good elephant pottery

New pots for the Open Studio 2019

12/10/2019

I've got several new designs, and some updates to existing designs, that will be unveiled at this weekend's Open Studio. For new designs, the prices I'm charging this weekend are introductory prices. I'm just looking for feedback and reactions from my existing customers at this point. Final prices will be determined throughout 2020 depending on how sales go.

I've been trying to figure out this design for over two years, and think I've finally done it. A ceramic tea steeper with a stainless steel handle. It fits into any cup, or at least all of the cups I make. $25 each.

Most of the teapots I've made in the past will not work with the tea steeper. But I will start making teapots with a top opening that is large enough. I like how the two stainless steel handles parallel each other.

The 4.5 x 10 inch rectangular tray that I introduced last year was such a big hit, I have now developed its larger cousin. This tray is 7 x 13 inches, and features a koi fish illustration. I've made lots of koi-themed pots, this is a new, more loose and gestural approach to koi fish. $60 each.
EDIT: The Koi Fish Trays are now sold out.

Crab coasters are back! I used to make these sets years ago, but discontinued them due to production headaches, mostly having to do with glazing. I am re-introducing them, now made out of an espresso brown clay that looks striking when unglazed. $30/set of four.

I have made several different versions of a kimchi dish over the years. The newest design is a hexagon! 6 inches across. $17 each.

The small pitcher, meant for cream or maple syrup, has been updated with a subtle "flower petal" alteration of its rim. They are about the same size and scale as before. $35 with a handle, and $30 without a handle. EDIT: the pitchers with handles are now sold out.

Those of you who follow my blog know that I am learning bookbinding. A limited offering of hand-bound notebooks will be available this weekend. These are 3.75 x 5.25 inch books with 96 pages. I call them "List Books," and are designed for jotting down a shopping list or to-do list, then shoving it in your pocket or purse. The extended flap on the back cover keeps the book closed, or acts as a bookmark. $12 each.

This was a big year for seconds! This is the only event where I will sell seconds, and this year's selection is larger than usual. Including quite a few imperfect mugs. Some are almost firsts and marked down just a little. Some are steeply marked down. All seconds are still fully functional pots.

Good Elephant Pottery's 13th Annual Holiday Open Studio
Saturday, December 14th and Sunday, December 15th
10am to 5pm both days
Hope to see you there!

(For those of you not in the DC/Maryland area, my annual Online Sale will open on Monday, December 16, at 10am ET. Stay tuned!)

0 Comments

I was a designer first.

9/25/2019

8 Comments

This is Sharon Thorpe, one of the amazing teachers I had as a college design student. That was a long time ago now! I graduated in 1992. If you think she looks too young to have been my professor, that’s because she was one of those high-energy go-getters from a very young age, carving out her design career and teaching college classes.

This might come as a surprise to you. Back then, the design program at the University of Maryland was not part of the UMD Department of Art. We were part of the Department of Human Ecology. Human Ecology was akin to home economics. What began as craft and home decor classes evolved into Crafts and Interior Design, then a Graphic Design program. The Department of Art did not want anything to do with teaching design. They said it was “vocational” and did not fit with their liberal arts mission. I did not fully understand this as a teenager. But after being a design student, being a design professional, teaching in an art college, and now working in the ceramics field, the difference between my education, and a fine arts education, is something I think about a lot. I feel lucky and grateful to have made that choice.

In the mid 90s, the economy was in recession, the university was cutting costs, and the design programs were eliminated. These were small programs, and there were active design programs at other UMD campuses. One of my former professors ended up teaching in the Department of Art. He described how different things were there. Suddenly, when he gave someone a B on a project, he would hear from that kid’s parents, demanding that the grade be changed to an A. My classmates and I howled with laughter. When we were his students, we knew that As were rare and only for truly exceptional ideas and effort, and we never felt entitled to them.

