheese board around, or fill with roasted vegetables, or hang on a wall. The size means a substantial slab and a careful drape, but the payoff is a form you will not find in any store, and one that photographs beautifully.

A classic oval serving platter at the size most tables can actually accommodate. Roasted chicken, a stack of pancakes, a pile of cookies, a bread and butter service. The shallow curve gives it just enough lip to keep things from sliding off without turning it into a bowl. If you make one serving piece to go with a set of dinner plates, make it this one.

Almost completely flat, which makes this a shaping template as much as a mold - lay the slab over it and you get a clean oval blank with a whisper of curve. That is exactly what you want for a flat oval plate, a serving board, a tile, or the base of a built piece you will add walls to. Because the slab barely deforms, any texture you roll into it survives intact, so this is the mold to use when the surface is the whole point.

The bigger flat oval. Same idea as its smaller sibling - minimal curve, maximum surface - but at a scale that makes real serving pieces. A cheese board, a long oval platter, a decorative tray for a coffee table, or a flat blank you cut and fold into something else entirely. Slab builders tend to end up using flat molds like this more than they expect, because so much work starts with a clean, consistent blank.

A big soft-cornered rectangle - the footprint of a serving tray, a baking dish, or a deep rectangular platter. Rectangular forms are the hardest thing to make convincingly by hand, so a mold this size is genuinely valuable: it gives you straight sides and square corners that would take real skill to build freehand. Think casserole dish, bread tray, or a long low planter for a windowsill.

A three-piece round nesting set in HDF. Because all three share one profile, pieces made across the set stack and read as a family, which is the whole point of a graduated set - you get a coherent collection instead of three unrelated dishes. The largest of the three, and the serving piece of the group.

A three-piece oval nesting set in HDF. Ovals give a table direction in a way circles never do, and a graduated trio of them arranged together looks composed rather than accidental. The largest oval of the three - a small serving platter, a bread dish, or a soap tray for a double vanity.

A five-piece round set in HDF with a chamfered edge, so every finished piece gets a clean angled rim rather than a soft rolled one. That bevel is what makes plates off this set look finished straight out of the kiln. As the largest piece in the set it makes the serving size - the platter or wide bowl the rest of the family gathers around on a table.

A five-piece set of soft-cornered rectangles in HDF. Rectangular ware is the hardest thing to build convincingly by hand, so a graduated set like this is genuinely valuable - straight sides and matching corners across five sizes without any of the guesswork. The largest rectangle in the set, and a real serving platter - cheese and charcuterie, a row of appetizers, a long dessert.

A five-piece oval set in HDF. Ovals read as more intentional than circles and they fit a rectangular table more efficiently, which is why oval serving pieces keep coming back into fashion. As the largest piece in the set it makes the serving size - the platter or wide bowl the rest of the family gathers around on a table.

A five-piece oval set in HDF, running smaller than its sibling set - this is the family for small dishes and personal ware rather than serving pieces. The largest of this smaller oval family - a side plate or a bread and butter dish.

A three-piece set of soft triangles in HDF, and the thinnest boards in the collection - the finished pieces come off almost flat, more plate than bowl. The largest triangle, at a size that works as a serving board for cheese or flatbread and reads as sculpture on a wall.

A three-piece square set in HDF. Squares fill a table more efficiently than circles and stack better in a cupboard, and a graduated trio gives you a full place setting in one geometry. The largest square, and a proper serving platter - a pizza board, a cheese board, or a charger under a round plate.

A three-piece rectangular set in HDF, thin enough that pieces come off nearly flat. Long rectangles are the shape most serving boards want to be, and these give you three of them in matching proportions. The largest rectangle, and the longest board of the three - a baguette board, a sushi plate, a full charcuterie run.

A five-piece round set in HDF, noticeably thicker than the other board sets. That extra depth is the point - pieces come off with a real wall rather than a token rim, so these behave like shallow bowls instead of plates. The largest and deepest of the set - a proper serving bowl with a flat base that sits solid on a table.

