Pottery That is Commercially Viable (Go Figure) and Not Mine

I was in NYC today- again. Even though a wedding is one day, and then it’s over, the preparations go on for months beforehand. My daughter is getting married in just a few weeks and I am one busy mama.

I miss my studio. I keep thinking that if I give it just two hours a day, three days in a row each week, I could produce something. I could pay some attention to marketing my work, let’s say. I owe a couple of people a couple of pieces; I could make them happy. I just can’t get to it. I need to do a kiln firing.

But noooooo. Appointments pile up. Phone calls need to be made, visits to the various wedding vendors and dressmakers, shops and etcetera. If I were highly organized, I could possibly do it all and then some. People with regular jobs do it all the time. They need to take off a day now and then, but they work and they run errands and fit in appointments. My wits, however, need collecting. So do the notes-to-self I have all over the place.

My favorite husband and I went to Vermont over July Fourth weekend for a few days to decompress. Our travels took us to Bennington, so of course I visited Bennington Potters.

http://www.benningtonpotters.com/category/dinnerware

Someone had asked me to make Bennington Potters style dinner plates- remember the 10” dinner plates of a previous post? I held some of these plates in my hands, felt the satin glazes, felt their weight, turned over the plates and looked at how the bottoms were finished. These are nice, but I am quite sure I am not going to be making ones like them.

These plates are each glazed with one or another of Bennington Potters’ selection of either semi-matt solid-color glazes, or spatterware-type sponged dark blue glaze, whereas I dip, pour and splash my glossy glazes, rarely sticking to one color per plate. Theirs are uniform in size and shape; mine are more variable, though I try to keep them as similar to one another as I can. I throw all mine on my potters’ wheel; I don’t know if theirs are ram-pressed or thrown, just that they are remarkably alike. Their plate bottoms are ground flat on a grinder- I could see the marks. I trim a foot on each plate with a tool on the wheel. Theirs are perfectly nice, perfectly simple. They stack much better than mine and look much more alike. They are highly marketable. I maintain that mine, however, are sassier.

That’s all I want to say. I envy the uniformity of these plates. I celebrate the handmade quality of my own. If you’re in Bennington, Vermont, stop in there at the Potters. It’s a nice place. If you’re in Hillside, New Jersey, come visit my basement. I guarantee dust, clutter, and sassy pots.