This was the culture I experienced in college. I grew up so much during those years. It felt like an accomplishment to be voted “class artist” in high school. But college is way more competitive, there are so many talented students, and suddenly I was getting critiqued for the first time! Also new to me were deadlines, craftsmanship, the whole functional aspect of design, and what seemed like an insane amount of work (I will end up feeling differently about the workload later, keep reading). We had a semester-long class called “Professional Skills” where we learned how to put together a resume and a portfolio, how to apply for jobs, how to be interviewed, and about the various career formats that were available to us. To those who think this is too “vocational,” if only they understood the value of what they missed.

I still have a box full of samples from my 20 year design career.

College-level design programs are very different from the rest of academia. We had a few full-time professors, but most of our faculty were “adjuncts,” meaning part-time and non-permanent. In most fields of academia, including fine arts, adjuncts are considered lower-tier, because they are not deemed qualified for full-time status. In design academia, adjuncts and full-timers are on the same level. In fact, adjuncts with busy and accomplished careers are sought after in good design programs, because they bring a real world perspective to what they are teaching. They make good role models, like Sharon Thorpe and others like her.

In the early 2000s, I taught for a couple of years at a well-known art college in DC. The commercial arts departments of this college were taught mostly by adjuncts, similar to the education I received. Our classes were in a building several miles from the college’s main location. So I didn’t mingle with the fine arts teachers. Until someone created a listserv for professors of this college. At first it was fun, but before long I saw the severe culture differences between fine arts teachers and design teachers. Again, we were mostly adjuncts, and they were mostly full-time. For example, the college had been charging them $5/month for parking at their downtown building. The fee was being increased to $15/month. The whining was unbelievable. I had spent a few years working in an office downtown, where parking spaces had been $125/month. The complaints grew into vague screeds about how much abuse and indignity they had to suffer at the hands of their employer. The disconnect with reality, and the sense of victimhood, were a big shock. And then they started voicing their anger over how much adjuncts got paid, twisting it as “adjuncts get paid more than us” which was not true at all. Adjuncts got paid per class, not a full-time salary, which broke down to a higher per-hour rate. We got no benefits or job security. But that “per-hour” calculation was enough for full-timers to lose their shit. The story might be funny when it’s about college kids with overprotective parents. But when the story is about 50 year old art professors, it isn’t funny anymore.

I left that job after two years. I love teaching, and I really liked my colleagues in the computer graphics department. But I was really turned off by the culture I saw among the full-time teachers. This college had a fancy reputation, but underneath I saw something rotten. I didn’t want to be associated with it. And besides, even though some thought I was being paid too much per hour, I was charging much more than that in my private design practice. (That’s what a vocational education gets you.)

So back to the subject of “role models.” When I was a student, I’m not sure I fully appreciated it at the time. Now as a middle-aged adult, looking back on my career path, I now understand the importance of role models. You can learn the nuts and bolts of any field in a classroom. But being a professional anything takes a lot more than nuts and bolts knowledge. Good role models show you, in a much more comprehensive way, “this is the type of person you need to be after you get out of school.”

I’m sure there are exceptions to what I’m about to say. But in my experience, those with fine arts educations, including ceramics, probably did not have access to real world role models. They were taught by people who have never ventured very far from a college campus themselves. The system that hires fine arts professors favors those who have paid the most into the academic system. Academia tries to prove its own relevance by requiring its teachers to have MFAs, which are not cheap! There are no scholarships or grants to pay you to get an MFA. You pay for them yourself, to the tune of $50,000 to $75,000. And this is on top of the cost of your bachelor’s degree.

Those who manage to land a rare job in academia are very possessive about it. This is another reason why fine arts programs can’t hire working artists to teach as adjuncts, and bring more real world experience to college classrooms. Their culture depends too much on things like “tenure” and “full-time.” Adjuncts, with our independence from such things, are a threat to them. Just look at the contempt that the full-timers had for adjuncts at the school where I taught.

It’s hard to quantify exactly how much (or how little) an art degree is worth, but here is a report titled Artists Report Back, A National Study on the Lives of Art Graduates and Working Artists that tried to do so. I recommend reading the whole thing, but here are some key points:

• Among those with fine arts degrees, only 10% of them become working artists.
• Among working artists, only 16% of them have fine arts degrees. 40% of them have no bachelor’s degree at all.
• 7 of the 10 most expensive colleges in the U.S. are art colleges.
• The average earnings of working artists is $30,000 per year. Those with art degrees are doing a little better, averaging $36,000 per year.
• Designers and architects were excluded from both the “art graduate” and “working artist” data, because their higher earnings significantly skewed the data.

