American potters and the wheel

bonsaial1

My caveat: I have no personal problem with wheel thrown pots and own my fair share of them!
Further, I love the time, artistry and the patience that is worked into every handmade pot whether by wheel, mold or slab.

Dale asked about my remark in the bonsai peeves thread. I felt that this area of bonsai pottery could be discussed further and deserved its own thread.

Within this area of the forum, "bonsai pottery" I read an interesting thread by Stonemonkey about making a rectangle pot from the slab method. I am not a potter. I have owned a kiln, and made about 12 molds in 1994 and set to taking the bonsai world by storm with slip cast bonsai pots, only to give away all that I made to the neighbors for planting flowers in. I still do have a few that I kept, and have wanted to learn how to use the wheel myself.

The forum to which I made my statement about American potters all using the wheel was about peeves. Make no mistake, I love wheel thrown pots. I love the textures, the glazes, and the shapes that can be stretched from a round pot. The problem is, there are very few American potters making very nice rectangle or square pots. American potters are not known for the diversity of shapes they make. Out of the small of Europe alone there are many fine pottery artists that have built quite a reputation for themselves in making fine bonsai pots in all shapes and configurations. Horst makes some dandies, along with Petra Tomlinson, Ian Bailie, Peter Krebs (deceased), Bryan Albright, Dan Barton, Silvia Weber and many more I probably know nothing about.

From America, (and this list is based on those that I have first hand experience with or have seen enough pictures of their work to base my opinions on.) Jim Gremmel, Dale Colchoy, Michael Hagedorn, Sara Rayner, Jim Barrett, Kit Boheme, Dick Ryerson, Kevin Thompson, and probably many that I have not listed. With the exception of Jim Barrett and Michael Hagedorn, the majority of the pots I see are wheel thrown.

I defer the answers to this to the potters. I have no idea what the limitations are. Labor/Price? Dale asked me what a fair price for my labor might be. This would be a fair question if all things were the same. Comparing what I might make in a job for me versus what Dale makes doing bonsai pots for a living is two different things.

I work for a construction company that does insurance restoration work. I rebuild home destroyed by fire and flood. In this construction heavy time we happen to be in at the present, I can pretty much name my price. Making bonsai pots for living is much more narrow, based on the market that has the money available to spend on hard goods for a hobby that they would rather use their money on for a tree.

I suspect that the per unit price of a pot must be kept small enough to keep buyers happy, while having just enough labor involved to make it seem like it has value. A wheel thrown pot would fit this criteria very well. having no expertise in throwing pots on a wheel, I would suspect there would not be much more than half an hour in most pots, not counting firing and glazing.

All this while being a true labor of love keeps the price in check. I suspect that if Dale were to actually charge his comfortable price per hour, a nice drip glazed shohin bunjin pot would have to sell for about 150.00 bucks. That would put it well out of the mass market. The same goes for a fine bonsai table. When I make a table for someone I just put a charge at the end for my trouble, somewhere around 30.00 to 50.00 bucks over actual wood cost. Not counting shipping. The labor involved in actually making a table of the level I make them would require me to charge about 400.00 bucks for a table like the one I made for Will Heath. I usually have around 20 to 25 hours in a table depending on intricasy, spread out over two to three days. A table for 400.00 at 20 hours work is only 20.00 an hour, far below what I make. That does not even count the wood, which can be around 100.00 bucks for an average table.

I throughly understand the reasons for the potter to rely on the wheel in making bonsai pots. I just wish there were more out there making some nice rectangle pots for us to enjoy also. Jim barrett makes some very nice rectangle pots, mostly glazed, but some fairly nice unglazed one as well. The price is very competitive, and he always does well at the vendor areas in which he sells. He does have a line of slip cast pot as well that sell for a very modest sum of money.

I would also like to see more American potters making nice hand made pinch pots for Kusamono. Some of the pots from Europe, especially Horst, are magnificent. I would like to know what the price point on average for some of these pots are?

I have two very nice pots that I purchased from Dick Ryerson. He is doing some of the glazes like Horst, and also is making flat dishes for Nearai style Kusamono. These are displays without pots for the roots and are covered with moss.

I hope to hear from some potters and help dispel some of my beliefs.
Thanks, Al

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stonemonkey

Hi bonsaial1

Some very interesting comments there. I can only speak for myself, I find that when I throw pots then they tend to be, except drum pots, less labour intensive than pots made by other methods, coiling and slabbing. Therefore this is reflected in the price that they are sold for. I agree that if labour + time and materials = pot price then they would truly be expensive and no one would buy them. However once you become a sought after name, like Dan Barton here in the uk, then the price of the pot does command a higher price than the average potter. As long as I cover the cost of my materials and make a little beer money on top of that then I am happy.

