With a long stretch of unused vacation time from my day job, I set a goal to fill each day with pottery and to average three pieces a day. It wasn’t a huge goal as I knew there would be holiday greetings and gay happy meetings mixed in with clay time. Ten days = 30 vessels. I managed 33 but one wasn’t up to snuff and one failed while trimming. Thirty-one are left standing at last count.
The last piece I threw in 2023 was a 4 lb, 3 oz bowl, which is a big piece of clay for me to center. It turned out beautifully and embodies much of my pottery goals for 2023. I wanted to throw bigger (it’s the biggest bowl for me yet). I wanted to use less water while throwing (I was shocked by how little water I used on such a large piece of clay).
I wanted to throw with more intention (I decided that sweet lump of clay was a bowl before I put it on the wheel, and it became a bowl). I wanted to throw faster but less rushed in my movements, mostly working at full-speed and getting more out of each pull so that I wasn’t wearing out the clay (this was just a few pulls). I wanted to make 52 mugs (okay, that doesn’t apply here).
An overall goal I had at the beginning of 2023 was to keep a record of everything we created. This bowl is item #433 (more or less). At first, if something failed in trimming, I wouldn’t count it. Then I decided, I would. Along the way I switched back to not counting them and then again I forgot which way I had decided to tally things. Like I said, #433, more or less, ranging from mini teapots to this biggie of a bowl.
Certainly not everything we made in 2023 was sold, not even everything was glazed. We only had two pieces crack that I can remember, a few pieces failed vitrification, and a handful of pieces were butt-ugly. Not bad statistics. We surprised ourselves by accomplishing a few more significant tasks: a pottery website, market vending, attended online and in-person workshops, shipped some pottery sales that weren’t local, and made a damp box for the studio.
What really changed for us in 2023 was that we embraced being potters. We grew in our confidence and our desire for others to know about our art . . . and that leads us to some exciting news we will be sharing soon.
For 2024, we had planned on purchasing a kiln but a plumbing emergency recently ate those savings and then some. It might still happen late in 2024 (we’ll have to sell a lot of mugs). I’ll start again with the itemization record of our work, with a goal to increase it. Terry has a super-duper-multi-stage project that may take us several years to complete but he has already started working on it. The “PRESS” side of our collaboration may release some products. We want to start online sales in some way (or perhaps multiple ways). We also want to be more present in the world as artists and as students of the arts. We will be exploring many different ways to accomplish that goal.
We are sincerely grateful for all the encouragement we have received.
FaberSmith Press & Pottery 