Hand Built Pottery Forms

October 26: 11-12:15 a.m. I will do a handbuilding demonstration in East Windsor, New Jersey. I'm part of the live entertainment at a best-in-state senior art show. I didn't enter this show as it is for 60+ (a few years to go yet!) but was contacted to do the demo. Should be fun!

Since I mostly work at the potter's wheel, this became an opportunity to play freely with slabs of clay for a change.

Vegetable server

Ice cream bowl

Textured serving plate

Dessert plate

Square saucer

For these simple projects I used texture tools like a paint stirrer, carved wooden coggle wheel (an actual pottery tool!), onion bag netting, and a dried leaf skeleton. On the ice cream bowl, I added sprigs made by pressing bits of clay in a butter mold and in the carving along the edge of a picture frame, and sprigging them onto the oval bowl.

The bottom three pieces were actually formed very easily, by draping textured slabs over unadorned wooden picture frames. I cut the edges freely to give them a livelier, hand-formed quality. The vegetable server was formed by draping a textured slab over a hump mold I made by casting plaster in a small oblong meat tray.

Textures, forms, play, effort-  it's all grist for the mill! My first workshop in the renovated studio, probably in February to help some of you out of the winter doldrums, will be on making simple slab forms.

"I can't wait to see your new pieces!"

It's been heavy, dirty work in my studio. I haven't produced a finished piece of pottery in a few months. Prep, prep, organize...many verbs have peppered my days since the studio reno was done enough for me to work. (This is where a studio elf would come in handy.)

I've planned to make bisqueware molds (forms that will not be glazed, used for supporting handbuilt work as I construct it) and "trimming chucks."* I began to wedge the "chuck clay" I reserved to make these chucks* and molds-

from this nasty looking slop

30 lbs down and just 150 lbs more left to wedge. (Day at a time!)  

wedged (kneaded) into this nice looking clay

And remixed and sieved neglected glazes that had settled out in their buckets with the water on top and the solids migrated down to the bottom. Labor intensive. Not to mention sloppy to the max.

each bucket contains a different glaze made from recipes

Pouring, mixing and sieving are grungy jobs. You will have to imagine the shmutz, as I have taken deceptively clean pictures.

can-do, with a double sink & various sieves

So I mopped the studio piecemeal wherever I left trails of clay spatters and glaze droplets- there's always mopping, darn it.  Stacked boxes of finished pots that await my home-gallery reno, found homes for bits and pieces of studio stuff. Called that gallery in Brookline, Mass., that wants to carry my work and would like to know if I wholesale (yes!). Scheduled two shows I will be in, and booked one handbuilding demonstration at another art show. Shlepped shelves and boxes and bags and tools to their new places in the studio. or out of the way. Fired and unloaded a bisque kiln, and loaded another. Made ready the glaze table, preparing to glaze the bisqueware.  Moved wooden shelves from the crowded garage down to the studio, bumpity bump down the stairs, and put them together. Bought and assembled additional wire shelf units on wheels, and loaded them with the boxed pottery and tools from pre-reno. Oh, and paid my quarterly sales tax...


Only thing I haven't done is make many pots. Recently, they are the least of what I have had to do.

So why does it seem more fun nowadays, even though the actual making of pottery is so very delayed? Is it the LED lighting that makes the space so inviting even for grunt work, that it banishes the dungeon doldrums? Is it the shows scheduled for November and perhaps December?  Are the new grandbabies giving me a rosy attitude?

Truth- just can't wait to make new work!

*trimming chucks...that's a whole 'nother post.

Potter, Pottery, Rawware: Notes on the Potting Life

 Photo update: My friend came by and took a new photo for my website. 

 Here I am, doing what I like to do- make pots.

Trimming a bowl. Photo: Maddy Hoffman

It engrosses a sizable chunk of my life. In our home, there is pottery of one sort or another in all the rooms.

