Going Smaller to Make More | Christine Tenenholtz | Episode 484

Christine Tenenholtz | Episode 484

Christine Tenenholtz has been making her way in clay for nearly 25 years. After apprenticing with a few established potteries Christine discovered a love of product design and production. Christine struck out on her own with a signature line of mid range, colorful, functional work, selling primarily in the Southwest, and in her thriving Etsy shop.

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Where did your name come from: Red Hot Pottery?

I sometimes have these inexplicable bouts of inspiration and in 2004 I decided to open a little shop, a little studio and shop with a front door in Sedona. I literally saw it in my head. I saw the sign saying Red Hot Pottery. I thought, Oh yeah, the pottery gets red hot in the kiln and it kept being there in my head so I thought, Well, I guess that’s the name then. So I went to a sign maker and I had him to a sign with this pot with flames around it and it was bring red-orange and that was my sign and how Red Hot Pottery happened.

Would you ever want to go back to having a day job?

I don’t think so. I move through my day so organically and so fluidly. I will start my day with a plan and make notes, and I will get derailed by life and I end up working late or changing up my schedule and moving my firing date or whatever. I have been working like this for twenty-five years I don’t know if I could be less flowy or less fluid and become more structured.

What is the joy of being a full-time potter?

I get to create any time I want. I get so happy. I will turn on my music and I’ll be dancing and I will be, I’ve got an idea I want to make a thing right now. And I will literally grab clay and throw it on the wheel and come up with something. The music will be going and I will be singing at the top of my lungs and I was just able to take an idea right from my brain into reality in that moment and it is so ridiculously satisfying.

How important is having a making schedule for what you do, like a making schedule?

There are times when it is more important than other times. Currently, right now, prior to the holidays, I have been on more of a schedule than I usually am on. So during the summer mys schedule is really loose. Like I will be working in the yard most of the day and then I will throw for an hour. But now I am actually in the studio in the morning and I don’t have any help. I do all my packing and shipping. I do all the online stuff, all my photos and Instagramming. So I actually schedule things pretty tightly right now.

How do you keep yourself inspired when you are making the same piece again and again?

I have no idea. I get so much satisfaction from being kind of a machine and doing production. That has always been satisfying to me. To refine a product and make the foot and certain way and then make twenty of them. That is super satisfying. I won’t necessarily get creatively excited about it when I’m doing hundreds and hundreds of pieces but then I will come up with something else or I will go work on a painting or I will work on jewelry or play around with glazes and get my joyful creative pleasure from starting a new round of something.

Do you have part of your process that can be a block for you if you are not careful?

I am not sure if I see blocked the same way as you do. I have places where I know I would like to develop something further but I don’t yet know where it is going to go, so I stick with where it is at. If where it’s at is working. Like a particular mug style. I developed a mug style about a year ago that is kind of tall and skinny with a one-finger handle, and I personally love it. I have the initial prototypes that I use at home all the time, they are my most favorite mug. But some of my retailers sell a ton of them and one of my retailers hates it. He was open to tying it but very, very reluctant. But one of my other retailers, that is the first thing she reorders. So I sometimes wonder if I should develop them differently but I think, no, I am happy with it. If some of the retailers don’t like it that’s fine.

Do you get inspired by other potters?

Oh yeah, definitely. Sometimes I will look at someone’s mug handle, and I will think, I gotta work on something kind of like that. I will probably never pull handles off the mug but I always look at people’s handles like that and I want to do a version like that but I do not want to have to pull it off the mug. So that is one thing, I have handle envy of a lot of potters.