What Do You Like Making Vs. What Sells

[Pres]

Of late I have been throwing some nice 3# bowls. I prefer bowls to dishes, for me a bowl is rounded smoothly from rim to center and back to rim on other side, no breaks in the curve, no flat spots and a round interior bottom. Anything else is a dish. I have also been cutting the feet of these with 11/2 pipe to make it so foot rings do not gather water in the dishwasher.

[Benzine]

 I have also been cutting the feet of these with 11/2 pipe to make it so foot rings do not gather water in the dishwasher.

 

 

I've seen you mention this before, and I wish the commercial makers would have done this years ago, because the foot rings of our dinnerware set excel at gathering water.

 

For me, a dish is in between a plate and a bowl.  It has higher, more vertical walls than a plate, but a flatter, more spread out base than a bowl.

 

Sometimes, it's all a matter of perspective.  I'll have students that say, "I was trying to make a mug, but it looks like a bowl."  I tell them, throw a handle on it, now it's a mug!

[Pres]

Yeah Ben, I would tell them it looked like a dog dish and scrap it. ONLY if it was poorly thrown, heavy, poorly trimmed or otherwise. I usually told them to keep it they had to measure and throw a lid for it. 

 

 

best,

Pres

[rayaldridge]

What an interesting discussion!

 

Over the last few months, my favorite thing to make and the best-selling thing I make are porcelain pipes.  As I've explained before, I don't know of any other studio potters who are making pipes that are much like mine, so every step I take along that road takes me deeper into a frontier that I never suspected even existed.  When I was a young potter 40 years ago, with no responsibilities to anyone but myself, I made a lot of pipes, and sold a lot of them, because even then there was no competition to speak of.  But when I got married and we started a family, I decided that I had to leave that world behind-- too much risk of terrible consequences, and not just to me but to the innocents for whom I was responsible.

 

But the world seems to be changing, and all our kids are grown and doing well on their own, so I felt comfortable returning to the form.  And I have to tell you, it's been remarkably rewarding.  Every firing produces better results-- I'm about to bisque a load that has some stuff in it that I'm really proud of-- some effigy pipes that have a timeless quality, if I do say so as shouldn't.  I'm not a terrible potter, and I've produced pots I'm proud of in the past, but nothing has made me feel as proud as these little pipes.  The best thing is that I know I've got a lot of room for improvement before I reach even a minimal level of competence at the form.  It's exciting, especially for a potter as old as I am... to have that potential for improvement in front of me.

 

As to pricing-- that's another very interesting aspect of this form.  I recently realized that I would be unable to economically produce the pipes for wholesaling at the prices I was asking, because in many ways these pipes are as complex to make as a good teapot.  Consequently, as an experiment I doubled and in some cases tripled my prices, and discovered that at least some folks think the prices are fine, because I've sold more pipes in the last month than in the previous 6 months.

 

I've posted pics of some of these pieces in my gallery, but here's a few that I like: