One thing that doesn’t distress me as much anymore in making ceramics is when I unload the kiln and I find a blue dot where a red one was supposed to be, a tiny crack, a small bubble, a smudged black line, a plate that doesn’t sit completely flat on a table, or a piece that just wasn’t what I intended, etc. I used to freak out when I opened the kiln and found these naughty pieces because in my previous studio, they either ended up coming home with me and living in my cupboards, living in a trash heap or in a box of what the heck am I going to do with these pieces?…
But now that my studio is at the Berkeley Potters Guild where we have an annual seconds sale, these slightly defective or deformed pieces can have a new lease on life at a very low cost to a deserving fan that maybe can’t afford to pay the price of a “first” quality piece or just wants to add to their collection.
A lot of times, I’ve heard people say why is this even a second? For most people in the field of ceramics, we are a slightly obsessive and certainly masochistic lot, so something that seems monumentally horrifying to us may slip by the average person’s notice. We can’t help ourselves. If you do ceramics, you know you are at the very least slightly insane.
At any rate, I usually try to have a little arrow pointing out on the piece why it didn’t pass muster and usually sell samples and seconds at prices that are more than 50% off. It’s a win/win situation. So, now when I open the kiln and find a misfit, I sigh a little and then say that’s okay I’ve got more to sell at the seconds sale! And sad to say, I really do have a lot of pieces to sell at the seconds sale!
Come on over to the Berkeley Potters Guild where not only myself but 14 other Guild artists will be selling off these mischevious misfits at bargain prices. May 6/7, May 13/14 from 11am-5pm, 731 Jones St. Berkeley, CA