A five-piece set of deep, soft-cornered rectangles in HDF. The combination of a rectangular footprint and real depth is rare and hard to build by hand - these give you rectangular vessels rather than rectangular plates. The largest and deepest - a rectangular serving dish, a bread baker, or a long low planter for a windowsill.

The largest of the wave-edge set, and a rectangle rather than a square - about three to two, which is the proportion most serving boards want. The rippling perimeter means the finished piece reads as hand-formed rather than cut, and at this size it works as a cheese board, a flatbread plate, or a shallow serving dish with a lively edge.

A three-piece octagonal set in HDF, and thin, so pieces come off nearly flat. Faceted edges catch light differently on every side, which gives a plain glaze far more to do than a round edge would. The largest octagon - a serving platter or a charger, and a shape that immediately reads as designed.

A five-piece set of loosely squared organic shapes in HDF - square enough to stack and store, irregular enough that nothing looks machine-made. It is the best of both geometries. The largest of the set, and a serving piece - a shallow bowl or platter with a relaxed, hand-cut outline.

A five-piece scalloped set in HDF, cut in a soft petal outline. It is the most decorative family here, and the shape does the work - a plain white glaze on a scalloped plate looks finished with no other decoration at all. The largest scallop, and a cake stand top or a serving platter with a petalled edge.

A flared bowl with a flat bottom and a straight, honest wall - the profile of a classic mixing bowl or a diner-style serving bowl. That flat base is genuinely practical: it sits still on a counter while you whisk, and it stacks. Ten inches across gives you real capacity, so this works as a batter bowl, a big salad bowl, or a planter for something with a spreading habit.

Flat faces and hard edges - the opposite of every dome in this collection. A slab wrapped over this comes off faceted and geometric, closer to origami than pottery, which is a look that is very hard to get any other way. Good for a modern planter, a candle holder, a sculptural vessel, or a set of angular catchalls. Wrap it in plastic first: bare wood grips damp clay hard and will tear the slab as it shrinks.

A shallow rectangle with cut edges, which produces a tray with a crisp perimeter rather than a soft one. That sharpness reads modern, and it gives glaze a hard line to break over. Good for a serving tray, a bathroom vanity tray, a rectangular plate for a tasting menu, or a shallow baking dish. The low walls make it easy to drape without wrinkling at the corners - a common frustration with deeper rectangles.

An oval reads as intentional in a way a circle does not - it has a front and a back, so it sets a table with direction. Draped, it gives you an oval serving bowl for roasted vegetables or olives, a bread bowl, or a soft-cornered catchall for a nightstand. Ovals also nest beautifully with round pieces on a shelf, so this is a good second mold once you already own a couple of circles.

The deliberately imperfect one. The outline wanders, so no two orientations of the finished piece look quite the same and the result reads handmade even before you touch it. Excellent for a spoon rest, a soap dish, a jewelry catchall, or a small serving dish where the charm is that it does not look machine-made. Pair it with a matte glaze and let the uneven rim catch the light.

The workhorse middle size. Eight inches is the diameter of a cereal bowl, a soup bowl, a ramen bowl if you go a little deeper with the rim - which is to say this is the mold you use to make things that get eaten out of daily. Small enough that four of them fit in a kiln load, forgiving enough that they all come out matching, which is exactly what you want when you are building a set to actually live with.

Small, rectangular and soft-cornered - the shape of a butter dish, a soap dish, a business-card tray, a dish for cufflinks or rings. Rectangles are unusual in slab work because most molds are round, so a piece off this one immediately looks considered. It uses very little clay and fires quickly, which makes it a good candidate for gifts and market stock.

The tapered sides give the finished piece a slight pedestal quality - it sits up rather than sprawling. Good for a small serving bowl, a sugar bowl, a dish for salt at the stove, or a little planter for a succulent. The angled wall also means glaze runs down it in a controlled way instead of pooling, so drippy or reactive glazes behave themselves on this shape.

