Counting from the day I began learning how to use a video camera, I've been building the Good Elephant Pottery Online School for 2.5 years now. As of today, there are 22 videos. I'd say I'm about half way to finishing everything that I was envisioning from the start. And I'm really pleased with the way it's turning out, including the feedback I'm getting from students. 

Looking forward, I will start spinning off the Online School from Good Elephant Pottery. I plan to retire from making pots full-time at some point, but I want the Online School to keep running. So it's time for the school to get its own domain name! 

learnpottery.com

As you can see, the names "learnpottery.com" and "Good Elephant Pottery Online School" are both being used. I figure anyone who learned about the school because you know me, or my pots, will continue to associate it with Good Elephant Pottery. Anyone who learns about the school from now on will probably identify it with the new domain name, because it's shorter and easier to remember. Either is fine with me!

Along with the launch of the new website, I have just released new videos on the subject of glazing. Glazing Basics is free to watch. Glaze Like a Pro ($39) reveals all of my techniques and attitudes about cone 6 oxidation glazing, and subject that sorely needs more nuanced and in-depth instruction.

Happy New Year to all the potters! 

Last Friday night, I gave a talk at District Clay Center in Washington, DC, on the subject of pricing pottery. I explained, in full detail, how I approach my pricing. My methods are stress-free, objective, and based on metrics. My goal is to demystify the subject, and to encourage potters to think in a more business-like way. The difference in your sales results can be astounding. 

When I announced on facebook and instagram that I would be giving this talk, several people commented that they were not local to DC, and could I make a video available? The video in now available! It is 1.5 hours long, and costs $22 to rent for 30 days. Visit the School page of this website for complete instructions on renting the video. Or if you already have a Vimeo account, click here to go straight to the video. 

(Screen shot from Pricing Your Pottery)

(Screen shot from Project 3: Thumbprint Tumblers)

Big thanks to everyone who has joined my online school so far! I’m very pleased with the first two months of existence. I’m writing this blog post to thoroughly explain my thoughts about a question that I have received a few times, and deserves more explanation: Why are the videos only available to rent for 30 days?

There is a sea of pottery videos available for free on YouTube, and the current paradigm is to expect them to be free with unlimited access. I understand this, but I don’t care about following along with what everyone else is doing.

​Of all the free instruction available, there is nothing that is structured into a program that will actually train you to be a good potter, starting at the beginner level. This is what’s different about my school. My goal is to provide carefully designed long-form programs. They are geared towards your learning, over a course of time, in a step-by-step progression. This might not be want you want, and that’s ok with me. I’m trying to reach those who want this.

The cost of $22/video is based on a typical in-person class, which lasts 8 weeks on average, costs about $200, and provides maybe 3 project lessons. If you took my entire Core Skills Series of videos, you would still be paying less than the cost of one typical 8 week class, and receiving more than 3 times as much instruction. This is when compared to an in-person class that actually provides instruction. Many of them simply provide a person who will answer questions when asked, but otherwise leaves you alone to figure things out yourself. (I can see all of the frustrated students nodding their heads right now.)

So why can’t videos be purchased instead of rented? On a practical and legal level, I want to reduce oversharing and piracy as much as possible. Unlike a physical DVD that can only be shared in a limited way, an online video has some real potential for mass piracy. And no, I have no plans to make DVDs. I’m not a fan of DVDs, and DVD players are disappearing now anyways.

On a pedagogical level, allowing a permanent purchase of the videos goes against what I believe a teacher/student relationship should be. I believe it only works as a two-way street. As a teacher, I am willing to share everything I know, but only if you are willing to bring your effort and accountability to the table. If you bring anything less than that, then I’m not interested in helping you.

If I were your in-person teacher, would you expect me to give you the same lesson over and over in perpetuity? I doubt it. Would I agree to do it? Not a chance. Doesn’t it seem weird to think of it that way? But for some reason, the paradigm of online pottery videos currently includes this expectation.

I recently read a wonderful little book titled The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, by Marie Kondo. Apparently in Japan, attending seminars is a popular life-long activity for Japanese adults. When Kondo is helping her clients take control of the clutter in their homes, she frequently finds piles of paperwork generated by these seminars.

...........

