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Ben Gaboury | Episode 405
Ben Gaboury, of Scrimshaw Pottery, is a New England artist who grew up in Massachusetts, and received a fine arts degree studying ceramics in Portland, Maine. After developing skills for wheel throwing, he began experimenting with combining the 2 dimensional with 3 dimensional by adding illustrations to his pieces. He began thinking of his vessels as a canvas rather than just functional objects. Immediately he began portraying imagery that told stories. Never living far from the ocean, Ben saw scrimshaw as an easy and appropriate art form to combine with his contemporary wares. His work follows a utilitarian necessity that is artistically refined to be elegant and present a sense of splendor to the user.
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Artists tend to have to work in solitude. Does solitary making ever wear on you?
Not really. I am definitely an introverted person so it’s natural for me to be by myself and to spend a lot of time by myself. I do miss having those co-workers to talk to and to joke around with, but I do have friends and a small social life, which is fine for me. Yeah, but working alone isn’t a big issue for me.
You are making a line of work that is very specific. How do you stay inspired when you are making the same design repeatedly?
Yes, the theme is very similar. Well, I get my inspiration from the ocean which is huge. There are so many different aspects of that to choose from. I can choose ancient mythology that dealt a lot with sea creatures or I can go with pirates or just sea life in general, octopus, narwhal, sharks. I haven’t even touched the surface of how many cool things I can be inspired by through the ocean.
How important are deadlines for you to keep you busy?
They are fairly important for motivation. I do procrastinate. I think most people do. So by having deadlines it forces me to get up and do the work I need to do. Like setting these Etsy restock dates makes it so I need to get things finished in time to get them uploaded. Same with wholesale orders if they want it by a certain time it’s fairly helpful.
What are you doing to deal with the pressure of deadlines and making and running your studio?
You just take a step back. I just look at what I am doing and really look at my life. I am doing what I love to do seven days a week. I am able to support myself making things out of clay. In retrospect I couldn’t be any happier. It is work and it is stressful at times but it’s still great.
After a month where you have been doing all the order taking, packing, and mailing yourself. Is it worth it?
Yes. For me personally I wouldn’t have been able to get to the point to leave my 9 to 5 job without those wholesale orders. Those are my main source of income that allowed me to step away from my other job. You don’t make as much per piece doing online sales but it’s a constant order, if you can keep up with them, and have enough shops to work for then it’s a nice little influx of work to be making.
Why does creating bring you joy?
I wish everyone created stuff. It just does. The way that I see it is that we are born with these hands. I mean there are really no other animals that have hands like we do. Well maybe chimpanzees but they don’t have quite the same abilities as we do. We have the ability to create things in our minds which is really amazing too, so why not create. I don’t know. It’s a whole lot of fun. I get so much satisfaction from it.
What is your favorite Pandora station?
That’s funny. Recently I started listening to Third Eye Blind because that is nineties sort of rock music that isn’t that great but is nostalgic for me. It is all the songs I used to hear on the radio. Thinking back to a time when you would sit in front of the radio with your cassette tape waiting to record when that song came on the radio you wanted to record to have it on tape. It was just during that time is the music that I am listening to now, which is funny.
Book
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuck
Contact:
Instagram: @scrimshawpottery