I will keep an eye on this thread as I am sure there will be some "interesting" responses.

Regards

Andy

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rockm

Al,

I think the reason there is a perception out there that American potters don't do square containers is because American potters don't get much exposure. European pots have become fashionable and more well known as they get exhibited at shows and in magazines.

There are many American potters that make a wide variety of shapes, glazes and quality work. The list you have of the American potters that make excellent bonsai pots is pretty extensive. There are a few more too. Could there be more? Sure, but there's really no shortage now. American potters are producing alot of shapes, not only wheelthrown.

Ron Lang www.langbonsai.com makes excellent, heavy, quality ovals, and other shaped containers and intentionally moved away from wheelthrown work a couple of years ago. His ovals are among the best I've seen and his ash glazes rival Horsts' best work. Don Gould http://www.bonsai-wbff.org/wbc5/presenters/dongould.htm also makes extremely nice containers, although he has only recently gotten back into the bonsai game--with ram molded pots. He also made (don't know if he's taken this up again) extremely nice slab-built containers. Nick Lenz is also an astounding American bonsai potter. His work can be found for sale from time to time and his best work (which I got to see once during a fluke private tour of the Nat. Arb.'s bonsai pot collection--don't ask how I got in ;-)) is awe-inspiring AND all square and rectangle-shaped.

Check out Sara Rayner's web site. There are many options for squares and rectangles-- I have two of her large square and rectangle slab-built pots and one oval--none are wheel thrown. Go to http://www.redwing.net/~daalms/rectangle.html. Sara had about the same mix of squares, rectangles, ovals and rounds in the dozens of pots displayed at WBFF this year, by the way.

I am no potter, but have become a pot collector--my pots are alot better than my trees ;-). I have European pots from Krebs, Horst, Albright, and a couple of others from overseas. I can compare work (yes this is subjective) from a wide variety of potters. Let me say--as a non-potter--that the best American work is bullet proof--sometimes vastly surpassing some of the European work--at half, to a third, the cost.

There is no real shortage of right angles in their work ;-)

P.S.--I've left Dale off the list here. That is not meant as a slight. His work is pretty well know to those on this list. That work speaks for itself. It is terrific. The others I listed may not be as known to forum members.

Dale Cochoy

Jeeez!
I just wrote out a big long response to this then somehow accidently deleted it! I hate it when that happens!
Don't feel like typing it again.

Anyway, Al,
Here's a quick shot I just took of a slab rectangle drying on my dining room table ( My wife just LOVES that!) as we speak.

4 1/2 hrs labor SO FAR before bisque, glaze and high fire.

This will probably sell at the first show I take it to.

How's $160-175 sound?

( edit) And heck, while I'm at it...here's a couple drying ovals in the basement.
ditto on the first show thing..

Wish I could make more and faster...but can't

But, I coulda made a sh#@ load of pinch grass pots in that time for $15-20 each,...painted 'em up like Easter eggs and been done with them in a single firing.
How many grass pots do ya need?

Dale

Attached Images

	Wet Rect..jpg (51.5 KB, 41 views)
	wet oval1.jpg (34.1 KB, 32 views)
	Wet oval2.jpg (50.7 KB, 28 views)

__________________
________________________________
If you want to be Different....
You have to DO something Different!
__________________________________________

Some people NEVER take the time to do a job right the first time....
but, they always seem to make the time to do it over again...
____________________________________________
Dale Cochoy
Wild Things Bonsai Studio
Yakimono no Kokoro Bonsai Pottery
Hartville, Ohio

bonsaial1

Thanks Dale for the abridged version. Sorry your post was taken by the delete gremlin.

I hope you do not feel like my post here or on the peeves thread was directed at you or any one in particular. This is just a phenonon, phenoman, phenonom...trend that I see more here in the states. I absolutely have no problem with you making round pots by the suitcase full. If you sell all you make, thats gravy in the boat.

That thread was about peeves. That was a personal peeve, and was really not meant to actually be disussed as all the peeves in that thread. I think I may have hit a nerve and you felt this needed a little defending.

I hope you also see my point, and you do have to admit that out of all the pots you have posted here, you have probably not shown more than three or four rectangle pots.

I tend to like shohin size trees. There was a period of time when I bought so many shohin round pots from American potters that all I seemed to have was round pots. In fact if you look in the archives about the GSBF convention in Fresno in 2003, Shinji Suzuki did a critique on a shohin rack that I displayed. The first thing he said about the display was that all the trees were in fricken round pots. I have not bought a round pot since!