To summarize in my own words, for those who paid up to $200,000 for a bachelor’s degree in art, 10% of them will earn $36,000 per year. Which is only $6,000 more per year than their counterparts who did not get an art degree, including many who do not have a bachelor’s degree at all. The other 90% will not become working artists.

The study authors summarize, “We acknowledge that some arts graduates are satisfied with work in other fields, but the fantasy of arts graduates’ future earnings in the arts should be discredited.”

Again, I feel lucky and grateful to have gone through a different system, with a totally different culture, and different values. Hooray for vocational school! Not only did my education set me up for the professional world, the experience of working as a designer also set me up to run a pottery studio.

Designers are taught how to take an idea and convert it into reality, using the elements of design, contextual relationships, time and space, hierarchy, color theory, etc. A good design is an aggregation of a bunch of complex parts, even for those of us who strive for simplicity in our final outcomes. We are taught how to put the parts together, and how to make them work with each other. And to speak the message that we want to convey. Now I use all of these skills when developing pottery designs. By now, I have seen plenty of “wow” pottery made by other potters, but so much more that was an “almost wow,” where somebody didn’t quite put it all together. Including work by potters who were formally educated. Or, they only learned how to make work that looks exactly like an established potter’s work, rather than learning how to build complete designs out of their own ideas.

We also learn the “design process,” starting with a concept, followed by a first draft (or three), followed by cycles of review and revisions, until finally all of the issues are resolved. I’ve seen so many good potters who will make a new design for the first time, shrug and put it out for sale. They don’t seem to understand that the first attempt at a new design is never a complete design. The complex parts need to be resolved. When I put first drafts out for sale, they are viewed as prototypes and their job is to gather feedback, not to be regarded as finished designs. I’ve also seen professional potters scrap their entire line of work, and start working in a completely different aesthetic without any testing or feedback. That’s not professional art, that’s gambling! A new aesthetic also needs to go through the design process.

Remember when I said that studying design was an insane amount of work? Our design classes involved maybe three projects per semester. It seemed overwhelming to a student because there is so much to learn, and all of those details to resolve. About three years into my professional career, one day at work I stopped and counted my projects, and realized I had completed 17 of them in the past month. The projects were not any less complicated, but my brain had evolved to process and resolve the details much faster. This is why many potters don’t bother with the design process when developing new pots or aesthetics. When you’re not used to doing it, it seems overwhelming. But after you have done it hundreds and hundreds of times, it seems like a normal thing to do, and it can be done quickly.

As a designer, the design process is followed by a technical post-production process, which allows a printer to take the finished design and reproduce it. This is one area where formally-educated potters get what they need. The technical training in college pottery programs is strong. My issue with academia on this subject is that it doesn’t take four years, or the expense of a bachelor’s degree, to learn this. I had a high-school nerd’s background in chemistry, which helps. But in general, the technical side of pottery can be learned through books, workshops, and community colleges, for much cheaper than a bachelor's degree. The same is actually true for the production aspects of design. My college training in design production was “the old way,” involving photo-typesetting, wax, non-repro blue pencils, rule tape, etc. Within two years after I graduated, it was all being done on computers. I had to learn production all over again. But it didn’t require going back to college. Today, these skills can be learned in adult education settings, faster and much cheaper. The valuable part of my college degree was the “how to think like a designer” part.

