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I Made The Boingboing Gift Guide


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Congrats, Ray!! Got a link to this wonderful event? I'd like to see what they had to say. ;)  Often times, we are our own harshest critic when it comes to our work. It's always nice to hear a more positive opinion, especially if it comes from someone well versed in the medium we're working in. ;)

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Way to go Ray!!  I had never heard of Boing boing...well, maybe have a vague remembrance, but I've never seen it.  So I went to the website, and my what a strange thing that was.  Looked like a totally random list of things people liked...no search function.

But anyway, I did find your "blerb", and then I even went to your website, and I must say, your pipes are truly beautiful.  Makes me wish I smoked.

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Thanks for the kind words.  I wouldn't make these pipes if I thought they would cause anyone to take up smoking... but I'm pretty sure that's not how it works.  (I think some folks are buying them as collectibles, and that's how they are categorized in my Etsy shop.)

 

Amy, it's just a gift guide, with a brief description and links to my shops:

 

http://boingboing.net/2015/11/27/boing-boing-gift-guide-2015.html

 

It's a long list, and my bit comes up at random locations in the list, which I think they do to avoid indicating that some of their choices are better than others.  But you can use your browser's search function to look up my name.

 

The exciting thing about these forms, to me, is that while historic examples of artful clay pipes are plentiful, almost no contemporary potters are seriously exploring this niche.  There are tens of thousands of potters who make nice teapots, but the ones who make nice pipes, so far as I can tell, can be counted on one hand.  And even there, I would say that of the ones I've seen, the highly skilled professionals are making designs which are then produced offshore in factories.  I've not aware of any highly skilled mingei pipemakers, for example.  (I use the term "mingei" generically, in the folk art sense, not in its specific meaning in terms of Japanese culture.)

 

Today I'm putting together ten gecko effigy pipes.  The effigy pipes are really time-consuming to assemble, and I recently raised my prices a lot.  I realized that even a small effigy pipe was taking me longer to put together than a teapot would.  We'll have to see if anyone is willing to buy them, though I have sold a few pipes for more than a hundred dollars.  Even so, that's not much better than minimum wage.

 

But these are really fun to make, so I'll probably keep making them.

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