One nice perk I get from being a potter is that I keep seconds, and also anything I like too much to sell. After a meal, this is a pretty typical sight in the kitchen dish drainer. There's something about using handmade dishes that is very satisfying!

Different clays, glazes & forms over the years

I have rawware drying at the moment, and there's a fired load of bisqueware to unpack from the kiln and glaze. (There's hardly ever just one thing going on.) Today's freshly trimmed bowls (below), for the next bisque kiln, are approximately 7.5" tall x 10" diameter, and will shrink a little with firing.

Trimming, and decorating with my homemade stamps

Happily, it's a typical day in the potting life!

Studio Renovation Builds Biceps

Right now in the basement, a  man is installing French doors. They are going between my studio and my gallery space. Someone standing in the gallery will be able to look through the glass panes and see the workshop area. When I work in the studio, I can close the doors to keep the dust from entering the gallery, while retaining light from the gallery area.

If I do not have bulging biceps, it is not from lack of trying. Pottery materials and tools are heavy! It's been a big job pulling this together the last two days, but I am at least 75% there.

Yesterday, I moved my wheel from its old spot to a new one, My trusty Lockerbie wheel, which I've had since 1985,  has a 90 lb. flywheel at the bottom, and its frame is made of cast iron. I found it helped to use old bits of vinyl floor tile below the 3 feet of the frame, to get it started moving. I had washed the floor (needed it- sloppy buckets of glaze used to live here) and I managed to slide it into place along the damp floor. Oof.

First thing in place is my kickwheel!

The big blue pail is half full of stoneware, about 250 lbs worth, from  my student days in the 80s. It slid across the studio floor pretty well. It is very well aged clay, nice and soft. It matures at a higher temperature (over 3200 degrees F) than I fire my kiln to now (about 2800 degrees F), so I am going to make a lot of unglazed garden pots out of it. It's OK if they are a bit porous, which happens when a clay is underfired- it's better for freezing and thawing, in fact. The plastic container with light blue lid is full of my clay tools. I want to hang a couple of shelves on the wall to the right, and put them there. The mirror standing against the wall, reflecting the shelves across the way, will get hung on the wall angled near my wheel (not visible in the photo). It will help me see the profile of whatever pot I am making on the wheel, without having to crane my neck around. You'd be amazed how that constant craning takes a toll on the  nerves and disks in a potter's neck over time.


Clay boxes were everywhere. My husband helped me move the slab roller to its new spot this morning, and then stowed 500 lbs of clay under it. There is room for 900 lbs of clay:

2nd thing in place is clay and slab roller!

This is my craft cabinet, full of beads and epoxy resin supplies and more. It stood (up until now) sort of nowhere, in the midst of the basement, with other junk:

Son of a gun was full of supplies and way heavy, but I stuck a couple of putty knife blades under the front edge as slides, and pushed it bit by bit out of what will be my gallery space, and into its new place. The crafts cabinet now lives between the glaze-colorants cabinet (white), and the wall of buckets and bags containing my more basic glaze ingredients.

Supply cabinets make friends

Oxides and colorants:

Cobalt carbonate, Red iron oxide, Mason stains and much more

Non-pottery craft supplies:

Beads, wire, findings, glues, epoxy resin supplies, tools and more

Too bad I didn't take a photo of the glaze bucket mess before I moved it. It lived under a table  made of an old door, which sat on two filing cabinets and stood where the slab roller now lives. I first had to shlep out the wet glazes, get rid of those that don't work for me any more, and wash out still-useful buckets. It was a sloppy job, but done now. Here is the mid-stage of cleanup:

And here are the glaze buckets and glazing tools where they belong, now stored under a 7' long table placed in that same area:

On the side wall you can see more buckets. They are dry ingredients, powders used to make pottery glazes from recipes. They used to live on a pallet, three rows deep, making them hard to get at. They contain 25 lbs. of powder each, so it was heavy lifting to get to the ones at the back and at the bottom when needed. Now they are in a single row. No need to move the buckets in front to get the the ones I need. This makes me surprisingly happy:

Ball clay, flint, kaolin, tin oxide, nepheline syenite, and more.