Designers learn to take the word “deadline” very seriously. I’ve met so many artists who have no idea how to manage their time. Or they have no concept of “parameters” at all, things like time, budgets, continuity, graphic standards, etc. Part of a designer’s training is to have these concepts drilled in. This has been a big advantage for me as a potter too. There’s a big difference between the festival artists who read the exhibitor packets in advance, and therefore show up knowing all of the show’s rules and logistics, and the artists who wing it, in terms of who has an easier time at the show. And who has enough energy for a year-round schedule of shows. Your level of preparedness also impacts your relationships with show producers, and your fellow artists. I also had a big advantage when working in the wholesale sector of the craft industry. As I took orders at a trade show, I would tell the buyer the exact date to expect their order. This is apparently very different from the way most wholesale potters/artists treat delivery timeframes. Many give their buyers a big window of delivery time, and don’t think it’s a big deal to be late. There was one order where I had to miss a deadline due to a bad firing. I called the buyer, told her what happened, and asked for two more weeks. She practically gushed at being told in advance that the delivery would be late. I entered the wholesale marketplace in 2007, at the beginning of the last recession. And even though many artists and galleries struggled during the years that followed, my pottery studio grew from part-time to full-time during those years. I believe my dependable approach was a big help to buyers who were under a lot of stress.

Criticism and feedback are big chunks of a designer’s workflow. We process it all, and try to get the most out of it. We learn to distinguish the valid from the invalid. We learn to understand the motives behind it. I don’t see it as a personal attack. As a festival artist, for every sale I make, dozens of people walked out of my booth and thought “nah.” It doesn’t bother me. But a lot of artists cannot stomach that much perceived rejection. I’ve seen many talented artists who fall apart when criticized. Or get angry. They have no ability to use feedback as a tool. Again, I suspect this is because they didn’t have the right teachers. Or maybe when they had a good teacher, their parents intervened when that teacher gave them a B.

Lots of feedback from other people also causes you to develop a strong sense of your own personal aesthetic values. This is another area where a lot of aspiring potters struggle. They are searching for their “voice” or their “look” and don’t know where to start. Designers don’t have to search. After hearing so many opinions about our work for years, we know exactly what we believe. At the very beginning of my pottery business, I was thinking “I want to make quiet, understated pottery, using gray and white glazes on brown clay. Rustic, but also modern. Functionality will be my highest priority, with strong nods towards historical Korean pottery.” These values have carried me all the way to today.

Designers get their creative brains into gear whether they feel like it or not. This has shaped my overall attitude towards working, which is different than a lot of artists. Another artist at a show once said to me “You must be sick of making mugs.” I answered “No, not really. When you decide to become a professional potter, you just have to accept that you’re gonna make thousands of mugs, and you need to be positive about it.” Pulling mug handles is admittedly not my favorite task. But I have never lost sight of the fact that being a potter is a great privilege, and an indulgent choice. The least I can do is work my butt off. Too many artists believe they have to right to work only when they feel “inspired.” I roll my eyes.

Finally, maybe the most important thing about my design training, as it relates to my pottery business, is that graphic design is a job that can be easily formatted for self-employment. Especially after all the production was shifted to desktop computers. And it helped to have role models for self-employment as college professors. I became self-employed at age 26. By the time I launched a part-time pottery business, I had been running a design business for 6 years. Over the years I have met so many potters, and artists in general, who have never learned basic business practices. In fact, I’ve met many artists who have confused and conflicted ideas about money. They all dream of getting paid but don’t want to be seen as a “sell out.” Designers don’t see money or business as something “dirty.” We see it as earning a honest living, which is part of being a responsible adult.

And here’s another huge benefit to having built a design business first. It took eight years for the pottery business to grow into a real income, and during those years I did not go hungry. This is something that pains me greatly about those with ceramics degrees. Many of them leave college believing they can make an income right away. Nobody told them it would take years, maybe a decade, to slowly grow their business. You need to have an income during those early years. Thanks to my design business, I never had to make decisions about my pottery that were driven by financial pressure. I developed my body of work, and my audience, in ways that never felt like a compromise. The design business afforded me the space and time I needed to succeed at pottery on my own terms.

Really, the whole point of this blog post is to talk about the reasons why most art businesses fail: lack of financial wherewithal, poor work ethic, can’t manage parameters, can’t take criticism, can’t objectively shepherd their creativity into viable work. I believe this type of training is missing from most artists’ educations. At some point while I was becoming a potter, it dawned on me that the reason I do not suffer from these things is because I became a designer first.

8 Comments

I got on TV at the Smithsonian Craft Show

4/30/2019

1 Comment

At this year's Smithsonian Craft Show, I was interviewed by Voice of America's Korean TV station. There were quite a few Korean artists in the show, so I am thrilled that they picked me. The program is in Korean but they let me do my part in English with subtitles. Here's a link to watch. The segment is the first 1:30 of the program.

