Interview: Laurie Erdman

Another week, another interview. Click here to see the questions on their own if you want to be in next week.

Vital statistics (name, age, location, link to website/blog)?
Laurie Erdman, 42
Arlington, Virginia
www.claytastic.net

Where do you work in clay?
Primarily at the Art League ceramics studio in Alexandria, but just set up a home studio to work between sessions

Do you have another job?
Yes. I’m a business development professional for an education company. While fulfilling, it keeps me away from the wheel far more than I would like.

Are your studio and occupation decisions made by choice or necessity?
Both decisions are made by necessity. Pottery started as a creative outlet from a stressful job. It has become a passion and I am now just starting to market my work. I still have to have the day job help pay the household expenses.

How do you budget your time (in the studio and out - family, errands, etc)?
During Art League sessions, I am the studio every Sunday, and increasingly on Saturdays and any other time I can, as I am building up inventory for holiday shows and sales (currently have 4 scheduled). Every morning I spend my tea time at the computer managing my Etsy store, tweeting and blogging. Then it is off to the day job. In the evening, I take pictures of my work and manage my online presence. Of course, with the home studio, I can now start working on pots in the evening.

Why do you make pots (or sculptures)?
I have always been drawn to the tactile nature of clay, whether playing in a mud puddle as a child, or picking up a finished piece in a gallery. It was natural that my creative outlet would flourish once I decided to try ceramics. I was hooked the first time I touched it.

How concerned are you about environmental issues? Does this affect your work?
Very. However, working in a community studio doesn’t give me control over those issues. However, last year our studio moved from cone 8 electric to cone 6 to reduce energy usage. When I get my own kiln, I would be very interested in learning how to single fire (just did it in a soda kiln and was very happy with the results). I do recycle my clay as much as possible.

What do you do when you're having a bad day in the studio?
Walk away. And often I go eat because there is something about working in clay that makes me forget to eat. Not good to throw with low blood sugar; the results are bad.

Do you create art in other mediums?
I have painted and I love photography, but I do neither on a regular basis. Although I have been thinking about adding photo work for potters as a service.

Where do you sell your work?
Right now I sell mostly online and to friends. I have an Etsy shop and have sold a piece on eBay. I am planning on doing most of sales at the end of the year. I will do a local craft show at my church in December, a local collectors show in November, a charity show sponsored by my employer and finally a home show.

How did you approach those venues about selling your work?
I am a member of the sponsoring organizations for the crafts shows, so its just people I know.

Do you have any questions you want to ask other artists?
For those that have their own studio, how do you manage all the equipment and materials and how many different glazes do you use? As I contemplate my own studio, the investment is overwhelming.

Interview: Kanika Marshall

This weeks ceramic artist interview comes from Kanika in California. Would you like to be next? See the interview questions here.

Vital statistics (name, age, location, link to website/blog)?
Kanika Marshall
Half a century
Elk Grove, CA
www.kanika.us

Where do you work in clay?
In my studio, an annex in my home

Do you have another job?
Yes

Are your studio and occupation decisions made by choice or necessity? Please explain.
Solely by choice. The extra money from my art is nice, but not critical. When my kids were young and I became divorced, I needed money from my art in order to pay for after-school day care. Now, the positive acclaim is sometimes more important than money, but not as important as the joy in making the art.

How do you budget your time (in the studio and out - family, errands, etc)?
Day job 8-5, clay is any other time, often up until midnight many nights

Why do you make pots (or sculptures)?
I love the tensile quality of clay. You can make nearly anything from clay. Clay works well with my other addiction: fabric. Clay is awesome with glass, metal, wood, beads, shells, and leather. Clay can be glazed to any color. Clay is a chameleon, like me.

How concerned are you about environmental issues? Does this affect your work?
I am concerned, so I wear a respirator, installed linoleum over my carpet so I won't vacuum up the clay dust anymore, open the windows to ventilate my workspace and purchased a trap for my drain so the clay/glaze reside doesn't go down the drain (altho' I have not yet installed it!). I use lead-free glazes. I keep the garage doors open while I am doing a glaze firing. But there is still a lot more that could be done to make my clay experience safer.

