time and value

My last post got me thinking about time and value.  This past Saturday I took this picture of one of the woodworkers, James Corbitt, http://rivercityfarmersmarket.org/jims_wooden_bowls.htm at the farmers market with one of the bowls he's made.  Many, many little pieces of wood joined together in this bowl, and it's smooth as silk.

We are so used to getting everything we need right now.  When you can walk into a store and instantly choose from hundreds of mass produced items I think we all forget how to value the time and experience of individual artisan-made items. 

Another woodworker at the market, George Corbitt, makes boxes. Some traditional looking, others follow the natural shape of the branch the wood came from.  All beautiful.  I have given several of these as gifts.  I bought this one for a Christmas present last Saturday.

It is made from a dogwood branch.

I saw a post about this video:

Mike Dodd - 'Potter', visit modernpots.com - YouTube

It is very much about the process.  You can appreciate the finished product without knowing much about how it was made, but some knowledge sure does enhance the view. 

 

making mugs

A customer at the market wanted a couple of mugs in a certain glaze for a gift and asked how long it would take.  I said four weeks.  I think she was surprised.  Most people are.  I've had people ask, "Will it be ready next week?" (hysterical laughing in the little bubble above my head)  So, I thought of taking step by step pictures of the process of making mugs along with a timeline and explanation . I think some people might be interested, but I'm also thinking of how it might help me.

Christmas is when this time lag situation gets to be a problem.  Actually four weeks from start to finish is faster than what I usually would quote.  It just happens this time I almost had a kiln load's worth of pots waiting to bisque fire.  I don't fire up the kiln just for a couple of mugs.  I want it to be as packed as possible so I can get optimal use out of the electricity. If I have very few pots ready to fire it could be an additional couple of weeks added to that timeline.

 I'm not sure how I'll present this "making mugs" write-up yet.  I hope it can be a kind of educational tool to understand the process and the time involved.  And why it costs more than a Walmart mug! We'll see.  And those mugs?  Almost ready to fire.  They are loaded in the kiln but I detect slight dampness still.  I have decided not to be an idiot and rush it.- Will wait another 24 hours to fire. 

photos- new and improved, I hope

My photography background paper came today, so four hours later I had things set up in the basement.  I'm missing one light, but tried taking one picture just to try it out anyway.  Looks promising.  I chose this particular salt pig to photograph because of its highly reflective glaze.  It gave me fits to photograph before- all that glare to deal with.

 I saw this set-up for photographing pottery some months ago- http://dmichaelcoffee.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/shots-of-pots-on-the-cheap-and-low-tech/.  I was reluctant to try it out because it looked like it takes a fair amount of space. But I was taking so much time fussing with lighting and not getting satisfactory results, I finally gave in to trying another way.  This is a cheaper version of Michael Coffee's set-up.  That's foamboard being used as the reflector panel.  I'm using a 13 watt daylight compact florescent bulb in the clip-on lamp.  The backdrop paper is supposed to be neutral gray, which is one of the colors Michael recommended, but they sent me thunder gray.  So I'll pick up another light soon, play around a little with the positioning of the foamboard, and see what happens. 
Update- I had an email conversation with the company that sold me the paper.  They said they have two warehouses and neutral gray is labeled thunder gray at one of them.    

pricing

Last week I finally had a sale from my Etsy shop. To tell the truth, I wasn't expecting it.  The appearance of my shop isn't what I want it to be yet. I've been avoiding photographing more items for Etsy because it is such a time consuming process which just takes away from much needed studio time. And I wasn't  really happy with the results of the last pictures I put on the site.  I think I'll be trying a different way to shoot pictures of pottery soon.- Keep you posted.
Here's the jar that sold-

  You know, when I was trying to figure out shipping costs I took a look at what other potters were pricing things for shipping.  It seemed to me that they were a little low on shipping costs but were probably increasing the item's price a little to absorb the difference.  And I thought, yeah that might make sense.  If I liked something that cost $17.00 and it shipped for $10.00 I'd think it was ridiculous to pay that much shipping on a $17.00 item.  But if that item were priced at $22.00 and shipped for $7.00
that seems much more reasonable.  So I tweaked my item and shipping prices a little.  Basically, I averaged shipping to a San Diego zip code with my home town zip code (New Castle, PA) to get near and far prices and threw out Hawaii and Alaska. Guess where this jar got shipped to?  That's right, Hawaii.  So right away the cost went over the shipping price I quoted and dug into the item price. Then I realized I forgot Pay pal takes a small percentage, and I'm sure I read this when I was setting up in Etsy and just forgot- Etsy charges a buck for each sale. Ended up going two or three bucks under my lowest acceptable price on this one. Oh well.