 This is the before-the-door-is-installed view, from the doorway space:

The new LED lighting is super

The studio that used to be two smaller rooms is now one long room that you can see from one end to the other when you enter. I love how light it is now. You enter the clay area first- those are buckets of re-hydrating clay under the table, which I will recycle and re-use. Further in, where I have a shop sink in the far right corner, is the glazing area. Way up against the far wall I have an old farmhouse table my mother got secondhand for me thirty years ago. It will have to find a new purpose. Right now it is just a catchall for mess.

I am banishing mess and creating an orderly workspace. There is still plenty to do, but the end is coming into focus.

A Glimpse of Warren Mackenzie

I am happily distracted with the birth of twin grandchildren this week, but in my "down" time I have been watching some pottery videos. I am looking at a wonderful set of DVD's of Tom Turner teaching a workshop. It's good to "go to class" sometimes.  I looked for short videos of Turner's to post for you, but there is just one, not really aimed at perpetual pottery students like me.

I came across this one of Warren Mackenzie (born 1924) made sometime around 2007.  (Posted on YouTube by Paudoo1 in 2009, but Mackenzie's website states that he closed his studio in 2007.) I've been a fan of his beautifully fluid, warm, almost primal work for a long time. Mackenzie's studio is in Stillwater, Minnesota. He made his "everyday pots" (and perhaps still does) with a dancing spirit of fun for many years. This video shows him in his studio working on a Leach treadle wheel. When he mentions "Bernard," he means Bernard Leach, the early Master of folk pottery himself, with whom I believe he studied at one time. The video is not quite 7 minutes long and is a truly enjoyable treasure:

Here are two images of Mackenzie's work that I found by searching the Web.  His forms, surfaces and

(found on sequoiamiller.wordpress.com- a nice blog, by the way)

(found on mmaatreasures.org)

faceting are wonderful. There are literally hundreds of images of his work. It is widely collected and has been for years. I love the warm earth colors of these. As I always say, I can only aspire.

Last Days in Maine, Microcosm-Gazing

We are leaving Maine tomorrow. Today will be a day on the lake, then grilling dinner. Relaxing.

Away from my studio, other creative outlets just have to pop up. It's how I function.

Looking at birds, writing and drawing... always observing.

What kind of stone is this (below)? Click on it for a bigger image! (You do know you can always click on any blog photo for a bigger image, right??) I know those are quartz inclusions, but what's the rusty colored stone? Seriously. I want to know. I fell in love with it on a hike two days ago and lugged it the rest of the way in my daypack. Fortunately we were already going back downhill after a savage uphill hike. I think it weighed six pounds.

Crazy Quartz Rock

The quartz inclusion and crystals are testament to the turbulent, heated core of the earth. The heat of my electric kiln in the studio is much more serene and steady. I wish I had the capacity to fire my pots in a fluctuating, flickering, oxygen-sucking environment that makes randomly beautiful things happen, but "I got what I got."

So many textures and contrasts in birch and bush! Lines, curls, flaking, feathering, lights and darks, warms and cools. What an interesting visual world we live in.

Kayak Landing Spot

A little notch in the bank of the lake serves as the spot we pull in our kayaks, one by one. A soft, sandy spot, it is easy on the feet and, once I got deep into microcosm-gazing, I found the picture extremely engaging. Such is the effect of quiet, lazy days of observing and writing. Brain gets very attuned to nuance. It's like looking into a crystalline glaze.

Back home, I should get some edge back next week, lose this particular focus, and gain some further insights in clay- such is life. See you then.

Lake, Tree, Glazing

How is the mood of a lake expressed? The ruffles of the waves are colors. The dark of the underside, purple and slate, the push of the top, gray-blue and near-white. Laced in the movement, white and bright peach, elusive. Sitting at the picnic table in the yard of the house in Maine this morning, colored pencils flicking in time to the breeze ruffling the water, broad strokes and small, I try to capture the mood of the lake. Trying, that is, because I won't capture the lake actually, as it moves and moves; and as it moves, changes too quickly to pin down with the naked eye.