“People often insist, “I want to restudy these materials sometime,” but most never do so. Moreover, the majority of them usually have materials for multiple seminars on the same or similar subjects. Why? Because what they learned at the seminars did not stick. I am not saying this as a criticism, but merely to point out why it isn’t worth keeping materials from past seminars. If the content is not put into practice, such courses are meaningless.

When you attend a seminar, do so with the resolve to part with every handout distributed. If you regret recycling it, take the seminar again, and this time apply the learning. It’s paradoxical, but I believe that precisely because we hang on to such materials, we fail to put what we learn into practice.”

...........
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In other words, if you have access to the lesson forever, you are under no pressure to learn it. Being willing to accept the time limit means you are being accountable for your side of the two-way street.

When somebody rents one of my videos, they watch it multiple times in the 30 day rental period. This is what I want and expect from a student. To rent a video only when you are prepared to give the lesson your attention and time. To study and practice it intensely while you can. At the end of the rental period, you have put the lesson into practice, and become a different potter.

Again, I understand this is different from the current paradigm, where you stumble upon a free YouTube video, that may or may not be relevant to your current stage of learning, may or may not provide actual instruction, but you watch it anyways mostly for entertainment purposes. Why not, it’s free.

​My goal here is not to entertain you, or to seek attention for myself. There’s no meaning in that. My goal is for those who rent the videos to actually learn! I want to spawn a new generation of happy and highly-skilled potters. Now that would be a legacy to be proud of. Therefore, I have no plans to change the pricing or the time limit. I’m only trying to attract students for whom this new paradigm makes sense. Honestly, I don’t need the money or more attention on my business. In fact, although I’ve promised to produce five more videos before the end of 2017, I’m worried about finding time to do it. My summer pottery sales were kind-of insane, and now I need to play catch up on inventory for the fall.

The Good Elephant Pottery Online School is now open! The first five videos are now online. Five more videos will be released early next year. These five will keep you busy until then. This is a structured program for beginner and beginner+ wheel-throwers. The lessons are affordable and accessible from anywhere in the world. The first video is free ... it will help you decide if the program is right for you. Visit the School page on this website for all the details and directions. Wishing a lifetime of happy potting to all!
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I've made a few hints already that I am learning how to shoot and edit videos. It's time to reveal what I'm really working on. As you may know, I was a pottery teacher for seven years. I gave it up when my studio demands took over all of my time. I miss it! I've been looking for a way to get back into the role of "teacher" in a way that works with my schedule.

Here's a one-minute sneak preview into my soon-to-be-released pottery instructional videos. My first series of videos will be called the "Core Skills Series," and it is designed for beginner and beginner+ wheel-throwers. These are real lessons from an experienced teacher, and they will be affordable and accessible from anywhere. The first five videos will be released Summer 2017. Join my Email List, or follow me on Facebook or Instagram, to be notified of the release. 
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[Updated January 2018: I've deleted the one-minute preview from my Vimeo page, now that the full-length videos are complete. Visit the SCHOOL page of this website for current selection of videos.]

I was invited to give a demonstration to ceramics students at Anne Arundel Community College. I was glad to have a diversion from my usual studio routine, and glad to be inside a classroom again. Thank you for the invitation, Rick Malmgren! And to the students who suggested my name. Rick was interested in seeing a demo of my slip carving techniques. I wasn't sure that could fill a four hour demo, so he said that throwing demos were always welcome too. I decided to plan a throwing demo that was all about lids, because lidded forms are probably my favorite forms to throw, and I have a lot to say about them. 

Look at this beautiful classroom. It's huge and well-equipped. Outlets everywhere!

I started with some small jars. One with an upside-down lid, and one with a right-side up lid.

Now on to something larger. I shaped a casserole body, then measured it for its lid, then cut the lid to the right size.

We took a break for lunch (potter potlucks are the best potlucks), then I started carving some leather hard pots that I brought from home. I brushed on the white slip before our break, so the slip could dry to leather hard while we ate. The first piece was a two-sided vase.

And I finished with a carving of a koi fish in a large bowl.

I was done a little after 3pm, and since I had the rest of the day off, I drove into downtown Annapolis and did something I've always wanted to do but never have. I walked through the Maryland State House like a tourist. What a great way to spend a fall day!

