Molly's teacup and bringing slow design into the studio.

When I was an Etsy employee and had a stable income and spent a huge portion of every day on the site, the urge to just BUY BUY BUY all the time was totally insatiable. I realized I had to focus all of that NEEDING into something containable. A vessel, if you will, to contain my need. So, I decided to start a mug collection,  and to buy one new mug from a ceramic artist on Etsy each month until I had replaced all the crappy mugs in  my home with gorgeous handmade ones. I now have 8 of these beauties, photos of which I will post shortly.

So now I no longer work for Etsy, but my desire for these things continues, and begins to shapeshift ever so slightly. Introducing item number one from my teacup collection!!

The image above is a teacup which is now smiling before me to the left of my keyboard. Made by the incredible Molly Hatch.

This is why I love the internet. I could have bought this teacup at a store. But then I wouldn't have happened upon Molly's web site. From her web site, I would not have found her blog. Or her other blog. From her blog I would not have discovered her interest not only in the history of ceramics, which I know nothing about, but in her interest in the principles of slow design. I do know about the slow food movement, and I know designers and farmers and all kinds of other makers are engaged in a slow but exciting process of making our practices more sustainable and healthy for creatures and planet. I am new however to the specific principles of slow design.

So I read about it. And had I not done so, I may have once again struggled painfully in my studio that day with the sheer amount of time and patience and PROCESS involved in developing ones self as a sculptor. I may have had a harder time remembering that to work slowly is good. To work out of sync with the flow of capitalism and "the market" is very good - in fact, critical for artists. I would have spent time thinking about how I could increase my production and lower my costs and get something ready for my Etsy shop by the end of the day, rather than doing what I did: allow a new sculpture to emerge without a plan. get down with the balsa wood and glue gun and old cardboard and just see what emerged. Add another set of ideas and principles to the process of me figuring out how to both make art for a market and make art for the sake of developing a body of creative work for its own sake, whether it will be profitable or not. Thats where the really really interesting stuff comes for me.

It not that I don't have that epiphany over and over, and so many times before reading about slow design. But as an artist living in a heavily, obsessively, addictively consumerist culture, you need reminders ALL the TIME that YOU are in charge of the pace, that YOUR pace is just right, and there isn't some other model of production you are supposed to be conforming to.

So back to Molly Hatch, and how yesterday, it all started with a teacup. Reading about Molly and her work on her blog, I was also reminded of how interested I have become in making utilitarian objects, such as (in my recent endeavors) sewing clothing, or making mugs. This is a hard thing to admit in the so called "art world" (you know, the one that calls itself "the art world."). It's considered like practically the death of your career to go from making work "about ideas" to making work that's meant to hold your ginger ale. As if those two things were mutually exclusive. Which every great maker of utilitarian objects knows they are not. And we could of course go into the historical reality that the women have often been the makers of utilitarian objects, and the men the communicators of ideas (while the women brought them their ginger ale). So sexism is infused in all our values about creativity, and making, and minds, and communicating, and art itself.

Anyhoo, if it weren't for the physical presence of the teacup sitting on top of a pile of Styrofoam peanuts in a cardboard box, with a postcard tucked in next to it with Molly Hatch's web site address on it, and then the internet, the tool with which I discovered more about this cup's maker, I would not be telling you all this now, and I would not have gotten a peek at Molly's work in progress, a new series of teacups which will be released at some future date. So now I know to RSS Molly's blog and keep up with her, so when those new cups hit the shop I can go running to get one for myself, to keep cup #1 company on my shelf.
Thanks to Molly's teacup, I brought some extra support and confidence with me to the studio, and Molly made another true fan. Thanks for selling and blogging online, Molly!

Comments

[Kerry~Moonbeamarts]

A journey begins with a single...teacup? Thanks for the story. Isn't it amazing where inspiration comes from?

[Ana]

I love that post and that teacup. I completely understand what you said here! I like to slow my pace and really appreciate what I'm doing, be in the moment and take my time. I just remember taking a glass class and the instructor talking about how to make like a million glass pendants in a few hours...I knew right there that that's not me. I like to think things through, to design, to experiment and then try to make each piece unique. So I guess there is that "mass production" attitude with some crafts people too.
Cheers to slowing things down!

[High Desert Diva]

Great post. I hadn't heard of slow design before...very interesting!

[Caroline]

"But as an artist living in a heavily, obsessively, addictively consumerist culture, you need reminders ALL the TIME that YOU are in charge of the pace, that YOUR pace is just right, and there isn't some other model of production you are supposed to be conforming to."

Yes, yes, yes, and YES. Sometimes I don't produce as much work as others, and it's good to be reminded that that's OK for me. Thank you for this.

[Jen]

Thanks for the link to the slow design site. I hadn't heard of this before. It fits right in with stuff I've been thinking about lately regarding the difficulty of balancing my own artistic needs with the "business" side of things.