Long and low, which is a shape with one obvious job: serving things in a row. Crackers, a baguette cut into rounds, sushi, a line of appetizers, three kinds of olives. At 16.5 inches it dominates a table in the best way, and because the rise is shallow the finished tray is light enough to pass around. A natural companion piece to any of the round serving bowls.

That stepped rim is the whole reason this mold exists. It gives the finished plate a defined edge - a place for a thumb, a border for a glaze to break over, and a visual frame around whatever is on it. At 10.5 inches it lands squarely in dinner-plate territory, so this is the mold to reach for when you want a full place setting rather than another bowl. Slabs drape over the rim easily and the flat center keeps the plate from rocking.

A loaf-pan silhouette, which opens up a whole category most slab molds cannot reach: bread pans, planters for a windowsill herb row, a utensil box, a deep rectangular server. The straight walls and flat bottom mean the finished piece behaves like real functional ware rather than a decorative dish. Drape a textured slab over it and the pattern wraps the long sides where you will actually see it.

A small, low oval - the shape of a soap dish, a butter dish base, a spoon rest, a dish for rings beside the kitchen sink. Its usefulness is in how little space it takes up while still being a real vessel. Because the rise is so gentle, the slab barely stretches, which makes this one of the best molds in the collection for keeping a delicate surface texture intact from slab to fired piece.

Nine inches and barely any depth puts this exactly at side-plate and salad-plate size. The soft edge means the finished piece has no rim to chip, which is why plates off this mold survive real life in a real kitchen. Make six and you have a set for dessert, appetizers, or the plates you actually grab on a Tuesday instead of the good ones.

The proportion here is the sweet spot between the shallow serving bowls and the deep hemispheres - wide enough to serve from, deep enough to hold a real quantity without spilling. This is a mixing bowl you would leave on the counter, a big pasta serving bowl, or the bowl that holds the salad at every dinner. About 10.5 inches across also means it stacks nicely under the 18 and over the 48 if you want a graduated set.

A clean, quiet eight-inch bowl with nothing to distract from the surface. That makes it the mold you choose when the glaze or the carving is the star - there is no unusual silhouette competing for attention. Practically, it is soup, cereal, ice cream, a bowl of nuts. It is also the sensible size for anyone testing a new clay body or a new glaze before committing to a big piece.

A rounded square with a bit of height to it, so the finished piece has corners you can see but edges you can still run a thumb along. Square bowls hold their own on a table in a way round ones do not, and this size handles soup, a side salad, or a bowl of olives at a party. It also pairs naturally with the square HDF board molds if you are building a mixed set with a consistent geometry.

Small enough to feel personal, big enough to be useful - this is the individual serving bowl. Soup for one, a breakfast bowl, a dish of nuts, a small planter with a drainage hole punched through. Because it takes so little clay it is a fast project, which makes it ideal for a class, a first attempt, or churning out a matched set of six in an afternoon.

The points at each end are what make this one special - the finished piece reads as a leaf or a boat rather than a generic dish. It is a natural for a bread tray, an olive or pickle dish, a long spoon rest, or a piece of decor that holds nothing at all and just looks good on a console table. Press a real leaf into the slab before draping and the form and the texture reinforce each other.

The longest mold in the collection, and unlike most of these it is used the other way round - clay is pressed down into the cavity rather than draped over the top. What comes out is a long shallow trough of a tray, ideal for a baguette, a row of sushi, a line of appetizers, or a bathroom counter caddy. Nearly two feet of finished ware means planning your kiln space first, but few pieces command a table like this one.

A wooden bowl pressed into service as a slump mold - clay goes inside and takes the bowl’s interior curve. The result is a deep round bowl with a soft, slightly irregular wall that no plaster mold quite replicates. Good for a mixing bowl, a big serving bowl, or a dough-rising bowl. The sealed and painted surface will not absorb water, so line it with plastic or the clay will stick and the wood will suffer.

