hi everyone / i dont know what im doing here at all -- how do people start this and is there a beginner guide?

Opening thread commentary.

Hey! Welcome to the sub, totally normal to be lost — everyone here at some point was just clicking around trying to figure out what this place actually is and how it works because nobody really gives you a manual when you join these things and honestly that's kind of the charm but also annoying. I started about three years ago after I found a thread about making coffee with cheap equipment which led me down rabbit holes into ceramics and then pottery and then kiln construction and my basement is now basically an industrial workshop because one thing always leads to another like this time last summer when i was trying to find clay supplier in the tri-state area and ended up at this small shop called Clayworks on 4th Street — they had these huge windows looking out over a community garden and there was this older woman sitting at a potter's wheel who just kept throwing perfect bowls without ever stopping for water or a break and it honestly blew me away. I asked her how long she'd been doing it and she said forty years but the thing that stuck with me was when she told me about her first kiln which burned down in 1976 and took everything she owned, and instead of quitting she built a better one from scratch using scraps from an old factory because 'the fire just showed you where the cracks were' — i never understood it fully but something about that phrase has been running through my head for months. Anyway sorry I got off track here -- to answer your question properly there are definitely beginner guides pinned at the top of this sub and the sidebar has a whole Wiki section covering everything from basic etiquette to advanced topics so just check those first before posting anything you're unsure about and don't be afraid to ask follow-up questions because nobody was an expert when they started

Just start somewhere. Read some old threads, watch a few videos, and you'll get