As night fell last evening it would perhaps have been simpler to draw. The darks are broader and fill the canvas better as sunset dwindles. But the lake is never really simple to capture, not while experiencing the moment. It takes a photograph to lock it down:

And what of the circle, circle, turn and circle of the water bugs as they skate rapidly over the reflected afternoon sky in the water? How do I catch that complex circular movement? Can I?

Yesterday on a hike, I took a photo of a tree trunk. Why? In the same way that I look at the lake and see the colors and textures of the water, I see lines and colors in the bark of a tree. The green in the trunk was unusual, and the lines went up and down instead of across. What's a potter to do? I immediately thought of wax resist effects in glazes. (To Be Explained at some later date.) This may or may not be applicable in some way to my glazing ideas (which always need work), but who knows? Inspiration. As my kids have known for years about their mom, the word is "texture."

Whatever "beautiful" means (and it varies), if the surfaces of my pieces invite hand and eye, I will be glad. I have lots of work ahead of me with glazes and surface treatments. Twenty-seven years a potter, I still have so much to learn.

Motto for life: Never stop noticing!

A Brief Hiatus on the Lake

Welcome

Self-Explanatory!

Shed, Kayaks & Canoe

Sometimes it is necessary to take a good break.

What Does "Trim a Pot" Mean?

You're at your potter's wheel. You make the bowls. (Or vases. Or plates. Or jars. Or most anything.) The clay is nice and responsive to your touch, and you succeed at making the form you intend. Still, the odds are good that you needed to leave some extra clay at the bottom of the piece (the "foot"). A little extra at the bottom helps you lift the piece off the wheel without distorting it. It gives the wet clay a sturdier base.

It does not look very nice, though. Hiding inside it is the true profile of the foot. These two bowls were thrown the day before I took the picture. They are firming up, but not dry. Call them "leather hard."

Notice they are not very graceful.

Now I put one back on the wheel, upside down and as exactly in the center as possible. I "trim away" the excess clay. The bowl turns and I move various sharp tools over the surface to refine the form, creating the finished foot that is longing to be revealed. I remove it from the wheel and put on the next bowl. When they are finished (though still raw clay, not having been heated in the kiln and not having been glazed with color), they look quite a bit different.

(Note: The clay color looks different because I photographed the trimmed bowls in much better light.)

The one on the right is the same bowl as the one on the right in the upper photo, the one on the left the same as the one above on the left. Quite a difference, isn't it?

When I "threw" the bowls, which is the term for making them on the spinning potter's wheel, I left a nice thick bottom, about 3/4", with the intention of making a raised foot. A foot like this, narrow and well defined, raises the bowl from the table surface, showing its graceful profile to advantage. A shorter, wider foot would give the bowl a more utilitarian look. It's all valid, all choices I have to make before I slap the clay down onto the wheel. I plan this sort of thing, in fact, while I'm weighing out and kneading up the amounts of clay I will be using that day.

So now you know what it means to "trim a pot!"

Made New Pots All Week

Nothing like a good week at the wheel.
Some rawware:

I had shown this vase on my FB pottery page before I paddled the sides or cut the four feet. Came out nice. I will probably use the sides as a flat canvas for glaze work.

As long as I was cutting feet, I kept doing it. (Again, you may have seen these in a photo on my FB pottery page, drying upside down, outside on the railing.) These are small, cute jars 4", 5", 5.5" and 7" tall. They are freely thrown for a nice loose vibe. I covered them with plastic because, if I get the chance before they are dry, I think they are asking for fat little lug handles.

Some bowls:

I also threw and trimmed a 20" round platter with a nice, beefy rim- maybe to be turned into a Seder plate, not sure. Ten lbs. of clay, biggest plate I've ever thrown. I don't know how to photograph a plate that big. It will be much more interesting once it's been glazed, anyway.