The cut-out handles are the interesting part - press clay inside and the openings give you a natural place to carve matching handles into the finished rim, turning a plain bowl into something with a grip and a bit of drama. Think a serving bowl you actually carry to the table, a bread bowl, or a deep salad bowl. Wrap it in plastic first; finished wood grips damp clay and will not let go.

The largest of the wooden bowls and a serious slump mold. Fifteen inches across with real depth gives you a statement serving bowl - the one that holds a whole salad for a dinner party, or lives on a counter full of fruit. The handle cut-outs let you carve grips into the rim, which matters at this size because a bowl this big filled with food is genuinely heavy. Plastic wrap is essential.

A narrow press-mold trough at a friendlier scale than its big sibling. Pressed, it produces a slim rectangular dish - a spoon rest for a long-handled ladle, a soap tray, an incense holder, a dish for keys and coins, or a small cracker tray. Its narrowness is the appeal: it fits on surfaces where nothing else will, like the back of a stove or the edge of a bathroom sink.

A square with a shallow recessed well, which gives the finished piece a defined interior and a clean flat border. Square serving pieces are underrated - they fill a table more efficiently than round ones and they photograph beautifully. Use it for a serving tray, a square dinner plate, a catchall for a dresser, or a base tile for a built form. The flat border is a natural place for a stamped or carved edge.

This is one of the biggest molds in the collection and it makes a piece that stops a room. Draped, it becomes a broad low bowl of genuine scale - a centerpiece for a dining table, a fruit bowl for a big kitchen island, a decorative vessel that reads as sculpture. It takes a serious slab and a second pair of hands to drape cleanly, so treat it as a project rather than an afternoon, and make sure your kiln shelf can take it before you start.

A deep, soft-cornered box mold - press clay into the cavity and you get a genuinely deep rectangular vessel, which is hard to achieve any other way with slabs. Baking dish, deep serving bowl, planter, storage crock for utensils or dog treats. The rounded corners are a real advantage here: sharp interior corners crack in drying, and this shape sidesteps that problem entirely.

A big shallow rectangle, pressed rather than draped. The result is a substantial flat tray with a low retaining wall - a serving tray for drinks, a large rectangular platter, a shallow baking dish, or a decorative tray for an ottoman. Because the walls are so low and the floor so wide, this is also an excellent mold for a heavily textured or inlaid slab where you want the pattern to read across a large uninterrupted plane.

Enormous and barely curved, which produces a wide shallow platter rather than a bowl. This is the piece you serve a whole roasted fish on, or pile with bread and cheese for a crowd, or lean against a wall as a decorative charger. The near-flat surface is an open canvas - the best mold here for a big sweeping brushwork glaze or a fully textured slab, because nothing about the form competes with what you put on it.

The inner ring turns this from a generic oval into a proper platter with structure - a defined well for the food and a wide rim to hold onto. At 18 inches long it is a serving piece for a holiday table: the turkey platter, the charcuterie board, the one that comes out when people are coming over. The broad rim is also the natural place for a contrasting glaze or a hand-lettered edge.

A long carved dough bowl, used as a slump mold so the clay picks up its trough shape and its slightly uneven hand-hewn interior. What comes out is a long boat-shaped vessel with real character - a centerpiece bowl, a bread trough, a bowl for fruit on a long table. The irregularity is the appeal; a machine-made mold cannot give you this. Line it with plastic to protect both the wood and the clay.

A found plastic egg holder, and one of the more inventive molds in the collection. Draped over, a slab picks up a field of soft dimples - a dotted, quilted texture across the whole surface. Pressed into, it gives you a tray of rounded wells for eggs, olives, seed starts or a paint palette. Plastic is completely non-absorbent and quite flexible, so wrap it and support it while you work.

