Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Dan Finnegan | Episode 803
Dan Finnegan has been making useful stoneware pottery in Fredericksburg Virginia since 1980.Dan trained in England at the Winchcombe Pottery and spends most summers working in England.
Dan has trained more than a dozen assistants, founded Liberty Town Arts Workshop in Fredericksburg, and is the curator of “Pottery on the Hill” in Washington DC.
SPONSORS
You can help support the show!
GRPotteryForms.com
Number 1 brand in America for a reason. Skutt.com
For all your ceramic needs go to Georgies.com
Is there wisdom in having a savings of inventory as apposed to having a savings of cash?
I haven’t thought of it as a bank account but of course it operates like that, but the transaction takes a lot longer that way. So maybe it would in a way, I mean you would be less likely to spend that money. But I think truthfully my argument is almost for you make the same amount of money, this is what I counsel my friend, that she is not going to make a lot more money but she is going to at the end of the year, but she is going to build inventory that she didn’t have before and sell fewer pots. So I am not really looking at it as her making a whole lot more money that she would then put in the bank. It’s more about her not working until midnight every night and working way harder than I work. And I work hard. And always feeling that little bit of desperation. I think those are debilitating.
When someone wants to raise their prices, where does courage and reality mesh together so that you can do it with confidence?
Well I think you have to be willing to live with the consequences and for me, in my town, I have been here a long time and I would say I am much beloved in town and there is a cult about my mugs. I can’t tell you how many people have mugs of mine. I could tell you stories about being in court and the judge taking me aside and telling me he drinks out of one of my mugs every day. It’s hilarious. But I don’t want to spend my life making mugs. I mean I like making them and I love that people use them, it’s a thing we all love to use. But the only way I can sort of slow down the demand, which is again a very capitalist idea, is to raise the prices.
I like that you tie it to a lifestyle that is more manageable. How did it make your life more manageable?
Well, I guess I am, especially now grateful because I am a recent senior citizen. I still go to the studio every day. I don’t work quite as long and hard as I used to and I kind of have the grace to be able to do that without feeling guilty about it. So it snowed today and I would have wanted to go to the studio but it would have been silly to drive. So I stayed in front of my fire and read books and enjoyed life in a way that I wouldn’t have done when I was younger. So I think some of that has bought me a certain success now. I mean, plenty of people buy my pots and I am always incredibly grateful for, especially nowadays.
Raising your prices would slow down your output but wouldn’t that slow down your creating process and how much you are actually making?
I think that’s a psychological barrier sometimes. I have heard other people say, Well I do that, in fact my friend in England does this, everything is out of sight. He stores everything behind doors because it’s true, when the racks are full it could be somewhat daunting I suppose. But you know, so much of life is about being self aware. If I am paying enough attention I am realizing that I am responding to that or maybe it’s okay to not work so hard. Imagine potters saying that.
Do you ever have a limit to where you say enough is enough, I’ve got enough inventory?
Yes, but then I’ll do something entirely different. Either in the studio or outside of the studio. I am a studio rat but I do have a few hobbies outside of the studio that can keep me occupied. But I really don’t and here’s the sickness, the illness of pottery, Is that I usually do have a grand amount of inventory I still always want to have a new firing for a show. But if I am being smart I am not killing myself to get that firing in and done because the pressure is different.
You’ve been making pots for over 40 years. How do you self-educate now?
Well, I have a great library. In fact I am sitting in it and I am forever pouring through picture books mostly. I read some but I am mostly just looking at images. Over the holidays it has been particularly true and I continue to acquire new books all the time. Before the pandemic I would say that I was a big museum visitor. Every year I go to England and I go London. I go the Victoria Albert Museum. I go to the British Museum. I go to the London Museum. I go to Oxford and go to museums there. And I am only an hour from Washington where I go to the Freer Sackler almost annually. And if I am watching a movie and there is a pot in the background, I am watching the pot in the background. I feel like out whole lives we are building up an encyclopedia of ideas and surfaces and decoration ideas and form and then you go in the studio and some of it pools together in your noggin and comes out through your hands.
Book
German Stoneware by David Gaimster
Contact
Instagram: @dan_finnegan_pottery