Studio reno is in progress. What a mess. But what promise.

Tulipieres Stage 3- Vases of Another Name

A satisfying morning putting black underglaze on the tulipieres and cutting through it with a tiny carving tool, aka stage 3 of the 4-step process.

Tulipiere 1, One Side

 And the other side of the same vase:

Tulipiere 1, Second Side

Then:

Tulipiere 2, One Side

Tulipiere 2, Second Side

Moving on:

Tulipiere 3, First Side

Tulipiere 3, Second Side

And one more vase:

Tulipiere 4, First Side

Tulipiere 4, Second Side

They will stay under plastic and dry slowly, to even out moisture loss and prevent stress cracks from forming.

Symposium's End: "'Bye for now"

Like the last day of senior year at college, the last moments at the clay symposium were hard. Too many goodbyes of new friends. How hard is it to leave people you just met? Am I being silly?
Here are Marita and Liz, and me.

Marita, Mimi and Liz (left to right)

We are all three wearing necklaces by Marita. It's a gesture of friendship from a lovely lady to the two of us, and to others here, as well. We each chose our pendant the second morning, and yesterday at breakfast, Marita presented them, strung and with her tag: Earth2Ware by Marita Early. Liz and I were delighted to be recipients. We were also delighted to find each other to sit with at meals. It is a joyful thing to meet people like this, and I am hereby counting a blessing. I hope to see them back here next year, but I also hope to exchange thoughts and photos over the course of the year with them.

Potters in small studios spend a lot of time alone, and when we make friends with other potters, they don't usually live next door. They are, in fact, hard to find. Well, voila- two here, and numerous more to talk to and sit beside.

I would never have met these wonderful women, or the other friendly potters, sculptors and poets with whom I have had such good conversations, had I not come to Virginia for these four days. 

As for all that I've seen and listened to at the symposium, my notebook is not just full of notes on the thoughts, techniques and quotes from the presenting clay artists, it also contains notations of books I want to read, improvements I want to make to my kiln, and even a design change to the layout plan for the new shelves I want to build in The Gallery Downstairs. And all the pottery I have looked at and touched (dude, it was an informal exhibition, wasn't it? And no cameras..?) have given me a deepened discontent with my glazes, that desire to add to the palette and to experiment with layering colors and varying the textures. 

More than anything, my personal motivations and aesthetic considerations have had a bop on the head this week. I see some gravitational shift in my work ahead.

So here's to Liz and Marita, Hollins University, Donna Polseno (artist, teacher and symposium coordinator) and all the people who made this symposium so good. Or as Mom used to say at the end of each phone conversation, "Bye for now."

Symposium: Women Working with Clay, Day 3

I am overwhelmed by this day. Too much to assimilate means too much to talk about. Photos, instead.

Donna Polseno's thrown & altered covered pot

Another of Donna's...

Ellen Shankin's covered jar- I loved seeing this made in all its stages.

Seeing Ellen add and form this handle was actually a highlight of my day.

Mary Barringer's Bowl (love this shot of it)

Lisa Clague, adding a drape of slip-covered fabric to her sculpture.

Tip Toland's sculpture grew and changed- amazing to watch.

But another highlight of my day was when my new friend Marita Early gave me a salt-fired pendant she'd made, strung on a cord. I was touched and delighted to wear it.

Symposium: Women Working with Clay, Day 2

Today was FULL.

First thing was introductions. We all stood in turn and said our names and something about ourselves. We are only 44 attendees, so this was easy. It's always fun to meet other potters.

After that, our five presenters demonstrated technique. They were in two studios, and we could come and go as we wanted to see whomever in either room. They did the first part today in the morning, and the second part after lunch.

Lisa Clague

Lisa Clague built the first part of her sculpture from big, flattened coils of clay. As she builds the piece she draws on it, butters the surface with slip in places, and sometimes (see the small sculpture at her elbow) incorporates metal objects. She will add the head tomorrow. I think it will surprise you.

