Marty Morgan on sat 22 mar 03
Just for laughs, or sighs, here's a little story.
A woman called and asked if I could give a tutorial on throwing for her
high school age son who was having a hard time getting started. Of course
the only time I had was the day before leaving for NCECA. They came over
and I spent around an hour centering, throwing, cutting pots in half etc.
I didn't want to be paid so they thanked me and went away.
Yesterday I received a "thank you" in the mail with a little angel figure
in clay, and you guessed it, "made in China" on the bottom. Duh.
Marty Morgan
Gloucester, MA 60 degrees yesterday, ice age slowly retreating
Tommy Humphries on sat 22 mar 03
A story...
I work for Marshall Pottery,( www.marshallpottery.com
-www.marshallpotterystore.com ) in Marshall Texas.
Started in 1895 MP over the years became one of the
largest, and most well known potteries in the country,
producing both stoneware, and terracotta flower pots.
Several years ago MP was sold to the Deroma
corporation ( www.deroma.com ) out of Italy. Deroma is
a large holding firm that owns and operates potteries
all around the world, so we thought that we were in
good hands...after all this company had BILLIONS of
dollars at its disposal.
As soon as they took over plans were drawn up and
building started on a multi-million dollar, computer
operated terra-cotta flower pot facility capable of
producing 30,000 pots a day. Of course this was a
fully automated plant, so a minimum crew was needed,
so half the plant workers lost their jobs, or were
reassigned.
Now to my part, I am a potter, and at the time of the
acquisition by Deroma, there were 7 of us turning pots
8 hours a day, producing in the neighborhood of 1500
pots a day. This seemed extremely inefficient to the
Italians, and since they owned the Snapdragon
stoneware pottery in China they decided to "help" us
out by outsourcing a number of our pottery forms to
them. This was also accompanied by a re-evaluation of
the stoneware division itself, and since we hadn't
shown nearly as much profit as the automated
terracotta plant did they decided to eliminate our
wholesale division (stranding over 3000 customers). Of
course no wholesale meant less pots needed and less
potters to make them, so we were pared down to just 2
potters, and no support crew.
Now, the pots being brought in from China were
quality pots, I will be the first to admit that, but
they were not Marshall Pottery pots...and the higher
ups wanted the people to think that they were. As the
first pots were unstacked from the pallets and priced,
the "made in china" stickers somehow came off. When
told of the consequences of this...and only after
being shown proof that it was true, the stickers
remained on the pots.
Of course these selected forms were intermingled with
our own pots, Chineese made cannisters beside our own
churns and water coolers. People assumed that since
some were made in China, all was made in China...sales
began to drop, and it soon became apparant from
customer comments why.
The Chineese pots were pulled from the shelves, and
replaced by our own pots, and sales began to improve
again...now we are left with 2 semi-trailers of pots
nobody wants.
Much of our retail store is stocked with cheap
imports...the wholesale buyers shows show nothing
else...It is obvious to everyone that these are knock
offs of small artist's and craftsmen's work, but there
is no way that a large buyer could afford to buy
enough original artworks, even if the artist or
craftsman could meet the demand. The wholesale buyers
would buy Made in the USA if they could, but the
reality of it is that quantity items are just not
produced here anymore. US labor is just too expensive
to produce affordable goods.
I guess what it all boils down to is this...shoppers
will choose Made in the USA product over the Imports,
IF there is a clear choice, and the price difference
is not too great.
It just seems that these days, there is little
choice...The "made in USA" sticker carries too steep a
price tag for most buyers to swallow.
Sorry for the rambling post...
Tommy Humphries
__________________________________________________
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Vivianne Escolar on sat 22 mar 03
Globilization goes both ways. Right now there is some poor person in China
whose goods or life are being pushed aside or changed by american made
whatever. Local traditions are being replaced by exposure to american life ,
through television, movies, press and whatever else you might be exposed to,
depending on your income bracket. Democracy is being promoted, and to achieve
that , education is required, and to get that, you need money, lots of it. So
you churn out stuff that everybody wants, and it is this consumerising that
feeds the everturning wheel of international commerce. And Mel, not all the
stuff from China is contaminated.
I think there should be some awareness that Clayart members are not all
americans. There are some of us who come from third world countries, and live
in those countries and we are decent and hardworking, and it is offensive when
thoughtless remarks generalise the standing of certain nationalities. Be they
chinese, arab, colombian or whatever.Just as you are not responsible for
American Foreign Policy, we are not responsible for our governments policies.