A stone bowl used as a slump mold. Stone gives a harder, more precise interior curve than wood or plaster, so the finished piece comes out crisp and symmetrical - closer to a wheel-thrown profile than most slab work. At 7.5 inches it is a personal serving bowl, a soup or cereal bowl, or a decorative dish. Stone absorbs nothing at all, so plastic wrap is mandatory.

The tallest cone in a set of six galvanised metal forms. Wrapped in a slab it gives a slender, elegant cone - a bud vase for a single tall stem, a hanging planter, or a pierced lantern. Made as a set at graduated heights, these cones cluster on a mantel or a table like a small skyline, which is the real reason to own six rather than one.

A five-piece set of soft triangles in HDF, stacked into a stepped pyramid. Three-sided ware is genuinely uncommon, so pieces off this set stand out on a table without needing any decoration. The largest triangle in the set - a serving board for cheese, flatbread or a cluster of small bites.

A charcuterie board with a ring handle, used flat as a shaping surface and a template. Lay a slab over it and you get a long board-shaped blank with that distinctive handle silhouette, ready to become a ceramic serving board, a cheese platter, or a decorative wall piece. The handle detail is what sells it - it reads immediately as a board rather than a flat plate. Sealed wood, so wrap it before the clay goes on.

The tallest ghost in the set of nine, and the one that anchors a group. A slab wrapped over this rounded, shouldered form comes off as a standing ghost shape - carve eyes through the wall and it becomes a luminary with a tealight inside. Made as a family at graduated heights the nine of them cluster on a mantel or a porch step, and a tall one at the back gives the group its silhouette.

The smallest of the three colossal domes, and ’smallest’ still means 22 inches across - half again the width of the #1 mold and nearly three times the clay. What comes off it is a low, sweeping platter that holds about 2.75 gallons, which is another way of saying it holds nothing you would ever serve: this is a coffee table piece, a console centerpiece, an object that fills a room rather than a table. It is Owner only for four reasons that all compound. A 3/4 inch slab this wide needs roughly 28 inches square to drape and trim, and our classroom slab rollers do not go that wide. The mold itself is a two-person lift. The drape has to happen in one continuous movement with no creases, on a slab heavy enough to tear under its own weight. And a piece this size ties up 33.5 lbs of clay and a whole kiln shelf, so a failure is an expensive afternoon. That is what Insane means on the skill column.

Two feet across and six inches deep, this one makes a genuine bowl rather than a platter - around 4.4 gallons, deep enough to look bottomless and heavy enough that you site it once and leave it there. It belongs on a coffee table, an entry console or a kitchen island as a permanent object; nobody is carrying this to the dinner table full of salad. The Owner only rating is not gatekeeping, it is physics. Draping a 3/4 inch slab over this dome takes a sheet about 31 inches square, which is wider than any roller in the classroom will produce, so the slab has to be built and joined by hand before it ever reaches the mold. The plaster is a two-person lift. The drape is unforgiving, because a slab carrying 41.5 lbs of clay will tear at any thin spot and there is no rescuing it once it starts. And between the clay, the kiln space and the mold itself, the cost of getting it wrong is real. Insane is the honest label.

The largest mold in the entire library: 24.6 inches across, 6.5 inches deep, and a finished bowl that holds close to 5 gallons. There is no functional use for a vessel this size and that is entirely the point - it is a sculptural object for a coffee table or a wide console, the piece that makes people stop and ask who made it. Everything about producing one is beyond a classroom setup, which is why it is Owner only. The slab alone needs to be about 32 inches square at 3/4 inch thick, well past what our classroom rollers can roll, so it has to be assembled by hand before the drape even begins. The mold is heavy enough to need two people and a clear bench. The drape is a single-shot operation on 44.5 lbs of clay that wants to tear under its own weight. And the whole undertaking - the clay, the plaster, the kiln shelf, the hours - is expensive enough that you do not attempt it to practice. Insane is not a joke rating on this one.