[CarlCravens]

Oh, this one's even better. I made my first pot in middle school. A hand-built rectangular vase, half-inch thick walls. It went into a student display, and one of the teachers offered me $5 for it. My very first pot, my very first sale!

That teacher later became my step-grandmother (my mom hadn't met her son at the time of sale), and she gave the pot back to me when I was in my thirties. I hadn't even remembered that she was the one who bought it, so it was quite a surprise.

I still have it... can't quite bring myself to throw it away.

[Chris Campbell]

Mine is the reason I stopped doing raku ...

The piece started out lovely ... gave it to a friend as a gift .... then ... years later ...
( bearing in mind that no good deed goes unpunished )
I was at a large party at her house when someone asked what kind of pottery I made and she hauled out this ugly greenish brown matte sludgy looking thing.
Needless to say no one asked where they could buy one and she put it away before I could "drop" it.

[Up in Smoke Pottery]

My first piece was pure luck, an decent looking 5" tall cup. I still have it. As for my Bad Penny, it was the many pots after that trying to learn how to throw, my mother has all of them. I even tried to drop on once, it didn't break, just cracked the floor tile.

[Idaho Potter]

Fortunately I haven't any idea where my pottery bad pennies are. There must be a few out there lurking, but maybe they were done in my anonymous period when I wasn't signing pots (I can only hope!)

However, back when I was starting out with oil paints I did some very awful work which my sisters grabbed and now hold over my head--threatening to expose me to friends and family if I don't comply with their wishes. The only thing that keeps them in check is the dreaded "baby pictures" of them. My threat of exposing all on Facebook keeps me safe.

[Lucille Oka]

I have no bad pennies. I always give them to future archeologists. They are about 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 feet deep in land fill. Archeologists love finding pottery especially with dates and they don't care what it looks like. So I always do my part for the future. It is the perfect circle; the wheel of life, yeah that's what it is.

[Marc McMillan]

I have a few rough vases from many many years ago that my mom keeps. Fortunately, she stores those bad pennies in a room in her house that few people sleep in. She displays recent work (work she just comes over and takes...she's a mom afterall) in the main part of the house. She's the greatest.

Marc

[Denice]

HerbNorris, on 28 July 2011 - 04:55 PM, said:

Carl Craven's comment in the "Desert Island" thread had me laughing and nodding. We all have those 'bad penny" pots, mostly early work, that just won't go away, and they make us cringe every time.
I had a pot that turned out so-so, and I brought it to a sale; I priced it pretty low, and thought "well, if it doesn't sell today, it's going under the hammer." Well, it sold. To my mother-in-law! Despite my protests, and offers to give it to her for nothing, she bought it. Now I have to go over to her house, hold the pot and "admire" it, and then have a little "accident!"
What's your bad penny? Who has it?

In a past post I confessed to stealing work from my mother in-law when she was out of town, I no longer do that but I still will go to an estate sale of a customer and see if any of my work is for sale and if I want to buy it to hide it. So far I haven't found any, it has either kept by the family or sold before I got there, I am my toughest critic. Denice

[buckeye]

I love this thread! My mom wants every single piece I make, every piece is beautiful to her! Her and my girlfriend work together, mom drives an hour + to work and I live over an hour away from my mom and I dont get to go back and visit much. So I give pieces to my girlfriend who then takes them to work for my mom and of course mom calls me later telling me how much she loves the pieces. Last time I went home to see mom was about a month ago and it had been a few months before that.. I walk in the door and her house is pretty much wall to wall with my not so favorite pieces.. made me a little sick!!

Before anyone gives me a hard time I just want you all to know mom gets some really nice pieces as well and of course she puts in requests and gets what she wants!

[Pres]

HerbNorris, on 28 July 2011 - 04:55 PM, said:

Carl Craven's comment in the "Desert Island" thread had me laughing and nodding. We all have those 'bad penny" pots, mostly early work, that just won't go away, and they make us cringe every time.
I had a pot that turned out so-so, and I brought it to a sale; I priced it pretty low, and thought "well, if it doesn't sell today, it's going under the hammer." Well, it sold. To my mother-in-law! Despite my protests, and offers to give it to her for nothing, she bought it. Now I have to go over to her house, hold the pot and "admire" it, and then have a little "accident!"
What's your bad penny? Who has it?

My first mug, made in college. Actually it is in my parents home-I gave it to my Mom and Dad right after the class. It sits on the kitchen window sill with a plant in it. It is so sad, about 5 inches tall, with a gangly triangular shaped pulled handle. The glaze is a cone 10 iron red. The mug has no lip rim, is narrower at bottom than top, and is top heavy both visually and physically. I smile when I see it, as it does remind me of where I have been and how much that first experience with clay effected me.

[SShirley]

Mine are in the attic. At least 15 years ago I was "hammering" a bunch of uglies and my sweet husband stepped in and insisted that we keep the rest. He carried them all up the folding ladder to the attic. Just a few months ago we had some workers up there who kindly offered to carry that "pile of junk" down so we could get rid of it. He wouldn't let them and they still live up there haunting me.

