Often people ask me to make something especially for them. This is perhaps the most difficult thing asked of an artist/craftsperson. Many pottters will not do commission work because of all the pitfalls involved. What if the client doesn’t like it and you’ve spent hours, sweat equity and materials into this work? Often people are demanding and want the impossible or don’t want to pay the increased price for a specialized piece. More often your vision and theirs are completely different, even though you are sure you are both on the same page and that has disaster written all over it.
I actually like to do commissioned work, but with a caveat, I like to do commissioned work for people I know. If I make something for a friend and they really don’t like it, I want them to tell me. Our friendship is too valuable and I can typically sell the work to someone else. I usually learn something along the way because I am forced out of my comfort zone and that has significant value to me. I try to live by the motto, “take ego out of it”.
A friend asked me to design flower pots for her. I thought about her qualities that I admire, she is strong, STRONG and would take a bullet for anyone and keep charging. Yet she is delicate and likes filigree earrings and has a classic sense to her, a real style that is all her own. She is as unique as can be. How do I design for that and still come up with a pot that doesn’t over power the flowers? I thought about it for days and kept scribbling designs. I am a doodler and scribble all over everything. A co-worker next to me at a recent training must have thought I’d lost my mind, because all of the sudden the ideas bubbled up and I was drawing like mad. Thank goodness I can multitask and still gained benefit from the training.
This is my final design. This is early stages yet, but I am thrilled with these pots.​ I threw three large pots, between 13-15 lbs each. If you’d like to see the throw it is on the Yellow Door Pottery FB page. After they set up I trimmed them and added feet and drainage holes…all very typical for a flower pot. Next I designed a “reinforcement” for the feet and the top rims. I made a template for both sizes and cut 9 each of them from a slab of clay. I wrapped the bottom ones over the feet so the pots stood taller and to add to that look of strength and then mirrored that along the top edge. I carved out the center of each so they were halved. Earlier I made a sprig mold of some beads and made many, many “pearls” and attached the line between the upper and lower portions and also around the rim. Finally I added a small filigree design to the center of the three divisions on the pots.
I am mad for these pots! I have some thoughts about glazing, and am anxious to see where we end up. I love them, and hope my friend does too, but if she doesn’t, that is ok, disappointing because I want to please, but ok too. I will add a final picture when they have been glazed, we have a way to go yet.
Teri
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