The whole show itself was another life-defining experience. This is the apex of the craft world, and it is a real honor to be so well-received here. Both by the attendees of the show, and the committee of gracious and tireless people who organize it every year. On the last afternoon as things were winding down, I wanted to lie down on my back in the middle of the aisle, with my ankles crossed and my hands behind my head, and just gaze up into the soaring architecture of the National Building Museum. And to contemplate "what's next?" Don't worry I didn't do it.

1 Comment

Old Knowledge, New Skills

4/2/2019

4 Comments

I mentioned in my last blog post that I've been studying hand bookbinding since last summer. This is a serious option for me, in terms of what I'm going to do with myself after I retire from pottery. I don't want to sit around with nothing to do. I also don't want to do any more heavy lifting, or to be tied to a bunch of heavy equipment. A bookbinding operation fits on a desk, and can easily be moved from place to place. It seems like a good fit for how I want to live.

Even though my retirement is several years away, I think it's important to start learning this now. I need to figure out two things: 1) Do I like doing it enough that I would be happy doing it a lot? 2) Can I make a decent "beer money" income with handmade books?

And there's another reason why I'm starting this now. Some people think that being a professional artist means you get to do fun things every day. Total fallacy! If you achieve full-time professional status as a creative person, your life involves doing the same things every day, over and over, day after day. It's important to get off your hamster wheel once in a while, before you forget how. If you depend on your creative work for your income, falling into a rut is deadly. I've seen it happen too many times, when a very talented person grows to hate their own work. It's sad. Shifting your brain into "learn mode" can do wonders for the way you feel about your daily work.

There's nothing like cutting off all the stitches of your hand-bound book, because you realized you made a crucial mistake at the beginning, to remind you what it feels like to be a beginner again. Which then forces you to see how far you've come in your own area of expertise, and to contemplate all the years of practice it took. It makes you feel pretty good, not bored or burnt out.

Bookbinding brings me back to all of my favorites aspects of my previous career as a print graphic designer (an almost extinct breed nowadays). Such as pawing through pretty paper samples, cutting and folding, knowing how to make tiny adjustments to accommodate paper's third dimension, among others things. And of course ... measuring! My favorite verb. And I get to say hello to my old measuring friends, Pica and Point.

Since last summer, I've taken two workshops at Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center in Hyattsville, MD (which I highly recommend). And I've started reading a series of books by Keith Smith, which were recommended by my instructor. These are the first projects I've made by myself at home, without the guidance of an instructor.

I'm calling this first design the "List Book." I am a zealous list maker and note taker, and go through lots of these little notebooks. From now on, I'm going to make them instead of buying them. The first one took me over five hours, as I figured out the design from scratch. You can see how many times I changed my mind about the details. And like I mentioned, I made sewing mistakes that forced me to start over.

Here are the text signatures. I printed the rules with my laser printer, and was able to space them for the size of my own handwriting. And once again my previous career training helped, because I already knew the definitions of signatures/sections, sheets, and pages, and how to count them.

Here is the book's cover mapped out. The back cover has an extended tab. It can be folded inside the back cover out of the way, or slotted into the front cover to keep the book closed, or used as a bookmark.

After spending five hours on the first one, the second one took only thirty minutes.

Here's a closer look at the stitching on the spine.

I have already begun using one of them. The size is just right, the cover and pages hinge very easily, and I like the way it holds itself open in a relaxed stance when you put it down. Overall, it's very comfortable to use, kind-of like a handmade mug or bowl.

After finishing these small books, I decided to try something more ambitious. I also use a lot of 8.5 x 11 spiral notebooks. I call them "Show Books" because it's where I record my before + after inventory lists for every show, and where I add up my sales. This book has fabric-wrapped hard covers, and is stitched together with a form of "coptic stitching." This stitching allows a thick book to lie open by itself, and even to flip the front cover around to the back. I'm a little skeptical that the linen threads will hold up to abuse, because this book gets carried with me to every show inside a messenger bag. But so far it feels nice and sturdy. And just like the List Book, the covers and pages hinge very comfortably. I guess time will tell how well it holds up.