What do you do when you're having a bad day in the studio?
I never have bad days, except maybe with the potter's wheel! I mainly do slab/tile, coil, and free-form three-dimensional clay work. Non-wheel work is always pleasurable and fruitful. I never run out of things to create, just the time to make them.

Do you create art in other mediums?
Lots of mixed media (fabric, glass, metal, wood, beads, shells, and leather), but clay is the primary medium.

Where do you sell your work?
My studio, website, galleries, art shows, and local stores.

How did you approach those venues about selling your work?
I apply to art shows, keep my website updated, use e-newsletters and Facebook to help market my work, use Vistaprint to print postcards and business cards to hand out everywhere, keep in touch with my customers, and have several portfolios for upscale and lower-grade galleries. I visit galleries several times before approaching the gallery owner with my portfolio.

Do you have any questions you want to ask other ceramic artists, or artists in general?
Does anyone have a small slab roller for sale in the northern California area (preferably near Sacramento)?

NEW question: If you could change one property of clay, what would it be? (optional question; from potter John Bauman in the second Monday interview)
I work real fast, so sometimes there are explosions (happy little accidents). I would love to remove the possibility of explosions!

Mini-vacation

4th of July weekend = a vacation at home. It's been a beautiful weekend, complete with indulgences. If you're thinking of visiting Colorado, this is why it's awesome (especially for those who like to eat...):

1. Cherry Creek Arts Festival (Friday afternoon): ART, not craft... there were so many different varieties of painting, sculpting, drawing, printmaking, and clay making to see. Of course I couldn't afford to buy anything, but it was inspiring and beautiful nonetheless. To retreat from the heat of the afternoon we wandered around Room and Board to check out more beautiful things we can't afford - fancy furniture.

2. The Huckleberry (Saturday morning): an amazing restaurant in Louisville with a beautiful ambiance, wonderful service, and the most delicious food and tea I've tasted. They have the BEST vegetarian gravy. If only they could team up with Lucile's Creole Cafe to get their biscuit recipe, you would have the most amazing biscuits and gravy in the world. mmmm...

3. Lucile's Creole Cafe (Sunday morning): an amazing cajun restaurant in Longmont (or Boulder & Ft Collins) with delightfully filling portions of delicious cajun-style food. Their homemade ketchup is the best I've ever had, good on the already flavorful and tasty Hanks Eggs - peppers, onions, tomatoes, potatoes and eggs all scrambled up with spices and topped with avocado... and ketchup. Friggin tasty. Always come home with a plate of leftovers when I get Hanks Eggs, which is almost more delicious than the first time because I'm not growing uncomfortably stuffed after eating half a giant bisquit and a begneit (sort of like a donut, but more delicious).

4. Sweet Action (Sunday evening): this is what Twitter is good for - indy ice cream shops announcing their daily flavors and making us drool. So we make a 1/2 hour drive to get ice cream. Between the two of us we had 5 different flavors; in order of my favorites:
1. Baklava, honey ice cream with real pieces of baklava; 2. Boysenberry cheesecake, with real pieces of cheesecake; 3. After Dinner Mint, mint ice cream with those little pink, green, & yellow mint chips with the teeny white sprinkles on the bottom; 4. Apple Streudel; apple cinnamon ice cream? or something tasty like that; 5. Maple Walnut - took home a pint of this and was disappointed by the lack of flavor. I had some delicious maple ice cream in New Hampshire last summer at an amazing bakery & ice creamery called Umpleby's... I'm sure they have the upper hand being in New Hampshire, but nonetheless, this maple ice cream was lacking some maple flavor. I'm tempted to add my own syrup to it. Maybe I'll continue the indulgences tomorrow morning & make some pancakes topped with ice cream & real maple syrup. That's a good way to start the week, right?

To add to the weekend vacation we checked out the community swimming pool, played a silly game called Luck of the Draw, lounged around doing nothing (i.e. watching a car race), watched a lot of stuff blow up (woo! hooray for America!), and listened to my dad tell stories of him & his friends being retards when they were younger (while repeating lines from The Hangover). Good times. How was your holiday?

