Ellen Currans on sun 12 jul 09
Dear Chae,
I meant several things by "changing color trends." The most obvious is
what the
home furnishings and fashion people are promoting. I guess it has
something to do with
creating a new market for buying new stuff, but it is when all the
sheets and towels
and furniture come only in the "new colors". The Crafts Report (which
I don't take anymore)
used to do articles every year predicting the new colors. Magazines
like House Beautiful and
Home do also. Catalogs like Crate and Barrel also show the "in"
colors. Chris Campbell and
Marci gave a couple internet sources for color trends.
I'm not saying potters should change their
glaze colors every few years to match the furniture. but they need to
be aware of what
colors are used or not used anymore. For instance, I found that if I
offered dark
blue glazes or blue designs on white, back when the most popular new
dinnerware was Dansk
porcelain with blue accents, that I sold a lot of accessory pieces for
wedding gifts. Blue also sold
well up around Anacortes , where there are a lot of people of
Scandinavian descent, and
also a lot of blue and white kitchens. I got a lot of flak from old
customers when I moved
on to more greens and not as much blue. In the 70's and 80's iron
reds, browns and mamo white were very
popular here in the Northwest. Sometime in the 90's they began to look
a bit=3D3D2
0dated - perhaps
just in comparison to the new brighter colors being used, but they did
not sell as well. When
I began to bring more of those glazes home from a show than before, I
gradually moved
on to brighter glazes. I don't do glazes I don't personally like, but
I try to be aware of what
people are looking for and buying.
Right now, I am doing glazes that fit into the Arts and Crafts style
popular in
the Northwest. They also complement food presentation without
overpowering it
and work with the textured surface of my slabware. I have two greens,
two blues,
a rusty spodumene, the old mamo white and a buttermilk that takes color
beautifully for accents. I think I may begin to offer pieces that work
with the newly rejuvenated
Heath pottery. Studio potters have a great advantage in being able to
make small runs of special pots
to add to what most people buy commercially. I'm not interested in
doing dinner sets. I'm happy
doing all the extras that make the table interesting and the kitchen
fun to work in.
Once again, I am a stoneware potter making useful pots, and not
particularly interested in
going the ceramic art route. Keeping up with color trends may not
apply there.
Ellen
-----Original Message-----
From: Chaeli Sullivan
To: Clayart@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG
Sent: Sat, Jul 11, 2009 11:55 am
Subject: Re: Cost and20Pricing
Ellen
You mention: "I try to keep up with the changing color trends."
Is there an online source for color trends that are popular this year?
Chae
=3DC2=3DA0
--- On Fri, 7/10/09, Ellen Currans wrote:
From: Ellen Currans
Subject: Cost and Pricing
To: Clayart@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG
Date: Friday, July 10, 2009, 5:00 PM
=3DC2=3DA0I gravitate toward making the forms that I enjoy the most and sel=
l=3D
the
best.=3DC2=3DA0=3DC2=3DA0=3DC2=3DA0I try to keep up with the changing color=
trends.
Ellen Currans
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