Donn Buchfinck on tue 28 sep 99
You know, your right, your comment came off all knowing and stupid and
egocentric.
the problem we are having with the great clay company which I will call the
octopus, mix our clay, is that the quality control is going up and down.
The octopus makes some really great clays, and with it's tenderals it has
bought some clay producers or threatened them with extinction if they would
not carry their products.
and some production pottery producers buy 15 tons a week from the octopus,
and they have no problem with cracks, blisters, dunting. They just wright
that bad stuff off.
if 5 hundred pounds goes bad no great deal, but when I am making I might
have gotten that errant 500 lbs. of bad clay, and then my Christmas revenue
is gone.
I went to a school where we made our own clay, but a lot of people cannot
afford the equipment or the space to mix their own. And the clays work when
they are mixed right, when good quality materials are used. But the octopus
tries to get a few more pennies on the pound and used cheaper materials, and
then it's the small guy who pays the price. And I have paid in this regard.
I mean quality control is a problem for all of us who manufacture something.
if you are in the San Francisco bay area there is someone who custom mixes
clays, and he is great. If you are interested write to me and I will send
you the information. He will mix 300 hundred, a thousand, a ton. And he is
a relay nice guy, easy to work with.
As to the material of clay itself, the greatest clay in the world cannot
help some of the work I have seen on people's websites. It's like out here
in the bay area where the chefs always talk about the great ingredients, but
if they take the great ingredients and make a bad dish of food out of it,
that is so sad.
Donn Buchfinck
San Francisco
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