Furthering my education, growing your pottery collection

Beginning this September I'll be teaching 3 pottery classes at my local ceramics art center and, as normal for young teachers in my position, I'm nervous. I don't feel ready. Yesterday I was glazing in the corner while a pottery class was being taught and I overheard the teacher explain centering. It's been a while since I learned how to center, I never really became an expert at it, and I've had a couple long periods of time (2-3 months) when I didn't throw at all. My centering knowledge and skills have become muddled over time. The instructions I heard today were new to me... I guess every teacher explains it differently, and each different instruction helps me... I think.

To help prepare me for this fall I feel the need for more instruction, and there are two options I have: 1. Check out instructional pottery videos from the library (the free option); and 2. Take a workshop or two this summer (the expensive, unable to fund it on my own option). Videos would be a step in the right direction, but the added workshop(s) would launch me right into the position of a confident pottery teacher (with the bonus of further preparing myself for grad school).
So here's the deal: I will create one pot of your choice* based on what I learn from the workshop I attend if you contribute $20 - $60 to help fund my ceramics education. My goal is to raise $700 by July 9th - $500 will go towards the actual workshop tuition, $200 will be for travel expenses, and any remaining expenses (housing, food, etc) I'll add to my credit card. Through Fundable.com you can pledge to contribute and 3 weeks from now if I meet my goal, the pledges will turn into real payments and be sent to me. If I don't make the goal, your pledge will be deleted and no one will pay anything. What do you think? Here's the Fundable website where you can get more info and pledge: Fundable.com

These are the workshops I'm considering, in order of preference:

Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu: Porcelain Pots, A Touch of Elegance - Susan Filley; July 27 - Aug 2: $475 - more info

Taos Clay: Wheel Thrown, Altered and Assembled Utilitarian Pottery - Leah Leitson; July 25 & 26: $295 - more info

Taos Clay: Altered Forms & Decorative Surfaces - Lorna Meaden; Augt 29 & 30: $215 - more info

Anderson Ranch: Pottery Making - Doug Casebeer, Takashi Nakazato, Alleghany Meadows; Aug 24 - 28: $860 - more info

Anderson Ranch: Soda Fired Porcelain - Matt Long, Victor Babu; July 27 - Aug 7: $1,120 - more info

Anderson Ranch: Architecture of the Pot - Chris Gustin; July 20 - 24, $790 - more info

Arrowmont: Cut & Paste, Deborah Schwartzkopf; July 26 - Aug 1, $485 - more info

If I raise $1000, Anderson Ranch is a possibility. Otherwise it'll be the Susan Filley workshop, the two weekend workshops at Taos Clay, or something else I might find in the next 3 weeks (any workshop recommendations are welcome).

*Your choice of pottery...
...with a $20 pledge:
1 cup (8-12 oz, w/out handle)
1 bowl (size for cereal, dessert, etc)

...$40 pledge:
1 mug (cup w/ handle, 8-16 oz size), w/ saucer or lid
2 cups (w/out handles, 8-16 oz size)
1 salt & pepper shaker set
1 medium bowl (for salad/ mixing/ small serving bowl)
1 planter

...$60 pledge:
1 pitcher
1 teapot^
1 large bowl (for punch, larger serving bowl)^
4 tumblers (16-20 oz, for water/iced tea/beer/etc)^

^Actual value of these items would be $70-$120

The pot(s) I would send to you no later than 6 weeks after the end of the workshop.

Interview: April Grunspan

Between extra shifts at work, spending more time in the studio and the regular busy-ness of everyday life, I haven't had time for my own ceramic blogging. At least we have this weekly artist interview here, today from April in Texas.

Vital statistics (name, age, location, link to website/blog)?
April Grunspan, 55 years young, San Antonio, TX: agru.etsy.com

Where do you work in clay?
I work out of a local teaching/working studio called Sunin Clay. It's only a few miles from my house.

