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Time travails
Aug. 14th, 2016 11:41 pmDenise overheard a customer in the next booth, asking our neighbor, "How long does it take you to make these?" It's a question I get as well, and not an easy one to answer. A potter I know answers the question, 28 years, so far, with the number going up with each year he continues to make pots. It's a true, but glib answer.
To be honest, I tell Denise, the answer may depend on why they're asking. Are they really interested in how efficient a potter I am? Are they trying to gauge how (un)reasonable my prices are?
Though occasionally, I suspect the latter, more often I think neither is true. I think the question's a sort of icebreaker, not unlike Did you make this?. They want to talk to me about my work, but don't really know enough about the process to ask knowledgeable questions. They may have seen a demonstration, or a video somewhere, and were struck by how fast the pots seemed to appear. And so they ask.
My answer usually starts, "It's hard to say."
I then explain that I really never make one pot at a time. I'll take a 25 lb. bag of clay and divide it into 24 lumps for coffee mugs, 20 for tall mugs, or 16 soup bowls or stew mugs. I throw those pots, stopping occasionally to stretch, replace a full ware board, change the CD in the player. Then I'll wedge up the next 25 lb. bag, divide up and weigh the pieces, and continue. On an average day, I'll throw between 75 and 100 pounds of clay. Once, when I was under serious deadline pressure, I topped 125.
In about a day, soups and stews will be ready to flip over and trim. Mugs will need handles to be pulled and attached. Plates and pies and bakers come off the bats, get flipped and smoothed after two days, and the bats need to be scraped clean before the clay dries. Everything will need to sit out and dry, either in the studio or, if I'm pressed for space, out on sawhorses in the sun on the driveway. All the while continuing to make more pots.
When enough work is dry, I load my electric kiln and do a bisque firing. When I've filled the bisque about three times, I take everything down to my pottery co-op to glaze and decorate.
I usually budget a solid week for glazing, more if I can. Then it takes four more days to load, fire, cool and unload the big gas glaze kiln. Throw in another to sort and price the pots. Then back to the studio to start over again.
So I can't tell you how long it takes to make one pot. But I can make 50 cubic feet of pottery in about 4-6 weeks.
Sure, I could blow off the question with a quick answer, but I hate to pass up a teachable moment. And I really believe that the more people realize how much goes into what we do, the more they'll appreciate the end result.
To be honest, I tell Denise, the answer may depend on why they're asking. Are they really interested in how efficient a potter I am? Are they trying to gauge how (un)reasonable my prices are?
Though occasionally, I suspect the latter, more often I think neither is true. I think the question's a sort of icebreaker, not unlike Did you make this?. They want to talk to me about my work, but don't really know enough about the process to ask knowledgeable questions. They may have seen a demonstration, or a video somewhere, and were struck by how fast the pots seemed to appear. And so they ask.
My answer usually starts, "It's hard to say."
I then explain that I really never make one pot at a time. I'll take a 25 lb. bag of clay and divide it into 24 lumps for coffee mugs, 20 for tall mugs, or 16 soup bowls or stew mugs. I throw those pots, stopping occasionally to stretch, replace a full ware board, change the CD in the player. Then I'll wedge up the next 25 lb. bag, divide up and weigh the pieces, and continue. On an average day, I'll throw between 75 and 100 pounds of clay. Once, when I was under serious deadline pressure, I topped 125.
In about a day, soups and stews will be ready to flip over and trim. Mugs will need handles to be pulled and attached. Plates and pies and bakers come off the bats, get flipped and smoothed after two days, and the bats need to be scraped clean before the clay dries. Everything will need to sit out and dry, either in the studio or, if I'm pressed for space, out on sawhorses in the sun on the driveway. All the while continuing to make more pots.
When enough work is dry, I load my electric kiln and do a bisque firing. When I've filled the bisque about three times, I take everything down to my pottery co-op to glaze and decorate.
I usually budget a solid week for glazing, more if I can. Then it takes four more days to load, fire, cool and unload the big gas glaze kiln. Throw in another to sort and price the pots. Then back to the studio to start over again.
So I can't tell you how long it takes to make one pot. But I can make 50 cubic feet of pottery in about 4-6 weeks.
Sure, I could blow off the question with a quick answer, but I hate to pass up a teachable moment. And I really believe that the more people realize how much goes into what we do, the more they'll appreciate the end result.