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offcntrAs should be obvious from the tag, I take a lot of special orders. If there's no particular hurry, I'll make one version for the firing; if it turns out badly, I'll make another for next time. If the timeline is tighter, I'll make an extra (or two), making sure to put them in different parts of the kiln. If one gets caught in an oxidizing zone, I still have another good one for the customer. If both turn out (and the customer doesn't decide they want both), I wind up with orphans.
If they're something I'd normally make for stock, great. I just add them to inventory and take them to Market or a show to sell. This is how I wind up with new patterns, more often than not. Octopus, honeybee, sloth, platypus, rhino, orca, peacock; all began as someone's special order. This is also how I wind up with slightly non-standard one-time-only items, like the columbine dessert plate on my current In Stock list. Sometimes the item is a little more specialized. I've got a couple of toddler bowls in my cupboard right now, with a custom pattern... and a grandchild's name and birth date.
And then there's things like this one. It's meant to be a dog-food bowl. It's basically a three-quarter sized pie plate, with a rather fetching samoyed on it. I can't put it out with the pie plates, it's too small. I don't want to put it out as a dog dish, because then I'll be trapped into making them regularly. (And unlike cat people, who will accept any cat vaguely like theirs on a dish, dog people are really breed specific. That's why I only do dogs on special order. I remember the vendor up in Seattle who made doggy Christmas ornaments. Nothing else. Her booth was full, looked like the American Kennel Club in there.)
So right now it sits in my studio, looking winsome. And lonely.
If they're something I'd normally make for stock, great. I just add them to inventory and take them to Market or a show to sell. This is how I wind up with new patterns, more often than not. Octopus, honeybee, sloth, platypus, rhino, orca, peacock; all began as someone's special order. This is also how I wind up with slightly non-standard one-time-only items, like the columbine dessert plate on my current In Stock list. Sometimes the item is a little more specialized. I've got a couple of toddler bowls in my cupboard right now, with a custom pattern... and a grandchild's name and birth date.
And then there's things like this one. It's meant to be a dog-food bowl. It's basically a three-quarter sized pie plate, with a rather fetching samoyed on it. I can't put it out with the pie plates, it's too small. I don't want to put it out as a dog dish, because then I'll be trapped into making them regularly. (And unlike cat people, who will accept any cat vaguely like theirs on a dish, dog people are really breed specific. That's why I only do dogs on special order. I remember the vendor up in Seattle who made doggy Christmas ornaments. Nothing else. Her booth was full, looked like the American Kennel Club in there.)
So right now it sits in my studio, looking winsome. And lonely.