Do you have another job?
Wife, mother, and owner of three (soon to be two when the kids move out this summer) dogs and three Cockatiels.

Are your studio and occupation decisions made by choice or necessity? Please explain.
Happily, by choice.

How do you budget your time (in the studio and out - family, errands, etc)?
I just know Monday and Fridays are times for appointments, shopping, etc. Tuesday-Thursday is studio/work time. The weekends are for my husband. Of course, there are exceptions to the rules. But I find making the commitment to working in the studio makes sure pieces get made, even if the inspiration isn't always there.

Why do you make pots (or sculptures)?
There's a definite satisfaction in taking something that doesn't come easily, and seeing yourself improve from day to day. I also love the different focuses in clay: the clay itself, the science of clay and glaze, the variety of effects one can get using slip, underglaze, glaze, etc., and the incredible variety of techniques one can learn. There seems to be no end to what one can learn to do or ways to do it.

I also really enjoy working on Judaica (Jewish items). I find it a challenge to think of something related to the holidays or special occasions and, then, think of ways to twist it around with a different approach. Such items don't sell as quickly as my mugs. But when something special DOES sell it gives me a great sense of satisfaction because someone appreciated my vision.

How concerned are you about environmental issues? Does this affect your work?
I think it's important to understand that working in pottery requires both chemicals and power -- be it electric, gas, or wood. However, our creations are not ephemeral. There are pieces of pottery that go back thousands of years. So, it seems to be a slightly better investment of these resources than something like styrofoam or plastic.

What do you do when you're having a bad day in the studio?
I "play". I try a new technique, be it one the wheel, handbuilding, or using decoration. Recently, on a "bad" day, I started playing with sodium silicate on slabs of clay. The slabs, being easy to make, were an easy surface for me to work on. Another time I played with slip painted/stamped/stenciled on newspaper and then transferred onto, again, slabs of clay. During these sessions I don't work for a product, just for learning. Often inspiration follows.

Do you create art in other mediums?
Does food count? I love to cook; especially when there's someone else cleaning up. Thanks husband of mine!

Where do you sell your work?
Mostly through etsy. However, I've had sales from people seeing my work on Facebook or in my house. I'm also making custom mugs for a local, privately owned coffee shop. I love selling my work. But I really don't want to stretch myself so thin that the quality of my pieces suffers.

How did you approach those venues about selling your work?
The coffee shop came about organically. I was chatting with the owner (things like that happen in local, privately owned places) and she found out I was a potter. Things just went from there.

Do you have any questions you're dying to ask other ceramic artists, or artists in general?
I'm always curious how the potters who sell lots and lots of pieces manage everything. I'm not the most physically organized person in the world, so I really have to work at the non-pottery end of my business. Right now I average about one sale a week. When I have several in one week I get a bit frazzled with the packaging/shipping of several pieces at once.

Interview: potter John Bauman

This is the second Monday of the new weekly ceramic artists survey. If you're a potter or ceramic artist & you'd like to fill out the survey, see this post for the questions individually.

Vital statistics (name, age, location, link to website)?
John Bauman, 52 , Warsaw, Indiana, baumanstoneware.com

Where do you work in clay?
In my studio – three pole buildings on an acre in the industrial park in Warsaw, Indiana

Do you have another job?
Nope. Not yet, anyway. 30 years of self-employment. 30 years of every single household dollar being earned with my hands in clay.

Are your studio and occupation decisions made by choice or necessity? Please explain.
Odd question. Being a potter was my choice. It continues to be. But I’m a realist, and I’m just responsible enough to realize how much the choice of being a potter has cost me in the ability to make choices. In other words, my potter’s income means that I don’t get too much of what I want. I mostly get only what I need.

How do you budget your time (in the studio and out - family, errands, etc)?
I try to get as much time with my hands in clay as possible. But marketing is a necessary evil so I’m wearing that hat much of the time as well. I have several other passions (guitar and running with my dogs) that take my time too. And then there’s filling out internet surveys.