Tip Toland

Tip Toland built much of the head and shoulders of a figure. She will continue tomorrow, too. Along the way she explained proportion and structure of the human head. She was so funny and charming, it will be a contrast to see the finished piece, which will tend, she told us, toward melancholia. She added that her sculpture tends toward the dark side. If you find her work online, you will know what she means.

Ellen Shankin

In the second studio, Ellen Shankin threw pots. Throwing is the technique closest to my heart, which I use most. but every potter has his or her own influences and style, and it is really a blast to see Ellen's. Here are some of the Phase 1 pots, to be assembled or altered or added to tomorrow in Phase 2:

In the same studio as Ellen Shankin, Mary Barringer worked on slab pieces. 

Mary Barringer

Mary doesn't use much color, but builds up lots of surface intensity with texture and thin washes of glaze. Her forms are simple and rely a great deal on individual nuance to give them strength. Throughout her presentation, she tried at length to talk about her objects and their meanings. It is difficult to express the ideas within objects. As editor of Studio Potter, she is always thinking through ideas that frame the "language of clay." I found it challenging to assimilate some of her ideas. I am not used to thinking in this way.

Donna Polseno

While Ellen and Mary were two in this session in the first part of the day, Donna Polseno joined them after lunch to make three presenters in this studio. Donna teaches at Hollins University, and organized this symposium. She slipcasts her forms (from original pieces she makes herself) to obtain the right shapes, then adds to the cast pieces with additional parts. These lively forms are sometimes vessel, sometimes form, and sometimes a hybrid. 

After this, the whole group had a writing session where we wrote an ode to something. Mine was to my studio, and boy, does it need revising.  I missed most of this, as it happens, because I was so tired from all the information I was absorbing that I slipped out to my room and took a brief nap.

In the evening, after dinner, the presenters gave a slide show with photos of their work. It was very telling to hear influences that formed phases of their potting lives. I was heartened by something Ellen Shankin said, in reference to the shows of a group of potters in Virginia, Sixteen Hands, of which she is part. She said, "We were all 25 years into this before we tried to get people to find us." 

Hmm. I started my studio in 1987. It's a happy quarter century in clay for me. Who knows where next year will find my work?

Symposium: Women Working with Clay, Day 1

What is more convivial than a meeting of minds to discuss a topic we are all passionate about? There is no point in being shy and reserved. So I'm yawping my potterly head off to folks from all over the place, and they are doing just the same with me. We are at Hollins University, in Roanoke, Virginia, at a Women Working with Clay symposium. Just to enrich the atmosphere still more, we coincide with a poets symposium. The conversations have been so good. But I will save discussions with the poets perhaps for another day, or another blog.

I took some pictures at the end of the day, of pots by a couple of the people who will discuss and demonstrate techniques tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday. The old conundrum exists. How am I to take even adequate photos (2-D) of these 3-D items? They are never as good in photos as they are in person. But here are a few that I loved, anyhow.

I walked into the exhibition room and fell weirdly in love at first sight with this wonderful pagoda-ish covered jar by Ellen Shankin. She kind of blew me away in general with her work.

(Pardon the awkward shadow. I couldn't take the time and space to set up the shoot.)

Then there were these by Donna Polseno:

They are two of the numerous beauties she has there. Donna teaches at Hollins, and coordinated the symposium.

More tomorrow!

Tulipieres, Part II

I did mention that the tulipieres had only gone through one step in the creative process, though you may have thought you "got the picture." 

To quote Yogi Berra, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”  So…it ain’t over. Welcome to stage 2.

