About

Welcome to The Potters Cast. I am so glad you found this website. This website is the community page for the show The Potters Cast. Here you will find the show notes, resources, and much more as the site is continually developed.

My name is Paul Blais. I am the founder and host of The Potters Cast. I am what I call a functional hobbyist. In other words, I am a potter that makes and sells functional pottery, but more as a hobby than as my main source of income (which comes from being an electrician in Vancouver, WA).. My main goal with The Potters Cast is to serve the community of ceramic artists and potters around the world by bringing interviews of other ceramicists straight to you. My hope is that while these shows are listened to that you will be challenged, encouraged, and inspired for your own creative endeavors.

Each guest has a dedicated post that I call “Show Notes”. These posts will have information about the guest and some pictures of their work. At the end of each post there will be an opportunity for you to join in on the conversation through the comments. Please feel free to make comments about specific things you hear in the show. I just know that the guests will love to hear from you.

More than anyone else, this site is dedicated to you. As I’ve already said, my hope is that you will be challenged, encouraged, and inspired. I hope to serve you well.

Lots of love to you,

Paul

36 Comments

  1. Hi Paul, thanks for reporting on Ceramics Showcase, it was great to meet you. I have shared a link on our FB page. I’ll be listening in often. Best, Michelle

  2. Hey Paul,

    You commented on my Instagram. I was just wondering what I would have to do to be a guest. My Instagram is Lindseyrae5683 or you can contact me at my email ************ (Email was edited by Paul Blais of The Potters Cast for security reasons)

    Thank you for inviting me,
    Lindsey Reardon

  3. Hi Paul – I am a painter, but have an artist friend here on Kauai who has been a successful ceramist for many years and is one of the top selling ceramists on Etsy (according to CraftCount) …I thought she might be a great candidate for your podcast!

    Her shop is: https://www.etsy.com/shop/uturn and I am going to email her your website (regardless of whether you interview her, she’ll probably enjoy your site as well) So hopefully you’ll get in touch with each other and perhaps we’ll hear her on here in the near future 🙂

    Best wishes with your own creative endeavors!
    ~Donia
    ethyrical artist
    http://DoniaLilly.com

    • Diona, thank you for the recommendation and thank you for sharing the show with your friend. Lots of love to you.

      • I think it’s important for creative people to help each other be successful (we have a difficult enough time as it is!) so I enjoy sharing opportunities with fellow artists (in any medium – visual art, writing, dance, music, etc) when I see something I think would be a great fit for them! 🙂

        Hopefully you and Leslie can create a great episode together…

  4. Aloha Paul, Donia told me about The Potters Cast. So I popped on over to see your site and check out your episodes. Funny… one episode about Carolyn Edlund caught my eye as she interviewed me a few weeks back for Arts Business Institute. Interesting to see her being interviewed.
    I would love to be one of your Episodes.
    You can see my work here
    https://www.etsy.com/shop/Uturn
    lesliehagen.com
    and the interview with Carolyn
    http://www.artsbusinessinstitute.org/artists/artist-profile-leslie-hagen/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed
    Mahalo and lots of love back to you
    Les

  5. Paul,
    Love your show. I have listed to every episode and now I am trying to build a website. The commerce platforms that guests have shared are Etsy, Big Cartel, and Ebay. I think there were others but I can’t remember anymore. Do you have a list?
    Many thanks to you.

  6. Hi Paul,

    Amazing podcast. One of my absolute favorites. Very professional and topical for the ceramics community.

    I’m not sure if you take requests, but there is a pottery couple that I think many folks would get a kick out of hearing, Douglas Fitch and Hannah McAndrew. They both have their own potteries (Doug in Devon, England and Hannah in Castle Douglas, Scotland) and collaborate in their work. They post YouTube videos once or twice a week showing their studio life, as well as the countryside in which they work. Beautiful videos and very little dialog. They are entertaining and amazing artists. Like your podcasts, I look forward to their videos.

    If interested, their web pages are http://www.douglasfitch.co.uk and http://www.hannahmcandrew.co.uk.

    I have no affiliation with them, but find them interesting and am sure others would as well.

    Thanks, Paul!
    Ron Vernon

  7. I found your podcast through the link Ann Rea sent out and have been listening – and listening back in the archives – ever since. I enjoy it so much, even though I’m not a potter. I listen in my painting studio – you bring alive other artists’ ideas and personal work patterns and the way they fit them into their lives. It feels like a great way to connect with the rest of the world. Thanks for doing it!

  8. Paul
    You have a great show. It is very inspiring. On your cast about marketing you mentioned how you direct every media to your web page. I noticed that when you search your name on instagram it does not come up. Check it out.
    One more point, and i would like to hear your take on this is. I have worked with clay for more than 40 years. I have never liked referring to clay as “mud”. Clay is a mineral and very different from mud. Clay is almost scared to me as trees, bread, and things each of us hold to a high standard.
    You work very hard and i want you to know that it shows and i thank you for your work.