We all respect and admire americans for their generosity, and as guests of your
list avoid saying detrimental things about United States or its policies. But
lets have that respect for other nationalities go both ways, specially with the
chinese, since we are linked to Chinese Clayart. Third world people are not all
dirty and nasty. Like you, we are trying to survive in increasingly hard times
worldwide, and rather than generalising about nationalities, lets all join
together as world citizens and help each other regardless of creed or race.
Let's stick to clay and leave all those other worldly things out there!
cheers Vivi
try opening a sealed package from china.
bugs, flu, mumps, whatever.
-------------------------------------------------
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http://www.metrotel.net.co/
Marry Lukeman on sat 22 mar 03
Hi Tommy
I was really intersted in your documenting the import situation from your own experience. In Canada the market is being swamped as well and local potteries cannot buy the clay for what the pots are selling for.
Another branch of this destruction of clay production is the cement garden pots and sculpture.
I was commissioned to create 7 designed(Canadian Theme)bas relief flower pots by a small cement pottery manufacturer two years ago.
I delivered them just before 9/11.
Six months later, he offered them back to me as his business was nearly dead. He had sold cement flower pots for 8 years,but the importation of oriental pots had erroded his customer base. He is now out of business along with nearly all the other small manufacturers in Ontario.
When the clay costs what a pot sells for it makes it hard to think positive about where we are heading in this new world order.
Marry from Canada
>
> From: Tommy Humphries
> Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 08:25:13 -0800
> To: CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG
> Subject: Re: the China trade
>
> A story...
>
> I work for Marshall Pottery,( www.marshallpottery.com
> -www.marshallpotterystore.com ) in Marshall Texas.
> Started in 1895 MP over the years became one of the
> largest, and most well known potteries in the country,
> producing both stoneware, and terracotta flower pots.
>
> Several years ago MP was sold to the Deroma
> corporation ( www.deroma.com ) out of Italy. Deroma is
> a large holding firm that owns and operates potteries
> all around the world, so we thought that we were in
> good hands...after all this company had BILLIONS of
> dollars at its disposal.
>
> As soon as they took over plans were drawn up and
> building started on a multi-million dollar, computer
> operated terra-cotta flower pot facility capable of
> producing 30,000 pots a day. Of course this was a
> fully automated plant, so a minimum crew was needed,
> so half the plant workers lost their jobs, or were
> reassigned.
>
> Now to my part, I am a potter, and at the time of the
> acquisition by Deroma, there were 7 of us turning pots
> 8 hours a day, producing in the neighborhood of 1500
> pots a day. This seemed extremely inefficient to the
> Italians, and since they owned the Snapdragon
> stoneware pottery in China they decided to "help" us
> out by outsourcing a number of our pottery forms to
> them. This was also accompanied by a re-evaluation of
> the stoneware division itself, and since we hadn't
> shown nearly as much profit as the automated
> terracotta plant did they decided to eliminate our
> wholesale division (stranding over 3000 customers). Of
> course no wholesale meant less pots needed and less
> potters to make them, so we were pared down to just 2
> potters, and no support crew.
>
> Now, the pots being brought in from China were
> quality pots, I will be the first to admit that, but
> they were not Marshall Pottery pots...and the higher
> ups wanted the people to think that they were. As the
> first pots were unstacked from the pallets and priced,
> the "made in china" stickers somehow came off. When
> told of the consequences of this...and only after
> being shown proof that it was true, the stickers
> remained on the pots.
>
> Of course these selected forms were intermingled with
> our own pots, Chineese made cannisters beside our own
> churns and water coolers. People assumed that since
> some were made in China, all was made in China...sales
> began to drop, and it soon became apparant from
> customer comments why.
>
> The Chineese pots were pulled from the shelves, and
> replaced by our own pots, and sales began to improve
> again...now we are left with 2 semi-trailers of pots
> nobody wants.
>
> Much of our retail store is stocked with cheap
> imports...the wholesale buyers shows show nothing
> else...It is obvious to everyone that these are knock
> offs of small artist's and craftsmen's work, but there
> is no way that a large buyer could afford to buy
> enough original artworks, even if the artist or
> craftsman could meet the demand. The wholesale buyers
> would buy Made in the USA if they could, but the
> reality of it is that quantity items are just not
> produced here anymore. US labor is just too expensive
> to produce affordable goods.
>
> I guess what it all boils down to is this...shoppers
> will choose Made in the USA product over the Imports,
> IF there is a clear choice, and the price difference
> is not too great.
>
> It just seems that these days, there is little
> choice...The "made in USA" sticker carries too steep a
> price tag for most buyers to swallow.
>
> Sorry for the rambling post...
>
> Tommy Humphries
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
> http://platinum.yahoo.com
>
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>
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