Thoughts from a hobby potter about the business side

I never thought I'd proudly state I'm a hobby potter.  But after retiring from being a Seniors Activity Coordinator and finally making as many pots and sculptures as I wanted, I found that it's really a hobby.

I don't want to produce a zillion of one thing, which production potters do. Studio potters make the same-thin-only-better-over-and-over also. Each time is critiqued, and the next replication should have improvements. I get bored pretty quick doing that.

But I do admire the perfectionistic potters, and the sculptors who copy things from photos...often of other people's works.  My ethics keep me from using the designs of another artist...even to the use of replicating patterns onto clay. Sure things from a kitchen store might be fun to play with to see how pretty those leaves look on a pot...or even a rope. But for me, I want my designs to be totally mine.  I might use a photo of an animal, or a scene - both of which I hope would be taken by myself...and then use it to inspire my own development.

But let me also sing the praises to those who do make pottery for a living. It's hard work! I purchase what I can, to keep their livelihoods going. It's kind of hard when my cupboards are also full of my own works.

And I am not a good business person. The retail side of selling pottery is not really comfortable for me. I used to sell for 3 hours every Saturday during 6 months of the year at our Tailgate Market here in Black Mountain. I sometimes still cart pottery to an indoor show to sell. But I don't enjoy much of that process any more. I may back away completely one of these days.

But I want to give you a story about a pottery business which I read today. I first saw it in the NC Clay Club site. 
Here's the Link to Business of Home's article.  But I'll also copy a bit below.

A tiny mistake cost East Fork $66,000. Then customers started giving the money back - the title of an article in Business of Home.  



The East Fork Pottery is local - manufactured in Asheville NC.  Three founding potters, Alex Matisse, John Vigeland and Connie Matisse now have 70 employees.  



They sell their seconds (tiny mistakes made in about 30% of their wares) on line with a discount. That's how the mistake happened...in 4 minutes the discount was applied twice to 2000 orders. They discovered it and took it down...apparently they do business on Instagram.

And just because I found this interesting, here's another quote from the article:

As it turns out, discounting errors are made by companies large and small, old and new. Last year, the country’s biggest Burger King operator mistakenly gave customers Value Meal prices on regular purchases for six months. The loss? $8.2 million. Online, technical complexity makes such errors even more common. To pick one example from hundreds: Last year, as part of its Prime Day run of promotions, Amazon mistakenly discounted bundles of photography equipment. For 40 minutes, customers were able to buy $2,000 cameras for $95.

East Fork’s founders: Alex Matisse, John Vigeland and Connie MatisseCourtesy of East Fork

a 'second'

Potters have many failures. If we didn't we wouldn't be stretching our (and clay's) limits to find the extent to which we can go, and no further.

So here's my first plate/shallow bowl which had an s-crack. I agree with John Bauman (blogger, potter) that I tried to dry it too fast.  He showed when the outer areas dry (and shrink) faster than the innermost ones on flat shapes, they cause s-cracks in the center.  I had slowly waited with it under loose plastic for a week, and the outside edges weren't white yet, but I put it uncovered in the kiln room.  Too early.  I should have let it dry uncovered until it was white green-ware on my shelf, then moved it to the kiln room where it is hotter.

And thus the bisque firing showed the S-crack (very small) was there.

So whether to bother glazing it or not, when I was pretty sure the crack would remain.  It didn't go through to the back side. If it had, I would have tossed it after it came out of the bisque kiln.

Sure, I could try some glaze overlays and thus see how they worked together.  Some Raspberry, some black, and some white.  Interesting results (remember them in case I ever want to use these combos again.) But the plate is a second.

My personal critique is that I like the edging effects, more with one glaze than another.  I am thrilled to see how white glaze over raspberry causes a grayish pebbled effect.  I don't like black over raspberry - where no red shows or makes a bit of difference. I like white over black...a nice grey also, but my application was uneven in pouring the glazes. Remind myself that one pour doesn't work if there are touch-ups.  I don't like trying to use glaze in the grooves on the foot...I'd prefer it to all be bare clay. I don't like the "wiped" effect with the white glaze, which looks better when left on the backside.  But having carvings that disappeared with glazes that don't break well, I did the wipe.

Glad I can make another one soon.