    Mike Dyck
    mikedyckart@gmail.com

    instagram: mikedyckart

  9. Hi Paul,
    My boyfriend Cody is the creative hand behind ‘synergy pottery’ on Instagram. He’s not one to put himself forward but I think he would be a great person to interview as someone who has discovered his true gift and made incredible progress in as little as 2 years! (Unbelievable but true!).
    Let me know if this would be of interest. I think it’s absolutely awesome what you are doing, for a community that really deserves support.
    Emily
    (Blue Mountains, Australia)

  10. Hi Paul, I recently discovered your podcast and am thrilled. So much great information about marketing via social media. I have a niche market for my flaming chalices and I sell online and one national shoe each year. The Flaming a Chalice is the symbol of Unitarian Universalists and I am thrilled to creat art chalices that reflect our liberal values and are the centerpiece for celebration and community. I moved to San Juan Island last year and continue to sell online and ship my work all over the county. I am so glad to discover a coach for social media marketing.

  11. Hi Paul,
    I just found and started listening to the first 9 podcasts today. First off the medium (of listening to a podcast while throwing) is frustratingly limiting. At breaks I looked up your guests on the Internet but wished I could see and pick up what you were talking about while listening. Thanks for all the interviews. Looking forward to listening to more.

  13. Pingback: I AM THE MAKER: Handmade Ceramics by Lucy Coote

  14. Hi Paul,

    Thank you for a wonderful podcast. I’ve just discovered them in the past month, and I’m enjoying listening while I work in my studio. I really appreciate learning about ways to market and sell my pottery as well as being inspired by other potters. Selling and making a living were taboo subjects many years ago when I was in school. I am a potter a mother of four children. My kids are getting older so I am able to be back in the studio almost full time. We all know the studio can be isolating, so hearing other potters talk is quite inspirational. At this point I’m selling on etsy but love hearing about different ways to push and market my work.
    My etsy site is Miriamskiln@etsy.com

  15. Hi, I have been listening to the podcast for a while and really enjoy it. I have collected ceramics for a while and am currently studying for a fine art foundation degree. Can I suggest a ceramicist from the UK that you may be interested in: Marie Prett http://marieprett.co.uk/artists.php?artist=Marie Prett&artistid=6#ad-image-0 She produces amazing sculptures and I am sure people will be interested in her and her work.

  16. Hi Paul, my professor, Brian Czibesz told me about your podcast and I’m so thrilled to have followed up. I had a long commute and your podcasts are just the perfect length to keep me company. I am new to ceramics, rather later in life than my fellow students, but once I got my hands on the clay I was hooked. I am so inspired when I hear the backstory of many of your guests and I am now powerhousing my way through back episodes. I enjoy it when you go off on odd tangents and often inject surprising historical factoids. It is kind of the way my mind works too so kudos on that. Looking forward to NCECA…if you do a round table or gathering of listeners, count me in.

  18. Hi Paul, I’ve found the Potters Cast a few moths back and have been listening on my commutes to and from work. Ya know, I’ve listened to maybe 20 shows and I feel as if I know you a little bit. So, when I hit into Ep 181 with David Voorhees, I must tell you I was deeply touched by your conversation with him. The notions of suffering and celebration particularly hit home. I’m reaching out now because I’d really like to know how YOU are doing, Paul. I know your health has been up and down owing to cancer but it really does sound like you’re doing well. But, I feel the need to check up on you and see how you were in your own words. All best to you! – Karl Kalbaugh, Falls Church, VA

  20. Hi Paul, you have a great website! My name is Paloma and I handle marketing for The Wassaic Project. We are offering a week-long Raku intensive here, and are even offering an all-inclusive package. We are a non-profit based out of Wassaic, NY. I would love to work with you in spreading the word about our intensive. Thank you!

  21. wait a minute, Paul you started the podcast with Karrita by saying she makes spoons on her wheel. No where in the podcast was that discussed

  22. Hi Paul – I look forward to every new episode, I love this podcast 🙂 I’m writing because our potters group just had a great workshop with Jerry Bennett and I’d like you to take a look at his work and consider putting him on your list of interviews. He’s been in the clay world for a long time and has a wealth of knowledge – he also seems like he would be a great person to interview. His website is jerrybennett.net
    Thank you again for all the great work you are doing for the clay community!
    ~Sharon

  23. I am really inspired by everything you are doing here Paul. Its such a laser targeted resource (which as you know works amazingly well for a podcast)….really proud of you