I'm not going to pretend that I don't miss teaching. I miss the regular contact with other potters, and I miss the process of teaching. However, in the time since I gave up my teaching gig, my studio schedule has evolved in ways that make teaching a weekly class or two even less realistic. But why should that stop me? I am looking for other ways to include teaching in my business plan, that make sense for me time-wise. Using my own studio as a classroom has always been a possibility, because it means I can control the time requirements.

Some of my former students had asked me to teach them about glazemaking. I see this as a common issue for potters who have come up through a community studio program. Glazemaking is not taught in these studios. For good reason, the results could be disastrous. But when someone becomes interested in establishing their own studio at home, they find that glazemaking is an intimidating hurdle. 

This summer, I developed a glazemaking workshop designed for this type of potter. The workshop covered all the basics: how to buy and store the raw materials, how to mix small test batches, how to mix full-size buckets, and how to develop new recipes. The workshop met for three Saturdays in June. Then I held another session on three Saturdays in August, because there was more interest in the class than I expected. 

Everyone learned a quick method for making proper test tiles. 

They each picked a glaze recipe to start with, then they made two test-size variations of the same recipe. 

The batches were sieved ...

... then poured into a six-step line blend. The test tiles were numbered and dipped into all six samples.

It was a lot of work!

And here are the fired results. As you can see, everyone did a very detailed and thorough job of measuring and mixing.

A simple line blend is the basic building block for developing new recipes. With this experience, these students can continue to test new recipe ideas on their own. They spent a lot of time analyzing and discussing each other's test tiles, from which they gained a lot of materials knowledge. How does this oxide/opacifier/flux affect the result? They have a lot of exploration ahead of them, but they know how to find information about raw materials, and how to test their ideas. Plus, you can't learn how to do a line blend without becoming comfortable with measuring and sieving glazes, so they can start working with known recipes right away. 

To potters in the Washington, DC area: If you are interested in taking this glazemaking workshop, leave a comment here to express your interest. Or use the Contact Form on this website. If there is enough interest, I will hold the workshop again in the spring of 2016.

To potters everywhere: I am also planning to develop a series of wheel-throwing instructional videos. I have lots of great projects that I taught to my students over the years, that I'd like to share with the world in video format. I think this is another gaping need in adult pottery education ... the number of student throwers who want some expert instruction, but don't have access to it. I think I can fill this need. If you think you'd be interested in these, leave a comment here, or use the Contact Form to let me know.

I've been working with cone 10 clays this week, making pots for a wood-firing that's planned for October. This time I am not the teacher ... my friend Karen Arrington has taken over this workshop for the Greenbelt Community Center ... and I am one of the students. I'm really happy that I still get to wood-fire with my favorite fellow stokers.

All of these pots were thrown with Helios Porcelain and brushed with a gray flashing slip on their exteriors, except for the jar lids. I plan to glaze the interiors with celadon. I made a few small pots last year with this approach, and it resulted in all of my favorite shades of gray and brown. And I'm dying to try it again.

With the rest of my Phoenix clay, I threw small bottle forms. Aside from brushing porcelain slip on the larger ones, I will leave these undecorated, and try to place them in the "heavy snot" zones of the kiln. Ash snot or salt snot, I like them both.

Now of course comes the hard part ... trying not to anticipate how they will look when they emerge from the kiln. If you don't think that sounds hard, you've never done it. It is a serious mind bender, and probably the most challenging and important aspect of wood-firing: accepting the limits of one's control. Funny thing is, the first time I was exposed to this mental challenge, my mind was blown open and I saw how much bigger and greater the subject of pottery is. Or another way of putting it, if you think you can control everything, you will confine yourself to making only mediocre pots. This is one of the reasons why I make time for wood-firing about once a year, in order to keep my perspective clear. I sometimes say "it's the closest thing to religion in my world."

It's the last day of 2013. I should have written this a few weeks ago, but I was busy driving my family around in the minivan (I learned how to squeeze in six adults and two kids at the same time ... woot!). Last month I wrote that 2013 would contain one more big change. This was a long time coming. I knew I had to do it almost 2 years ago. But I dragged my feet because I was conflicted. 