[Marcia Selsor]

I had one of my first teapots show up in a photograph about twenty years after I made it. one of my students saw it in SanFrancisco and photographed it. then she posted a funny comment of encouragement to my students saying something like this: " students, this Marcia Selsor pot has been carbon dated back to 1968. do not be discouraged.," This was in Billings, Montana.
Or something to that affect. it was funny and hung in the shop for years.I had sold the teapot to a classmate in Philadelphia. I may still have the photo in my old papers somewhere.
Marcia

[Pres]

Marcia Selsor, on 05 January 2012 - 04:36 AM, said:

I had one of my first teapots show up in a photograph about twenty years after I made it. one of my students saw it in SanFrancisco and photographed it. then she posted a funny comment of encouragement to my students saying something like this: " students, this Marcia Selsor pot has been carbon dated back to 1968. do not be discouraged.," This was in Billings, Montana.
Or something to that affect. it was funny and hung in the shop for years.I had sold the teapot to a classmate in Philadelphia. I may still have the photo in my old papers somewhere.
Marcia

I did a bulletin board one year in the HS studio that highlighted my work over the years. My first mug was in it, along with several other "early pots" along with dating in a progressive timeline. Interestingly enough, HS students are skeptical all so often about the knowledge and skills of their teachers. A bulletin board of this sort shows that we were young and inexperienced and the number of years it took to become otherwise.

[Benhim]

I had several of these. I hadn't yet grasped the proper methods of throwing well, and had started using some more difficult white stoneware body that fired a buff color in the salt. Well I hated the pots once they were done. Thick, almost uniform in color with no flashing. Tapering thick walled cylinders with a sort of squared cut off rim. One a couple I'd tried to remove some of the wall thickness and had left some tool marks from trimming.

I had invited some people over for a party and had given a couple of these away. Several months later I still had two of these left and tried to give them away to the same two people with out remembering. The woman says, "you already gave me one of those, do you have anything else?" I spent the next year and a half throwing and throwing and throwing. The fact I couldn't even give those two pots away had made me overly critical of my work. I recycled anything before bisque that wasn't thin and well thrown. I don't think I even kept a single pot for the first month of that next term of college. I ended up keeping 2 in 10 pots or so that next year. The couple that slipped into the bisque that weren't good were immediately broken on the bashing wall outside. There was a pile of pottery shards out there.


Luckily I'd transferred to a new school to make pots with a man who is extremely skilled. He makes pots with a drive I've not witnessed in many potters. Some of his skill rubbed off on me over those next two years. Through his strict guidance I came to understand what hand made pottery can be. He intrigued me, and then forced me to read for myself and learn how to do the more advanced things I wanted to accomplish. Since then I have made it a habit of reading about pottery at least a few hours a week. I owe the skill, drive and the few good habits I have today to Wally Schwab.

[Mark McCombs]

Great replies.


Mine sits proudly on the top of my Mother's bookcase. Made in high school in 77(?), it was my very first attempt on the wheel.
It is a jar that nearly flopped that I saved into an ugly, narrow necked bottle. (very narrow. used a pencil)
Horribly over-glazed with a brown/orange matte finish, the piece sits on the solidified drips of glaze uniformly distributed around the base of the pot.

I think the teacher put all the pots on stilts.

When the subject of pottery comes up my mom is quick to point out this treasured artwork. I'll post a picture some day.

[Rebel_Rocker]

Benhim, on 06 January 2012 - 12:08 AM, said:

The couple that slipped into the bisque that weren't good were immediately broken on the bashing wall outside. There was a pile of pottery shards out there.

That sounds fun
I have a box of bisqued pieces sitting outside in a box that need taken care of. I just couldn't bare to waste glaze on them.

[voceramics]

The very first piece I ever made was a teapot. Luckily my husband told me that I was going to have to hold myself to a higher standard. Smashing it to bits was very very satisfying.

So there shouldn't be any bad penny's out there.

[lcar]

This Thread is making me laugh so hard! I love it. A couple of months ago, I was at a party and a good friend told me she saw a piece of mine at a garage sale. She didn't buy it. (huh?) lol, I cringed. I asked my friends in the room at the time, please please if they see my pieces at garage sales to buy them for me for my birthday, either that or I'll reimburse them. I was thinking it would be fun to get them off the market by taking a hammer to them. Of course, I'm assuming the worst, I never saw it.

[Pres]

lcar, on 16 October 2012 - 09:39 AM, said:

This Thread is making me laugh so hard! I love it. A couple of months ago, I was at a party and a good friend told me she saw a piece of mine at a garage sale. She didn't buy it. (huh?) lol, I cringed. I asked my friends in the room at the time, please please if they see my pieces at garage sales to buy them for me for my birthday, either that or I'll reimburse them. I was thinking it would be fun to get them off the market by taking a hammer to them. Of course, I'm assuming the worst, I never saw it.

I have been amused at times when I realize that a pot in a home was one of mine-unpaid for. This happened when I took grad classes(summers) at PSU. After one of the 10 week sessions with Dontigny I had a number of pots-raku and stoneware(150) and left the ones I really didn't like on the back porch of my 3 room apartment the next year. By the following summer they were nearly all gone- to turn up all over town here and there, still coming back to bite me.

[Wahine]

This thread is cracking me up. Mine is sitting right next to me. My Mom moved in with my sister and had to clean out her house. She sent me all kinds of 'bad pennys.' But I must say, this pot I made 24 yrs ago in college isn't as embarressing as it once was. yes it's heavy, the glaze must of ran onto the kiln shelf, but by God it was centered and the foot was trimmed well. Better than I'm doing now my second time around.



-chantay