  25. Paul,
    I love what you are doing! I am interested and charged by all these amazing potter’s stories–thank you for making it more personal than it has ever been.
    My name is Annie Lockee and I am the resident potter/teacher/owner of Plum Pottery in San Diego, California for the past 21 years. Up to this point our little studio has been predominantly me and 65 ever changing (and some never leaving!) students. It has been incredibly fulfilling to be part of this place and to watch the artistic growth of the artists in it but recently I have wanted to expand and explore. My idea is to blossom out of this creative, yet somewhat insular, world by contacting potters of varying backgrounds and different approaches to this soulful craft to see if any artists would want to do workshops or demos. Essentially, to share. But there’s a catch….an awesome one, I think.
    I have noticed that while selling will always be a big part of being an artist, very few come to clay with that in mind. Once the desire is there to do it for a living it is easy to spin ones wheels with an elaborate etsy page and a stylized instagram with lots of activity but not much actual result. The hard part is trying to figure out how to spend our days doing what we are called to do while keeping afloat.
    I feel that there could be another way to add to our potter experience and benefit our community while celebrating (and profiting from) our LIVES as ARTIST, and not just the selling of our wares. Especially since, now more than ever there is also a desire to DO rather than own. Equal focus should be on the deep curiosity people have in the process (as you have done!!) and I find it suits many artists personalities quite well to diversify in this way. Sharing our inner peace, passions and meditation in the studio, essentially why we truly got into this in the first place, is also a way we could make ends meet and somehow feels more fulfilling than only trying to get someone to endlessly buy our pots.
    Also, it never hurts to find another accessible way to generate money or at least the things that money can buy…travel!
    So what am I actually talking about??
    In my own studio I have noticed that more and more people want to learn how to do it themselves ( in all walks of life actually, cooking, growing food, playing instruments etc). My students are insatiable and so am I because I am still a student! We all want to learn from others, to see and feel the people inside the pots we hold. Experience is the thing, not just information.
    So…I am looking for potters for workshop exchanges. And not only for those with masters degrees or those already in the workshop circuit but for all of us working everyday, making what only WE make. My students would love to see a 4 hour demo from a monk from Korea making tea bowls. Or take a class from couple from Wales who have been making soup tureens and ale mugs out of their barn for 40 years. Or a man from Hawaii creating marbled color ware. Or a modern slab sculptor from Copenhagen etc. It’s about culture, lifestyle, sharing.
    Ideally this would involve some initial, custom, mutually beneficial planning that ended in a potter getting a work/vacation to San Diego. We would schedule a workshop/s at my studio and maybe a couple other studios I could rustle up by the beach, in the mountains, along the Baja wine trail…truly awesome possibilities. They’d get all the money except a bit to cover my studio being theirs for that time period. Some attendees would be my already existing students, but also we could dip into the well of interested people all over San Diego and in the community of pottery supporters from the Mingei Museum from nearby Balboa Park.—yep, a workshop.
    But then the exchange part happens when that potter returns the favor in their town, their neighborhood, in their studio with interested attendees they gathered.
    Ideally over time and with the help of good media equipment, we could share these workshops with each other and choose destinations and potters to share with our students, friends, local schools, community centers etc. It is not hard to rally 15-20 interested people to pay $80 for a 4 hour workshop/demo of artists doing what they do.
    I personally would be using this opportunity to travel and learn from other studio situations. That is what I am missing as a starving artist. I have wanderlust and I want adventure in places I have never been, meeting all kinds of potters. But some potters might like to use this concept to go from Missouri, to Wisconsin, to Iowa, to Chicago….etc…not so much to travel as to make money. A Pottery Tour!
    This whole concept is in it’s infancy…trading, touring, studio sharing and demo/workshopping. But I feel that since it is hard for all of us potters to make a grand amount of money it might be in our best interest to collaborate for a kickass lifestyle. And it is relatively easy on both ends, just takes communication and willingness.
    Travel, trade, support and the sharing of students who want to learn from us could benefit us all at least in the ways of work vacations in beautiful places and the broadening of our artistic journeying, the shaking up of things for inspiration.
    I reach out to you because you seem to be interested in all aspects of the clay artists perspective. Hopefully you are still freshly inspired…even after all the podcasts. And maybe you know someone who fits the bill….talented, will travel, in need of resume building, yearning for experience, capable at capturing the hearts of a room full of rapt clay lovers, who sees that being a clay artist has rich possibilities and maybe lives somewhere wonderful.
    Or maybe you would be interested in interviewing me so I can get this idea out there. Hopefully we could create a web of potters all over the world who would like to participate.
    Thanks for reading all this and have a beautiful day!
    Annie

  26. Hi Paul – you’re on the verge of episode 400 but I only just found you! I just listened to episode 12, and I thought I’d let you know how much I enjoy these. I’m so glad you’re still having these conversations – keep it up. I listen in, while sitting on my drummers stool, in my drafty studio in Scotland (ie. in my rickety shed at the bottom of my garden), throwing stoneware on my Shimpo in temperatures down to 5 degrees (41F), my breath steaming over the pots. I must love really love it – I guess I’ve really got the bug. Anyway, all the best to you and keep it up, I’m doing my best to catch up!

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