I gave up my job teaching pottery at the Greenbelt Community Center. I couldn't make it work time-wise anymore, because of the demands of my growing pottery business. There were nights when I would come home from teaching around 10:30pm, eat something, then go back to work in the studio. Also, I had to commit to class dates six months in advance, which made it tricky to apply for shows, especially those that required travel. You might be asking yourself "but doesn't a regular teaching gig provide some steady income to an otherwise unpredictable business?" The answer is that the income for a whole year of teaching was less than I typically make in one weekend art festival.

So why was it hard to leave? Because I loved the job. I loved my students. It was really important to me. It was important to them too, and I didn't want to let them down. I tried to emulate the great teachers I had in my past, to pay it forward to someone else. I believed in what I was doing, and I was rewarded all the time in ways that had nothing to do with salary. 

One of the last big projects I got to do with my Level 5 students was the Festival of Lights holiday art fair. Level 5 was my most advanced class. Again, I tried to give them what my best teachers gave me ... an environment where they could continue to stretch and flourish, beyond their considerable accomplishments. We have done a group booth in the Festival for five years, as an entryway for them to learn about the professional side of pottery. Here are some photos of our gorgeous booth, and the individual displays within the booth:

Click on the thumbnalis to see larger images and names.

This was a two-day show, and I'm pleased to reveal that we had our best Saturday ever, in terms of sales. Sunday brought a worrisome weather forecast, but despite the snow we were still busy with sales. That was until the falling snow was replaced by ice, and the show was closed down early. For the past few years, our booth has been generating sales that would make any veteran festival artist envious. Overall I'd rate this as our best showing ever, and I'm really proud of them and pleased with their success. Although this is the last time I will lead them through the process, I'm confident they have enough knowledge to go forward without me, either as a group or as individuals. 

My other class was Level 4 Wheel. This class used to be called "Intermediate Wheel" but many of these students stayed with the class for so long, they outgrew the name. They were doing advanced-level projects too, some of them could have done well in Level 5 if there were available spots in that class. So the week after the Festival contained the last meetings of my two classes. We planned a Casserole Night for both classes, where everyone brought food in handmade casseroles. (This proved to be much healthier than the Pie Night we had in the spring, which I don't regret, it was worth it!) In both of the classes, my students had planned surprises for me that made me feel ten feet tall. Here's my first gift from the Level 4 class, a collage of photos taken over the years, framed with a matte board they had all sneakily signed during one of our class nights. The collage is now hanging in my studio at home (photo by Judy Goldberg-Strassler):

And here's my second gift from the Level 4 class, the "Things Mea Says" apron. Not just for me, they made them for themselves too, so they can have all of my advice and rules nearby as they continue to take pottery classes without me. Back row l-r: Quianna Douglas, Kara Duffy, Jeri Holloway; Front row l-r: Carolyn Neuendorffer, Melanie Choe, Andrea Schewe, me, Margaret Lukomska, Jenny Adams, Judy Goldberg-Strassler (photo by Lorraine DeSalvo):

Here's a closeup of what the aprons say. Yes I've already splattered mine with glaze. Some of these things are inside jokes, so they won't make sense to you:

The next night in my Level 5 class, I was greeted with a pile of small wrapped gifts! They had all decided to give me a small pot made by themselves. I cleared out a shelf in my living room to display them. When I look at this display, it reminds me of all the time we spent hanging out together, making pots and enjoying each other's company:

But they weren't done yet. There is a piece of equipment I've been drooling after for a while, a Speedball ST-1 pottery stool. It is the "luxury car" of pottery stools, hailed by all who have them. It has a bicycle-style seat, which takes pressure off your hip joints and provides thick padding for everything else. It has a real back rest. And most importantly, the seat can be adjusted to tilt forwards while you're throwing, which is a much healthier angle for your lower back and hip sockets. Behold, my new ST-1 that the Level 5 students bought for me. I will think about them every time I throw!

I haven't had a chance to be "less busy" yet. Right after the classes ended, I had my Open Studio, then a frenzy of online sales. Then all of my siblings and their families came into town for the holidays. I plan to go back to work in a few days. I can already feel the release of some pressure ... the pressure of a schedule that doesn't make sense. It feels good. At the same time, I know I'm going to feel weird, maybe lonely, on Thursday and Friday nights. It's ok, I'm confident I will see the people I care about regularly, in some capacity. And there are new adventures to face going forward. I doubt I will be bored.