Before you swear you’ll never look at another piece of handmade pottery again, let’s take a closer look at the pottery world.  Today, almost everything can be made in a factory, cheaply and in vast quantities. Unfortunately, this means that we as consumers often transfer the monetary value of these commercially made goods onto their artistically designed counterparts.  To truly value these functional objects d’art, you must understand how they’re made.

Pottery is made from a clay body, crafted into the desired shape, and then fired to high temperatures to fuse the clay into a solid object.  This process can be as primitive as gathering some clay from the river bank and using your fingers to pinch a pot from the lump; or as complicated as using a large machine called a RAM press to force the clay into a mold.

Commercial pottery studios utilize molds to churn out vast quantities of identical objects, anything from dinnerware sets to toilets.  Machines play a key role in the production line, but there are also human workers trained to do the same repetitive task day in and out.  Stencils and decals are used to ensure that any decorative work is identical.  It is this automation that allows for essential objects to be made affordably.

Production potters also focus on output, but on a smaller scale than commercial factories.  The workshop of a production pottery is often just one head potter with a small team of assistants.  The head potter is a highly skilled artisan with years of experience creating ceramic wares.  He or she will use their artistic vision to design a cohesive line of work, and then train their team to reproduce these items.  Slump molds and slip-casting are the most common method of reproduction, but it is not uncommon to find workshops of skilled potters creating hundreds of identical wheel-thrown pieces.  However they are made, the pieces are created in limited runs giving them added value.  In addition, production potters often have proprietary glazes that make their finished pieces stand out from commercial pottery.

A studio potter usually works alone and by necessity puts quality over quantity to focus on unique creations.  While they will sometimes repeat the same form, the handmade nature of the work means that no two pieces will ever be identical. They frequently combine various techniques, allowing them to achieve forms that you won’t find in commercial pottery.  Their work is often highly decorated, with multiple hours spent on the crafting of each piece.