Why do you make pots?
I guess I could answer that in two ways:

Practically, I make pots because I started to make my living in pottery when I was very young and simply continued. So the simplest answer to "why do you make pots?" is: So I can eat, have a roof over my head, gas up my car, and feed the dogs. (Ask the dogs. They'll tell you that hands down, the last answer is the best).

But I could also answer your question more philosophically (or maybe more romantically, as I've never, in 34 years of making pots, lost my passion for the work) with a bit I wrote out a few years ago [*see end of survey for extended answer]...

How concerned are you about environmental issues? Does this affect your work?
Concerned from both angles. I’m concerned enough to be careful with my own business – how I might affect the environment. And I am concerned that environmental concerns may soon be making pottery -- as a livelihood or hobby – not possible.

What do you do when you're having a bad day in the studio?
Type the word “whine” into your internet free thesaurus and you’ll get the complete list.

Do you create art in other mediums?
Music. Don’t laugh. You haven’t even heard me yet. Okay, go ahead. Laugh.

Where do you sell your work?
Art fairs, etsy, one gallery

How did you approach those venues about selling your work?
Type “beg/grovel” into your internet free thesaurus and you will the the complete list.

Actually, I just jury for the art fairs like anyone else. Etsy – I was a reluctant joiner and experientially convinced. The gallery asked for my pottery for about ten years. I finally gave in.

Do you have any questions you're dying to ask other ceramic artists, or artists in general?
Are potters actually a more highly and completely evolved species, or does it just seem that way?

If you could change one property of clay, what would it be? (for me it would be George Costanza’s embarrassing predicament: shrinkage. I would love it if clay didn’t shrink)


*Why do you make pots? -The philosophical answer-

It’s that wire that no one sees but draws us to the magician’s hand.
It’s the true north that mysteriously keeps our needle pointing one way.

One day we saw something-out-of-nothing spin into existence beneath a practiced hand. What we once thought solid as concrete suddenly appeared as flexible as fabric.
Or maybe in our youth, on a late evening walk past the college art department, we chanced upon a firing -- a glowing kiln. It caught our attention as fire has since…since forever. We were imprinted.

We notice everything pottery. In the background scenery of a movie set, in a commercial on TV, we'll notice the pots.
If we walk into a strange place and there happens to be a hand-thrown piece in the room, little else occupies our mind – at least until we’ve had the chance to pick that piece up, feel its heft, and look beneath it. It calls our attention like an overheard conversation that sounds more interesting than the one in which we’re currently engaged...
"Oh, excuse me. Did you say something?”

Now even the wares we use everyday take on new meaning. We’ve glimpsed behind the curtain and what was once a mystery – the “I-wonder-how-they-did-that?” – becomes de-mystified one discovery at a time. And, in turn, it is answered with a satisfying life of pursuing new “how-to-do” mysteries to put back into the world.

So, perhaps it’s the process that hooks us at first. But almost simultaneously we’re drawn to these objects that we’re making. On the one hand we observe the component parts of glaze, form, function. And often times, especially at the beginning of our lives in clay, we see the parts in spite of the whole…
...but then, as we grow with the clay and the process, we start to direct our attention to the objective end in form and function. We begin to see the whole becoming greater than the sum of those parts.
Add the fire that takes so much of the end result out of our hands – out of our control -- and we can be utterly surprised by that new whole that somehow managed to exceed our imagination. Upon opening the kiln, it’s like meeting and being charmed by a stranger.

Proof? -- the kiln opening dance. You know the one. You’ve done it. With mitted hands you hold the still hot pot by rim and base, and slowly rotate it in that graceful 360 degree pirouette – attempting to take in the whole of it. Then you set it down and turn, as if to leave – only to echo the pirouette yourself. You spin on your heel, return to the pot and pick it back up for that second look…
…Fred, meet Ginger.

Interview: Ceramic Erin

When I posted the first ceramics survey on Monday, Carole Epp noted that I hadn't found time for it myself. Well I've already got the next two Mondays scheduled for other potters, so here's a special Friday edition surveying myself... See the image in the middle for a preview of my latest work.

