July 2015 - What's it worth?  A.k.a. the value of beauty.

 

"When can I buy one of your pots?"

 

This is what people started asking me a couple years ago.  My response, "I have no idea."  It had not been on my mind.  I had been so transfixed and overwhelmed with the people of the pots and the processes, that it hadn't occurred to me that someone might want them.   

 

What is the "salable value" of a pot?  About 1500 years ago, the value would primarily have been based on the usability of the vessel; are there any cracks, how fast does it weep, how strong are the walls and how much will it hold.  The top consideration at that time...  'Can we use it?'   And all but just a few of my pieces meet this basic criteria.  

 

So why is one mug $50 and another $300?  They are both authentically made.  They both have the same ingredients, same labor, and same attention to detail.  

 

There is something about perfection, beauty, a job mastered beyond the common population's capabilities.  Prehistoric people would have experienced this.  Vessels of many potters would have been taken from a completed kiln firing and one piece would have caught everyone's eye.  That piece would have set the standard for all the others. It would have demanded a higher trading value.  The prestige of that potter would have also risen, her pots becoming more and more valuable.  

 

When I want to "trade" a piece, my second consideration (only to the soundness mentioned above) is did the clay, water, paint, fire, air and ME interact in the utmost way to produce a very desirable pot ascetically.  Does it have a nice feel both in weight and surface finish?  Are the whites clean and clear?  Are the blacks dark, even, robust and showing no sign of burn out?  Are there smoke clouds, oxidation stains, paint transfers, or shadowing?  Were the clay, paint and water free of unknown contaminants?

 

Some people will say, "Well that $50 mug you made, I like it because it looks old."  

 

When you go to a museum and look at a collection of hundreds of ancient pots about 2% of them are pristine.  Those are the pots of envy that would have fetched an elevated trade.  The other 98% are at all levels of useable.  Slapped up walls of grey with uneven rims, a smudge, a dimple, a fat line by a skinny one, a fingerprint, a smoke cloud, crappy paint, some that are under fired and some that warped.  Production done much quicker than today, was almost always based on need.  But all of them are old, even the pristine ones.   Since the majority of the pots we see are average, we start to associate that with the look of old.  

 

I really think what people are saying, or trying to say is, "I like the ones that look like everyday, like existence."

 

There are only a few of us who like to produce pots in this most demanding, physically and mentally, authentic way and because we choose this path, we are subject to the same standards as the ancients.  But wait... that's not completely true.  We have temperature-controlled workrooms, cars used for traveling to places where higher quality clays exist, the ability and time to be very picky about the wood we use and to size it perfectly with a chainsaw. (I know of no potter today who cuts his or her fuel with a stone ax.)  Because of these luxuries, we are bound to have more pristine pieces.  There is even times when the modern potter starts to produce an authentic "something" that would have been do-able back in the day, but almost certainly never was.  

 

So what does this all mean? 

 

I can produce new, high quality authentic pieces.  I have also been known to produce new more rustic pieces of everyday existence. Some of my pieces look like the best potter's best piece the day it came out of the kiln and some of my pieces don't.  Bottom line, they are all authentic and you get to choose which piece makes your heart sing.  Which piece speaks to you from the past?