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Two Sales in the Fall

12/28/2013

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I mentioned in an earlier post that I was participating in a few sales in the fall, and today I'm going to share some of my experiences and observations about them. I've already written about the first sale of the fall, the Hickam Craft Fair, so now I'll write about the last two sales I did, the Cane Haul Road Sale with the Hawaii Potters Guild and the Studio Benefit Sale at the Honolulu Museum of Art School at Linekona.

The Cane Haul Road Sale is an annual event that HPG has been putting on for many years. The sale was set up under three large tents. Tables were set up under two of the tents and stocked with donated pots while the third tent was reserved for potters from HPG who were offering their pots for sale. I found this to be a very strange sale for me. I donate a large number of my pots to HPG, so I was competing with my own pots. It was somewhat gratifying to see so many of my donated pots getting scooped up, but it was hardly something to brag about since they were selling for $3, $5, and $10 apiece. My two tables were set up right next to the checkout tables, and the people there began telling everyone who bought one of my donated pots, "There's the artist over there! He's the one who made this!" I just nodded and smiled. It was unbearable, however, when I saw people walking up to the checkout tables with pots I'd made during my first few months of potting. Boy did I ever wish I'd thrown those pots away! When I saw them passing by I'd just put my head down or turn away. And then I'd hear the now familiar "There's the artist over there! He's the one who made this!" I know they didn't mean any harm but it felt like an accusation. One pot in particular was especially ugly, but when the lady buying it was told that I was its creator, she had to meet me and thank me over and over again for making such a beautiful vase. I just smiled at her and thanked her for buying my pot. When she was gone, I asked the people at the checkout table to please not identify me as the maker any more. It was too embarrassing!

It was also a little challenging selling my pots when all of the donated pots were selling for $10 or less. People would start at the tents with the donated pots and then come by my table with a few pots already in hand. They'd lean forward to look at the price of my pots and then suddenly jerk back like they'd just encountered some noxious stench. One lady in particular had two of my donated pots in her hands and kept circling around my tables. I introduced myself and she told me she was a pottery collector. She told me she liked my pots but thought she would just buy the two $5 bowls since the ones on my table were so expensive in comparision. I took the two bowls she had in hand and placed them next to a larger serving bowl that she was especially interested in. I told her I thought the two bowls she had picked out were okay but were not even close to the quality of the more expensive bowl she had shown some interest in. I asked her as a collector which bowl she would rather add to her collection. In ten years, which would she like the most? She had to admit she liked the $95 bowl better and that it was a much better piece. To my delight, she purchased all three!

The last sale I did was at the Studio Benefit Sale for the Honolulu Museum of Art School, Linekona. The sale raises money for the educational programs of the museum and includes pieces by teachers and students in metals (primarily jewelry), fusion glass, textiles, and ceramics. Linekona has an amazing building and a beautiful gallery for holding the sale. Diana (don't know her last name) did an outstanding job of setting up the gallery and came back every day to rearrange things and make the displays more interesting. In spite of the beautiful setting, however, the sale wasn't a smashing success for the museum for several reasons. First, there was no marketing, no promotion. The museum is across the street from its school, but I saw no indication that a sale was coming up at all. I'm a member of the museum, but I saw no notice on their website or in their printed material. Only the week before the sale did I notice it buried in the museum calendar. Hawaii is inundated with tourists this time of year, but no tour groups came to the sale. I noticed a few posters about the sale that had been posted at Linekona and asked if I could get a stack of them to put up in places like libraries and hotels. No can do. They'd only printed a few posters and they were all posted at Linekona, the last place they needed to be! Anyway, I could go on and on about this, but I decided to do something about it and talked with Vince, the director of the school at Linekona, and told him I'd love to help him promote the sale for next year. Second, there was little attempt to sell pieces to customers. Everyone who had pieces in the sale had to volunteer to "sit" for four hours one day during the sale (it went on for almost two weeks). I think they took the notion of sitting too literally! I've had quite a bit of experience in sales over the years, especially when I was in graduate school. Artists can often look at sales as something repugnant, but it doesn't have to be. While I was sitting I found that many people just can't make up their minds about what to buy. They might see four things that they like but leave without anything in hand because they can't make up their mind between the four. Sometimes all I needed to do was to place two or three pieces of fusion glass next to each other for them to find out which one they preferred. One day I happened to come in to the gallery and one of the sitters pulled me aside and said "the lady over there has been looking at your pot off and on for about 10 minutes." I had to wonder why he hadn't thought to get up and talk to her about the piece. So I walked up to her and began conversing with her about my pot. It turned out that she was from Santa Fe and was in Hawaii on vacation. She wanted to buy the pot but didn't know how to get it back home. She didn't want to put it in her luggage since it was fragile and probably wouldn't survive intact. I got out my smart phone and helped her find a UPS near their vacation rental that would box and ship the pot. We had a great conversation and she bought the pot. Sales is usually as simple as that: helping people make choices and helping them figure out how to get their purchases home. And that gets me to the third suggestion I'd make for improving the sale next year: make it easy for people to ship their pieces back home. I'm going to suggest that we make some sort of arrangement with UPS or FedEx. That way a person who's visiting Hawaii can make a purchase, hand it back to us, and know that it will arrive safely at their home within a week or so.

So those are some of my experiences and observations about the last two sales I've participated in. I did the best at the Linekona sale and sold 30 pots, but I still have over 100 left that didn't sell. While I was reflecting on that and getting a little discouraged, it suddenly dawned on me that no one else in the world has as extensive a collection of my pots as I do. I'm now the world's leading collector of Jon Rawlings pottery! I know, dear reader, that you may not hold this in high esteem, but how many of you can say you're the best in the world at something?!


