Living in San Francisco and Piercing Pots | Morgan Loehr | Episode 626

Morgan Loehr | Episode 626

Morgan Loehr is a potter based in the heart of San Francisco. Morgan loves to get lost in the details and focus on creating colanders and berry bowls. Morgan really enjoys the repetitive process that piercing requires!

SPONSORS

You can help support the show!

diamondcoretools.com

Number 1 brand in America for a reason. Skutt.com

For all your ceramic needs go to Georgies.com

I’m curious about you as an artist. Why a maker? Why not get a nine to five?

I’ve always known I couldn’t do that. I think it is hard for me to work for other people and I have always know that I wanted to be my own boss. There were so many things I was thinking I wanted to be growing up but I learned that being my own boss is definitely important for me.

What kind of discipline is required to be a full time potter that you didn’t know would be required before you started?

It takes a lot of focus and motivation to keep yourself…no one is expecting you to show up. Just you. Sometimes it is hard to set your own hours and follow them. And not every day you are going to be doing the fun stuff that you look forward to,so just a lot of self discipline.

So by nature are you more of an introvert or more of an outgoing person?

I am probably as introverted as it gets.

So that leads me to this question then. How do you feel about promoting yourself and promoting your work?

That is definitely one of the more challenging things. I think Instagram has helped with that because I can share pictures and share my process and that in itself is promoting without feeling like I’m pushing my work on people. If that makes sense? Some people are out front and really talking to people and pushing their work in a way. I like people to come and look themselves. It is probably not the best sales technique.

Do you feel like you are finding your fans?

I think so , yeah. Definitely with Instagram. And this past year especially I feel like I am slowly finding that, yeah.

Do you find that goal setting is becoming part of your ritual? To set goals and to meet the goals?

I have been trying to do that more because it is easy to feel lost when you don’t do that. So I have been trying to do that a lot more.

So tell me, what does your goal list look like?

Right now, this year was to do more shows so I am signed up for more shows than I have done in the past. Unfortunately one of them has been postponed but that is the first one for this year and one of them was to be posting almost every day on Instagram and that seems to make a big difference. And then work wise, I am working bigger and challenging myself to throw. I have never been very strong so throwing large amounts of clay has been kind of a challenge. So I am slowly trying to work up, pound by pound, the larger bowls.

When you look at what you make now, what is one thing you are super proud of?

I guess it’s the work that I know I can make consistently and then there are the pieces that, I guess the berry bowls, I just love the design that I ended up on. The little berry bowls with the handles and the screws. I feel like I can make those consistently and I am happy with the design.

What is one thing you would say you are not so proud of but you have a plan to improve?

When I throw large it is a real challenge and that is when I end up with more of the seconds and the warping and cracking. So that is definitely the area I want to improve.