Ellen Currans on wed 15 nov 06
Dear John,
As you know I was responding to Liz's post about seeing Floating Blue
everywhere. I agree completely with you that when you are making your
living at pottery, and have a glaze that sells, you put it out there.
My work is functional and I sell through my own showroom and through a
couple craft fairs each year. (more of them when I was younger.) I
don't do galleries. In spite of the article in CM I am not interested
in artistic acclaim - I just love making interesting pottery that
people will use and love. So, over the years I have glazed a lot of
blue pottery. For some time, at least 2/3rds of what I made was blue,
because that is what my customers bought first, and if I didn't have it
I didn't sell nearly as much. I tried really hard to make it
interesting blues that fit the work. Until I got tired of the
tediousness of stamping or slip trailing blue designs on white I did
alot of that also.
I have found that the publics' receptivity to glaze colors has changed
over time. In the 80's anything in iron red or a nice earthy brown or
beige sold well. Most of my glazes were matt then. Nothing much in
green of any shade sold. Then people started looking for mauvy blues.
I have a denin blue that has always sold well, and when I started
making pots with impressed textures I worked out a denim blue that
wasn't matt and worked with those new shapes. My decisions about glaze
colors have been influenced a lot by what I bring home from a show.
When the browns and beiges started coming home with me, I glazed more
in the blues and greens. In the 80's no one wanted green) After four or
five years of that, I am again looking for some toasty, warm glazes
that will fit my current work (along with the blues and greens). What
you have stated about finding yourself short of FB with too much of the
other glazes on hand is exactly the process I have used to make
decisions about glaze colors.
I guess what I am saying, is that if floating blue works for you and
you sell a lot of it, no matter how you sell your work, then go for it.
If you begin to find that half the potters in a show you are in are
using it, then you might want to wonder if the public is going to get a
little tired of so much of it. If you can't get into the gallieries
you crave, is it time to try some other blue? What about your work
sets it apart from the rest? My market has always been pretty much
local, so I have found that I need to keep growing and changing to keep
my customers coming back. But. not change so fast that I leave my good
old customers behind. I do not have much of a tourist market. I do
have a lot of old time customers bringing their children and
grandchildren to my shows and studio showroom.
The potter I mentioned in my post really wanted to be in our show. The
jury's decision may have been wrong, but she didn't get in the show
because of the glaze she was using - not the form of her work. This
may happen to others , especially those just getting started, who won't
realize that the bias was against the glaze, not their work. Just one
more thing to be aware of when you start to market your work. At some
point, it isn't even about the glaze. For our show, it has a lot to do
with offering as much variety as possible, and when you see a lot of
floating blue (or for that matter, anagama fired tea ware) only a few
potters are going to survive the cut.
John, I think our discussion doesn't have much to do with Ceramic Art
and galleries. Both you and I are selling to people who "like what
they like" and often times it is blue, and matches their kitchens. I
do think potters should always be looking ahead and testing glazes (if
glaze is important to their work) for the next best glaze - on their
forms, on their clay, in their area of the country, which their
customers will love and buy.
Peace, John. Your long-time experience and success in clay speaks for
itself.
Ellen Currans
Dundee, Oregon
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