Vital statistics (name, age, location, link to website/blog)?
Erin, 23, Colorado, ceramicerin.com

Where do you work in clay?
The local potters guild and my basement studio, otherwise known as the laundry room.

Do you have another job?
Working part-time at a children's consignment shop.

Are your studio and occupation decisions made by choice or necessity? Please explain.
Definitely NOT choice. Who would honestly choose to work in a basement with no windows? It's what I have available to me right now. The potters guild I work at has more restrictions, less freedom than I would like - they don't do cone 6 oxidation firing, which is what I'm interested in - but it's the only studio I know of nearby. As for the non-clay job, I love who I work with and I love that it's close to home, but if I could afford to work solely in ceramics right now I would not have a part-time job.

How do you budget your time (in the studio and out - family, errands, etc)?
Not well... but I'm working on it. I'm taking a class from art marketing guru Alyson Stanfield and she has some excellent tips for managing time. I always plan out certain days / times to be in the studio, then get distracted with things I need to do around the house. Yesterday I planned to spend at least 2 hours glazing at the guild, then got caught up in clearing out junk that's crowding my space - taking out the recycling, taking stuff to Goodwill, etc. - and I hardly had 1 hour to glaze with everything else on my errand list. I'm working on a schedule though, and I'm optimistic that once I get the house cleaned up & free of junk I can focus my time & energy where I need to - in the studio.

Why do you make pots (or sculptures)?
I love creating beautiful forms. I don't feel I "need" to make pots or sculptures, but it's something I'm good at, and I enjoy it. Lately I've been struggling making pots and I've asked myself this question many times, but I do love seeing a beautiful pot I've made fresh out of the kiln. That's a good feeling.

How concerned are you about environmental issues? Does this affect your work?*
Quite concerned... I see that we're affecting the earth in harmful ways with our everyday habits, and I want to do my part to offset that. I'm young and I don't want to live in an ugly, deteriorating world for the rest of my life.

In college our primary kiln was high-fire gas reduction and I knew of nothing else... we also had wood, salt, and raku kilns, but I wasn't interested in those. It wasn't until after I graduated that I read about cone 6 firing, then I started noticing it everywhere. So many people think cone 10 reduction firing is superior and I think that's bullshit. I'm certainly no master potter, but I've seen stunning work come from mid-range firings. It takes less time and energy to fire at cone 6 and you can get similar results... what's not to like about it?

Two years ago, partly for environmental reasons, I traded my car for a bicycle at New Belgium Brewery's Tour de Fat, and I've been drawing bikes on my pots ever since...


What do you do when you're having a bad day in the studio?
Wonder why I'm trying to make a career of this, and find something else to do. Usually the house needs cleaning, dishes need done, the studio could use some sprucing up. So on a bad day in the studio I try to find some other productive thing to do. Sometimes I just realize the problem is simply that I didn't wedge the clay well enough, so I take more time to wedge, take some deep breaths, stretch, relax, and go at it again.

Do you create art in other mediums?
I took nearly every art class in college, but now I'm clearing out my art supplies because I don't have time for everything!** Two things I wish I had more time for are drawing & printmaking. Once in a while I make art trading cards (ATCs), usually with my favorite compact watercolor set. Just a little fun :)

Where do you sell your work?
At a co-op gallery, Etsy, bi-annual Guild sales, and I'm just beginning to sell at a housewares consignment shop nearby... not sure if that one is worth it.

How did you approach those venues about selling your work?
The gallery is one I was familiar with, near the university, and I knew some past classmates who had their pots there. I asked what the steps were to get into the gallery and they gave me an application form. The consignment shop is two doors down from where I work... they asked me if I wanted to sell my pots there.

Do you have any questions you want to ask other ceramic artists, or artists in general?
Would you let me visit for a week & work with you in your studio?


*To read more about my environmental choices, see the Tiny Choices survey I took last Friday.

**If you need quality chalk pastels, cheap oil pastels, acrylic paint, charcoal, or intaglio printmaking supplies let me know. These are the art supplies I'm selling to make space for what matters in my studio :)