So this may be a little personal for me, not so much so for others out there.

Thanks, Al

__________________
Experience is fundamental

Dale Cochoy

Al said:
"I hope you also see my point, and you do have to admit that out of all the pots you have posted here, you have probably not shown more than three or four rectangle pots."

Gosh it's hard to please everyone!
Do you think I show EVERY pot I make? I LIKE contemporay or different styles, that's what I like to show.

Here's some facts about pot making:
It's more difficult and harder to learn the skills to throw a perfect med/lg round pot than to build a slab pot. It's just more time consuming to slab build. But, taking into consideration slab builts, this is important, the more joints/pieces the more liable to crack at some step in making. Or, warp the sides. ( note: the NBF pot comp. pot shown below was 18 pieces if I recall correctly. Sorry for crappy photo, before I went digital)
How many do you look closely at enoughon the web to see the warped sides or "unsquare" sides. When I have cracks or warps these become "Dale pots".
Ovals are a combination of both. I make LOTS of ovals, how many ( nicely even elliptical ones) do you see posted by the group potters.

There's a lot of reasons that effect me, and I'm sure lots of other bonsai potters, including the once-a-week community art center group.

Sifting through the "You oughta do's" and "Why doncha do's" and the "If I were you's"

There is the time/show thing.

What sells best.

competing with you folks that do it for kicks so don't worry about making a good wage doing it, because you already have a good job ( BTW, this is one of the things that really hurts bonsai businessmen at shows competing with those doing it for a lark and happy with paying for their tables). When I'm KING there won't be vendors at a convention unless they have a business lic. # for their state and pay taxes on what they sell. How's that for a novel idea?....legal businessmen vendors?

Time

space

help ( none or lots)

Time

hype and fad

CHEAP imported rectangles ( and ovals)

time

95% of bonsai people are "beginners" ( no matter how long they say they've been in bonsai) who think $15 for a tree or $10 for a pot is a lot!

eBay ( for people who like to get packages in the mail)

time

making pots for all incomes. Those "Big Buck" guys like Al,... those who make Al's income look sickly,... and those who make $10/hr.

poor quality ( warped, cracked and not "square" ) versus "perfect"

Oh, and did I mention time?

Al, I wonder how many trees out there in rectangular ( or oval) pots would look just fine in a round pot. When potting trees here at home I ofter switch from rect. to oval or round and the trees look completely new to me!

One last question....
If you haven't bought a round pot since 2003, why do you want american potters ( who you don't think make enough rectangles) to make kusamono pinch pots??
That one throws me.
BTW, if you needed pinch pots/kusamono pots.....they gave away 250 of mine at the WBC banquet. No two alike!

Regards,
Dale

Attached Images

Me&Pot.jpg (57.6 KB, 55 views)

__________________
________________________________
If you want to be Different....
You have to DO something Different!
__________________________________________

Some people NEVER take the time to do a job right the first time....
but, they always seem to make the time to do it over again...
____________________________________________
Dale Cochoy
Wild Things Bonsai Studio
Yakimono no Kokoro Bonsai Pottery
Hartville, Ohio

Will_Heath

Nice picture Dale....

I am looking forward to your booth at our show next year and am already saving up cash to stock up on your pots, bring a few. Thanks for all you do here to futher the understanding of pottery and bonsai.



Will

Dale Cochoy

Thanks Will,
I probably tend to over-explain myself....I'm sure

You, and others in Michigan, should try to get over to Mathai (sp?) gardens this coming weekend for the Ann Arbor show Sat and Sun. They have a nice show, some demos, raffles of stuff and about 4-5 vendors.

Dale

__________________
________________________________
If you want to be Different....
You have to DO something Different!
__________________________________________

Some people NEVER take the time to do a job right the first time....
but, they always seem to make the time to do it over again...
____________________________________________
Dale Cochoy
Wild Things Bonsai Studio
Yakimono no Kokoro Bonsai Pottery
Hartville, Ohio

bonsaial1

Wow! Sorry Dale. I did not intend to insight a riot. You have taken this way too personal for me. I feel as if you need to speak for every potter and to justify every round pot out there.

You have no reason to justify your way of making a buck. I can respect that.

I can only report on what I see at the vendor tables every time I go to a bonsai gig. I have come to expect this and know that no one is going to change their way of doing business just to please a few. The needs of the many far outweigh that.

This was just a peeve. Lets just keep it my problem...



It throws me more that you would even make a statement like this. Surly you understand the difference?
Al

__________________
Experience is fundamental