: GEP - Viewing Profile

nancylee, on 22 May 2013 - 06:10 PM, said:

Nope. Good craftsmanship and design can be had both ways. In the examples below, the rice bowls are wheel-thrown, but the dinner and salad plates are handbuilt. No foot rings on any of these pieces. I use templates and molds so the production is very consistent.

Mea

 circle+square-plates.jpg (36.29K)
Number of downloads: 76

clay lover, on 21 May 2013 - 10:41 PM, said:

hmmm ... doesn't fit with my minimalist values. And way too dogmatic for pottery, not just for minimalists.

Mea

The good news, when it comes to pottery, it's really hard for somebody else to make your work. People can steal ideas, but to make exact copies that would be mistaken for yours is not likely. Besides, anyone who doesn't have their own ideas is not going to get very far. Don't worry about them. If your business is going to last for the long term, you should be introducing new ideas every year. If one of your designs is being ripped off too much, just stop making it and move on to better things.

As for your branding materials, in the US everything you create is automatically protected by the Copyright Law. This doesn't mean people won't try, but you have the right to make them stop. Although, in my career I've seen a few cases where I thought someone was copying me. It wasn't worth the time or expense to fight them, because it was so lame. Again, if a person doesn't have their own ideas, you don't need to worry about them. In one case I thought someone was trying to copy the look/layout of my website, so I just redesigned my website.

Mea

I don't personally own any of these, but Bruce Baker and his salesmanship and merchandising CDs have a lot of fans. http://www.bbakerinc.com/

potterychick, on 21 May 2013 - 10:31 PM, said:

Did the overheating problem happen the first time you stacked your kiln like this? If so, the longer firing time could account for all the extra heat in the room.

Once, a potter called me freaking out because her kiln (with a kiln sitter) had still not shut off after 18 hours. She hadn't owned the kiln very long, and up until then, her glaze firings had taken about 9 hours. Turns out it was because she had stacked the whole thing with shelves 1 inch apart, to fire tiles. I was surprised at how much more energy it consumed.

Can you try another load that does not have as many shelves, and see what happens?

I have a vent-a-kiln. My studio will get pretty warm in the summer when firing the kiln, but never over 100 degrees. That could also be because I'm in a basement that tends to stay cool.

Mea