Sandra Dwiggins on fri 5 dec 97
Veronica--
That figure of 6.75-10.00 comes close to one of the prices on your inch
list---$7.50 for a 5" diameter bowl. So, being a person that looks for
connections, I would think that you chose the $1.50 an inch not quite so
arbitrarily as you would think. I think we know somewhat intuitively
what we think our time, labor, and materials are worth, and makes sense
to buyers that bigger things cost more--more time, labor, material. It's
that other thing---whatever makes Mel's Uchida-san's pots worth $200
an inch--that we can never really easily gauge for ourselves. I'm sure
when he started making pots, they didn't sell for $200 an inch!
I just took a bunch of pots home from my community studio that I was
planning to sell at a Christmas sale next week. They are all fine, no
dings, blobs, etc., even well thrown. But due to a little bit cooler firing
(over which I have no control--it's a community studio)--the glazes came
out slightly differently than I had anticipated--and enough differently that I
don't like them. I will probably price them as seconds, because I don't
want them around and I want to move them. Am I wrong in doing this? I
don't think so--I will still make a small profit, and I will get rid of pots tha
personally don't like. I just don't put seconds and firsts in the same sale.
On the other hand--I also took home one of my one of a kind, altered,
carved forms which due to the stresses in the clay that are often
created by the forms, have slight cracks on the underside. I sell these
as firsts and never reduce the prices. I feel that I would be doing myself
a great disservice by not valuing the work I put in to these forms--they
are not really for use as functional ware, and they are not harmed in any
way by the slight cracks.
Am I being wrong headed here?
Sandy
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