Sharing the load

There's not a lot of my job I can delegate. I throw all the pots, trim all the pots, load and fire kilns, glaze and paint pots. I suppose I could hire someone and teach them to throw my forms--that's how I got my start as a professional potter, after all. Teach them to load bisque kilns, recycle clay.

But I've never really wanted a pottery factory. Never wanted the responsibility, or the risk of growing a one-potter shop into a corporation. I just read an article in the new Ceramics Monthly about a potter who went that route, after apprenticing with English potters and following their example. Her pottery has been going for twenty years, brings in a substantial income every year, and still struggles to break even.

One thing I did manage to delegate, though: glazing dragons.

I've been making incense dragons almost as long as I've been Off Center Ceramics. They're wheel-thrown as a bottle form, with hand-built additions. Cut, drilled, sanded, dried. They're extremely fussy to glaze, but they don't take talent, like the hand-painted pots. Just a steady hand, patience, and attention to detail.

Things Denise excels at. So a long time ago, I taught her how to glaze dragons. How to hot-wax the base, and the bottom of the body section. How to dip the heads in clear glaze, and paint liquid wax resist over the eyes and on the edges where the paraffin doesn't reach. How to dip the body in one color, over-dip the head in another. Carefully sponge away drops of excess glaze, clean up seams and air holes, and transfer them to the shelf.

She's very good at it, by now. Oh, I could probably still glaze them a little faster, I suppose. But it's not a race; it's an gift, an opportunity for me to glaze something else entirely while she gets a chance to help out.

And I'm so grateful.