Tulipiere 1, now with “tulip spouts” attached, two views:

tulipiere 1, stage 2, side view

tulipiere 1, stage 2, front view

 Tulipiere 1 started with two rim openings, and now has four places to put flowers. Tulipiere 2 started with three openings, which have now grown to seven:

tulipiere 2, stage 2, side view

They are changing from thrown pots into near-sculptural forms.

tulipiere 3, stage 2

Some of you commented on tulipiere 4, below, liking it as it was. I wonder what your impression is now.

tulipiere 4, stage 2, front view

And look how tulipiere 4 changes when viewed from the side:

tulipiere 4, stage 2, side view

Here they all are in a group. Tulipieres, stage 2. What do they suggest to you? They look like sea forms to me, or..?

And that is the end of stage 2. 

Next, stage 3, which will bring texture and color to the surfaces. Tightly covered, these will wait to go to stage 3 till I get back from the clay symposium I’m attending next week.

Late next week, thoughts and photos from the clay symposium! And then, when I get back into the studio the week after, stay tuned for photos of these tulipieres, stage 3.

Tulipieres, Status Symbols of the 17th Century

 

Tulips came to Holland from Asia. A tulip bulb cost at least as much as your ox, when this beautiful flower was new and novel. And if you were Someone, you needed to upstage your peers by exhibiting your incredibly unusual and extremely expensive prize in an appropriately over-the-top container.

You put it with its fellow tulips (because you were wealthy enough to have enough for a bouquet) in a fancy-shmancy vase made just for them.

Your vase would probably have had several levels, like a layer cake, each layer with holes, tubes or spouts in which to insert the tulip stems. Since your tulips were still alive and still bending towards the light source even after being cut, they might keep on bending till they keeled right over. So you constrained the stem to the holes or narrow tubes in your special vase, so that they would stay upright. 

My take on tulipieres began with vases, thrown on the wheel (2600 grams of clay each), altered by being squashed inward a bit, with the rims crimped into two, then three, then four openings. I have a feeling they may get more openings as I make more tulipieres…

Phase one. Just thrown. Waiting to firm up a bit before I start adding appendages to them.

first tulipiere, thrown round then pushed inward, with 2 rim openings

2nd tulipiere, flared, flattened a bit, with 3 openings

3rd tulipiere, flared shape, flattened form, with 4 rim openings

Remember, this is just the interesting first part of the process.

Tomorrow: the tulipiere shapes get evened out, and begin to sport spouts.

Head-to-Toe, a Sales Profile: Susan James

  
     When I do a show, it’s fun and very informative to meet other artists and crafters. At the JFS show May 6^th, I met Susan James, who was showing and selling her beaded jewelry.

     I learned that Susan’s business actually encompasses two crafts. You can check out her jewelry and also the hats and capes that she crochets, at www.design-site.net/headtotoe.

     I have a hard enough time pulling together one category of handmade objects. I interviewed Susan for this blog to find out how and why she works with two.

     Susan said, “I started selling original design jewelry at the Aspen Saturday Market in 2001. It's a long selling season--from mid-June to mid-October.” 

     She reflected on the seasonal aspect of her sales. “When the weather got cool in September -- winter comes early to the Rockies -- I noticed the customers were too bundled up or chilly to try on jewelry, so my sales dropped."

     "I needed a fashion accessory product that could take me through the fall selling season in Aspen. Taught as a girl by my grandmother to crochet, my primary experience had been making afghan blankets for family and friends, and I hadn't crocheted in years. I started experimenting with shaping hats, and after pulling out many errant rows of crochet, I developed a line of hats for adults and children.” (Note: She also does capes. These are two of her customers:)

     Impressed by Susan’s perseverance, I wondered how she could make the hats pay off. I realized by her answer that, at least to a certain degree, she thinks through who she is selling to, before she even creates her inventory. She bases her analysis partly on prior sales, but also on certain external factors.

     “Over the years, three things changed my hat-selling business. The first was global warming. In recent seasons, Aspen stays hot until the middle of October. So I was selling winter hats in hot weather for four months! The second was that certain styles sold way better than others. And the third was the Great Recession, which caused shoppers who used to buy colorful caps for every kid in the family and hats for all the adults to pull back their purchases to perhaps one token hat as a souvenir.”

