It’s a deceptive concept that the addition of semi-mechanized production, including jiggering, hydraulic pressing and slip casting, will increase your business. The assumption that making more ware will translate into a greater bottom line is fundamentally flawed unless potters are willing to do some research. Making more ware is useless unless the work is already pre-sold.

Looking with a critical eye at a product line that is totally made by hand may certainly elicit many a positive response from an adoring public, but it might not transition easily into work that relies on plaster tooling to be reproduced. Commercially manufactured pottery relies on simple shapes that are easy to reproduce. Handmade work can be made as complex as desired. It does not transition well to duplication using plaster tooling and employees.

Working at the wheel is a distinctly different process than designing ware to be cast, jiggered or pressed. A transition to assisted technologies requires a design-based thinking that relies on intensive mold and model making. Making greater quantities of work necessitates having well-thought-out systems to handle the increased production. Hence, forming, finishing, decorating and firing all require additional space. Kilns with greater firing capacity and a quicker turn-around will be needed. Employees, bookkeeping, managerial responsibilities and other business-related activities are required. Everything about making pottery increases in geometric proportion, as do the funds necessary to allow the growth of your business and the orders to sustain it.

Do you have a growing market for what you make? Can you fill your orders and still have a life outside of pottery making? Do you have a business and marketing plan? What are your priorities? Do you have a supportive partner? Are you willing to do the research, and invest the time and money to grow your business in a series of small steps to attain the larger goal? Do you have enough savings to pay for the expansion of your business? Will you need to leverage your assets or use a high-interest credit card?

The myopic view is to blindly acquire the technology and hope that more orders will result. The big picture is to do the research and educate yourself beforehand. The economy of scale will only be of value if the number crunching is done accurately and well in advance. Perhaps a more educated approach than blindly reinventing pottery manufacturing for yourself might be to approach a potter who has grown a studio-based business into a small manufacturing business and is willing to share some insight.

Unfortunately, our field not only lacks a suitable business model, but also the necessary and specific business education that addresses these as well as other important questions in what can best be called a volatile and unsettling economy. Let’s also not forget that with all the hard work and time spent -- have some fun with it!