I've already started using this book too. I have a growing list of reservations for my upcoming 2019 shows. I like that this is on the very first page of the book, which means it will be easy to find and edit this list.

I would also like to develop a journal-sized notebook, and possibly a calendar/planner. My plan is to have a few prototypes of these available for sale at my next Open Studio in December.

4 Comments

A Well-Earned Break

3/14/2019

0 Comments

When I decided to do pottery full-time, I was okay with the idea that vacations might not be in the budget. Just one of many sacrifices I was willing to make in order to pursue something that was more important to me. An artist's income is unpredictable. We can't control when the next recession will arrive. We might get sick or injured and be unable to work for a while. Cultivating a sense of security is a top priority. The way my pottery business has developed has been worth every sacrifice. In recent years, I have become more comfortable, eager even, to plan nice vacations for myself. And sometimes life sends a reminder to reward myself for good financial health.

This is a trip I've made before, and will be repeating again for sure. I went to Sarasota, Florida, to watch the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico, and to watch the Orioles play some spring training games. It was so nice to get away from winter for a few days!

A friend of mine saw this photo on Facebook, and teased me for reading what appears to be a work-related book. I have been studying bookbinding since last summer, and I swear the subject is geeky fun for me! It combines all of the best parts of being a print graphic designer, my previous career, with all of the handmade craftsmanship principles of my current career. It's possible I spent my break from the pottery studio setting up my life after pottery.

0 Comments

A new domain name for the Online School

1/4/2019

0 Comments

Since 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!

0 Comments

New Pots for the Open Studio 2018

11/28/2018

2 Comments

This has been a productive year in terms of exploring some new ideas. If you are coming to the Open Studio this weekend, you'll be the first to see them.

I recently blogged about these new glazes, Snow and Cloud, with hakeme background textures. I plan to use this combination on minimalist, down-to-earth, functional forms. The cups are part of the Whiskey Sipper line (introduced last year) and are $35 each. The medium sized serving bowls range from $65 to $75. The larger bowl is 9 1/4" across.

These rectangular trays are also part of the new Snow/Cloud line, with the addition of fine-line illustrations carved into the hakeme. 4 3/8" x 10 1/4". For serving sushi or snacks, or for displaying treasured items. I'm still figuring out how best to glaze them, so for now they will be sold at the "prototype" price of $22 each.

UPDATE: The rectangular trays are now sold out. I will be making more in 2019.

I've always been fascinated by clock face designs. I made clocks many years ago when I was a beginner potter. (they were pretty cheesy.) I am coming back to the idea now, with much better craftsmanship and design, and with silent continuous-sweep clock movements. Some are meant for wall hanging, and some are meant to sit on a desk or shelf. The white one in the middle is 6 1/2" across. Introductory priced this weekend at $65 each. My plan for these going forward is to make these occasionally in low volumes, with a wide variation of designs.

The Boat and the Mini Boat. The Boat is 15" long, and can serve bread or salads. Or it can be used in your entry way to hold your mail, wallet, and keys. Introductory priced at $55. The Mini Boat is 10 1/4" long. Perfect for olives or other finger snacks, or filled with pencils on your desk. Introductory priced at $20.

I'm now offering a second version of the Maryland Platter. I'm still making the one with the silhouette of the state of Maryland, but now there is a second one featuring a blue crab. 8 1/4" x 11 1/2", $75 each. Can I take a moment to rant about people who try to sell crab-themed artwork to Marylanders that features a dungeness crab instead of a blue crab? Those people should be deported to a different state.

UPDATE: The Maryland Platters (both versions) are now sold out. I will be making more in 2019.

Here is this year's lineup of School Pots. These are the pots made during the filming of my Online School videos. Prices range from $24 to $75.

Of course I will be fully stocked with all of my usual line of work. There will also be a "scratch and dent" table full of steep bargains, and a table full of snacks. Hope to see you this weekend!