     So how did Susan adapt to meet these challenges?

     “This winter," she told me, "I designed a new cotton fedora, which was instantly popular, and works well in warm weather climates all year round. And I narrowed the collection to include only the few top-selling styles. The warmest designs I only sell at a store in Aspen during winter season. The cotton hats, flower headbands, and brimmed winter hats I sell at my booth at farmers markets year-round.”

    She added, “My biggest problem going forward is that I've been crocheting for 6-8 hours a day for so many years, that I've overused the muscle and nerve paths in my neck and shoulders, so now I must limit my crochet to as few hours a week as possible, and sometimes avoid it entirely. Thankfully, my jewelry design business has been growing, so the hat business is supplementary and not primary at this point.”

     As a potter, it was interesting for me to note this challenge, to which I could relate. It is sometimes hard to live with the beating on the muscles, joints and neural pathways, that comes from repetitive motion. I relate to it when my wrists and lower back ache after working too long at the potter’s wheel. If the problem gets bad, it requires that the crafter modify technique, or adjust to making a less body-stressing product, like Susan did.

     Making craft pay is quite a challenge. Thanks, Susan, and hats off to you for sharing your experience.

A Single Fruit in a Fruit-Sized Bowl

Sometimes you want an orange. Or an apple. Or a pear. And you want to cut it up and put it into just the right bowl.

Hello, bowl.

You are perfect for one pear today.

Tomorrow I will use you to beat up a couple of eggs for an omelet.

Later, you are just the right size for the last bit of stir-fry.

Last bit of stir fry> into the bowl> into the microwave>Voila!

Love these. I have a quartet of them in my kitchen cabinet.

Even I am surprised at how often one of these is the go-to bowl.

They were each made from a slab of clay, paddled into shape with a wooden tool.

I love how none is the same as the others, but they stack up so nicely.

I don't have these on my website, but they are made to order for $15 each.

Have you enjoyed a handmade, one-of-a-kind, just-right-for-one-fruit bowl today? Inquiring potters want to know.

The Fabric of Challenges

Here is one face of behind the scenes. It is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I am Optimizing my website for Search Engines to find me. Somewhere inside my head I know this isn't so difficult, but Cheese Louise, I don't get it yet. The tumblers have yet to align in my head to unclick this lock. This is one of those smack-my-head things: won't you step into my brain, Yoast? But Yoast refrains.

But I persist. At some point soon, with a little speck more explication from an expert, I will get to that "Oh!" realization and evolve from there. I say this with confidence even though I am not feeling it yet. I hope to draw actuality with positivity...and further effort.

Meanwhile, say hello to the awning of the future. So far it is just a pile of nice fabric:

But soon it will be an awning on the wall that faces you as you come down the steps to the gallery downstairs. There is a wall right in front of you. Since I have no real shop window (because hey, we're inside my house), I am creating the illusion of one on that wall. There will be a "window" in front of you, a big, attractive framed grid of wood resembling a window (without glass) that will showcase various pieces of pottery. Above it will be my awning, with a flap on the front that will read The Gallery Downstairs in black letters. There will be a spotlight behind the awning flap shining on the art.

The same fabric will also be used to upholster a bench I found in an interesting store in Garwood, NJ, called Artifacts. They take old furniture and refurbish it. It isn't going to cost me a fortune, and non-browsing friends of browsing people can sit on this nice upholstered bench while they wait, and read back issues of Pottery Making Illustrated.

Meanwhile, the pots broken by accident after the last show (dang) are deleted from my website, SOLD has gone up on photos of those that sold, and I am puzzling (through a mental block) over that Search Engine Optimization. This blog post is a digression from what I really should be doing! So I am going to sign off and get my Thinking Cap from the virtual hatrack, and go do what I should be doing.

Give me a 3-D challenge over this webby stuff any day. But it is all necessary to run my studio and gallery.

Hey, thanks for reading. Leave a comment below if you have one!