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On Collecting Pottery

12/16/2013

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I have over 1,000 pots in my collection, everything from pots made in the highlands of Papua New Guinea to pots made near the fjords of Norway. Some were made as long ago as 4,000 BCE by the Bakun Culture of Iran to as recent as the latest firing by Ken Matsuzaki. Where do I put so many pots, you might ask? Well, I put all of them in my computer. I don't collect the physical pots themselves, at least not yet. Now that I'm making pots I don't have room for any more pots at home, not even my own, so for now I'm collecting the most amazing digital pots I can find for free!

One of the most important things I've done to train my eye for design is to collect images of pots, both of my own and of other potters. First, I suggest you become the world's leading collector of your own pots. Remember, we're talking about images. Take multiple images of every pot you make, especially the clunkers! Describe what you've done and why things turned out the way they did. I refer to my own pots quite a bit when I'm looking for ideas about what forms to make or what glazes to use on certain clays. It's amazing how much I forget or how distorted my memory is. When I look back at images of pots that I've made, I'll often see how to make that form better or glaze it better or it may even inspire me to make a different form altogether. 

Second, start collecting images of pots that are interesting to you for one reason or another. I say "for one reason or another" deliberately. Many of the images in my collection are there because of one thing I found interesting: maybe the way a foot or rim was formed, maybe the way a glaze broke on the edges, or maybe the way a design was carved. Most of the images, however, are of pots that are good all-rounders, i.e. they put it all together. Whatever you do, however, don't collect images of pots just because they're made by famous potters. I don't have any images of pots made by potters like Bernard Leach, Shoji Hamada or Michael Cardew. The reason why? Although their ideas have had a profound impact on me, their pots have not.

Okay, you've stuck with me so far, so let me make some suggestions about how to put together your own collection of pottery images. First, figure out how you want to organize them. I list the images by the potter's name like this: Hans Coper 1, Hans Coper 2, and so forth under each image. If there are two or more images of the same pot, I list them as Hans Coper 3a, Hans Coper 3b, and so forth. It's very important to me to identify the potter so I can remember who they are when I want to do more research on them. Second, figure out where to find images of pots. Here are a few suggestions: (1) Start with the books you have about pottery. Pottery books are usually filled with photos of pots. Which ones really grab you? Now find out who made them. (2) Go to msn.com or google.com and look up the potter ("Hans Coper pottery," for instance). Usually they'll give you the option of looking at "images" which is what you want. (3) Pick out images that interest you and always download the largest image you can find. A larger image file gives you more options, especially for zooming in and getting a close up of the details. (4) Become a member of pinterest and look at images under categories like "pottery" or "ceramics." You'll find scores of images and be introduced to more amazing potters than you may even want to know about. (5) Visit museum websites. For ideas about where to start, look at my page on "Resources." (6) When you visit museums, take images of pots in their collection. Every museum I know of will allow you to take photos of their pieces as long as you turn off the flash. And learn how to use the macro or closeup mode on your camera if it has one. Nothing worse than coming home with dozens of blurry images. My family went to Chicago this past summer and while there we visited museums like the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago and the Art Institute of Chicago. The Oriental Institute specializes in the ancient near east and it was the first time I'd looked closely at ancient pots. I've been to this museum before, but it's interesting how much more I saw now that I've become a potter. The skill of these ancient potters is amazing. I was especially blown away by the Bakun potters of ancient Iran. (I've included images of some of their pots below.) The Art Institute's collection is more diverse and included some of the best pots I've seen anywhere. In one area they have pots made by Africans and Native Americans, including Pre-Columbian groups. There's another section where they have pots by the Ancient Greeks and Etruscans. I took dozens of images and look back at them often for design ideas. Locally I enjoy visiting the Honolulu Museum of Art which has an outstanding collection of Asian pots. Their collection of Korean and Japanese pots is especially deep and they periodically put out new groupings for us to enjoy. (7) Keep an eye out for auctions of ceramics. For instance, look at
www.cowanauctions.com and click on "Modern Ceramics." Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio have teamed up with Cowan's Auctions in Cincinnati to offer great pieces of pottery for sale at least two times a year. The next sale is May 16, 2014. You can also look at past catalogs and get images from them as well. Here are two more examples of auction catalogs that I just ran into. Bukowkis (www.bukowkis.com) is a Swedish auction house that offers Scandinavian ceramics on a regular basis. You can usually find them in their "Modern" sales they have a few times a year under "Ceramics." For some great examples, look at their auction of February 21, 2011 (A Large Private Collection of Swedish Ceramics). For me the interesting stuff starts on page 6 with Wilhelm Kage. Bukowkis not only offers great ceramics, I'm especially interested in how large and clear their images are. Easily the best I've seen and the detail helps me understand how the pots were made. I just ran into another great auction catalog recently when Invaluable put out their latest "auction alerts" email. Piasa in Paris is offering a wide variety of French ceramics in their December 17th, 2013 catalog (Ceramique Francais: 1945-1970). I'm not familiar at all with French ceramics, so every potter was new to me. Not all of these are to my taste, but many of them are and I'm sure you'll find some amazing pieces here. The images are all high quality. (8) Visit gallery websites. Most galleries carry high quality pieces and have high quality images of each one. For instance, if you'd like to see some of the best recent work by artists like Warren MacKenzie, Barbro Aberg, and Masamichi Yoshikawa, visit Lacoste Gallery in Concord, Massachusetts (www.lacostegallery.com). Lacoste carries the work of other great contemporary potters like these and has high quality images of their pieces. Third, periodically save your images on something like a flash drive. It would be quite a waste if your computer crashed and you lost all of those images.

So, here are some images of Bakun pots at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, that were made more than 6,000 years ago...
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    I hope this blog will be encouraging to potters, especially beginning potters, and a source of helpful information and comment.

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