Good Elephant Pottery's 12th Annual Holiday Open Studio
December 8-9, 2018
10am to 5pm both days

2 Comments

How to Efficiently Reclaim Clay

11/16/2018

0 Comments

I wrote an article about my efficient approach to reclaiming clay, which has been published in the December 2018 issue of Ceramics Monthly. My method boils down to making small batches, and keeping an eye on the slop bucket everyday. It's not that much work, and I gain about 20% more clay for free. Better still, incorporating reclaimed clay into my workflow allows me to manage the softness of my throwing clay, which is much easier on my body. If you don't subscribe to Ceramics Monthly, you can download a high-res PDF of the article here.

Originally published in the December 2018 issue of Ceramics Monthly, page 58. http://www.ceramicsmonthly.org. Copyright, The American Ceramic Society. Reprinted with permission.

0 Comments

The Elusive Outdoor Booth Photo

10/11/2018

5 Comments

When applying for art festivals, many shows ask for a photograph of your booth. It's not that hard to photograph an indoor booth, with controlled lighting and no weather. But shooting an outdoor booth is kind of like nature photography! It's hard to get the conditions just right, and it takes a lot of patience. You really can't use an indoor photo to apply for an outdoor show. Some shows state specifically "white canopies only" and some shows will even get picky about which brands of canopies are acceptable or not. Therefore, your booth photo must show that you can handle outdoor logistics, and that you have a decent canopy.

I hadn't taken an outdoor booth shot in at least five years. I changed my display a lot since then, so it was time. Earlier this year, I realized there was only one show this entire year where I would have a chance to take photos during daylight hours, without any customers around. This was at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, where setup takes place starting at 6pm on the day before the show. It's the middle of summer, so the sun stays out past 8pm. All of my other outdoor shows this year had setup hours in the early morning or after dark.

I once paid a professional to photograph my booth, but I wasn't happy with the result (he might want to ease up on the sharpening filter). However, I did learn a neat trick from him while he was shooting. He took a bracketed range of photos, from underexposed to overexposed. The final photograph was a composite of different exposures, choosing areas of each shot where the lighting was ideal.

I had to shoot these photos around 8pm, with the sun starting to sink. I took a bracketed range of photos. Here is a darker one. Everything here is too dark, but I like that the canopy is not glaring white, and the bright ray of sunlight on the right wall is not too glaring either.

Here is the lightest photo that I took. The pots along the back wall of the display are now correctly exposed. But everything else looks obviously blown out. The canopy is still brighter than the display, and it is closer to your eye than the display, which means it draws more attention that it should.

Here are the two photos combined. In Photoshop, I layered the darker photo on top of the lighter photo. I added a Layer Mask to the darker layer. Then I selectively erased areas of the darker layer, using a soft-edged brush on the Layer Mask, to reveal areas of the lighter photo. This is mostly the dark photo. The light photo is only used for the pots and the logo curtain.

I also straightened and cropped the photo, leaving just enough details of my canopy for a knowledgeable juror to recognize it as a Light Dome, which is a well-known brand. And I applied the right amount of sharpening.

You might be wondering why I didn't just take a medium exposed photo, and lighten and darken areas using Photoshop tools. That's because making those types of edits results in data being thrown away from your original file. In some publishing situations, that loss of data can come back to bite you. In terms of good Photoshop habits, you should avoid throwing away data whenever possible. Also, if you don't have a good touch, inventing your own shadows and highlights can look very fake. Your camera does a much better job of calculating these things than Photoshop ever can. It's not a fair fight, your camera has the actual subject to work with. By combining two original photographs, you are not throwing away any data. And it's almost impossible to make it look fake.

So glad it wasn't raining that day! I would have had to wait for another year.

5 Comments

Pricing Your Pottery, video now available

4/18/2018

0 Comments

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)

0 Comments

<<Previous

New pots for the Open Studio 2019

I was a designer first.

I got on TV at the Smithsonian Craft Show

Old Knowledge, New Skills

A Well-Earned Break

A new domain name for the Online School

New Pots for the Open Studio 2018

How to Efficiently Reclaim Clay

The Elusive Outdoor Booth Photo

Pricing Your Pottery, video now available

author

upcoming shows

join the herd

categories

archives