June Pots

This was the last firing until September/October.  It'll be good to take a break, enjoy some summer and maybe get my enthusiasm back.  I'm feeling a little downhearted about pottery's place in this world of cheapmart culture.  I know that unless you've mixed clay, made pots, put their handles, feet etc on, gone through all the steps of bisqueing, glazing, wadding, loading and then firing a wood kiln you really don't understand how very much work it is.  Satisfying, at times exhilarating, but always hard work.  Then when someone asks you how much your hard won wood fired mug costs and you say $25 (which you think is pretty cheap for a wood fired mug) and they say "Each?" your heart aches.  When several more people say the same thing over the course a few weeks heartache turns to bitterness and you just want to grab them by the shirt and say "No! For the whole works!!!  Go ahead, take them all!  What are you thinking, you #%$##@!"

This is not a third world country.  I still have to pay for groceries here and for gas and for clay and electricity.  We've all got so used to paying next to nothing for things made by poor people in poor countries that we've lost sight of what beautiful work made by highly trained, skilled, artists is worth in our country.  Most potters I know are not rich but we're doing what we love.  But just because we love our jobs does that mean that our work has no value?  I ask you.

So here are a few photos taken before the battery died.  More to follow.

temmoku condiment dish

shino oil bottles

Ash glazed faceted bowl

temmoku butter dish

shino butter dish

Ash glazed butter dish with slip & texture

Red shino butter dish

Ash glaze over thick slip honey pot