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Paul Lyon | Episode 622
Paul Lyon’s ceramic art has always been influenced by nature and the textures found in our environment. Paul is consistently intrigued by the numerous imprints objects can leave in his clay forms. Paul’s inspiration comes from rocks, wooden tools, handmade poking sticks, stamps, and his all time favorite… his daughter’s beads. Paul is continually experimenting with throwing forms on the potters wheel and then manipulating the clay. Currently Paul is investigating the affects of gravity on his blue glaze and how it puddles and pulls over the textures he has created. Paul is amazed how it can transform into a one of a kind unique creation, imitating nature.
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Have you found that the cost of doing business, have you found that it is lower by doing it just online?
Yes. It is absolutely lower. At least in my case. I can’t speak for everybody but as far as I go yes, o booth fees, hotel, or food away from home. My older daughter helps me with all the photos and descriptions and all that and she gets paid. Etsy it getting about five percent of the sale, somewhere around there, I am not exactly sure. Five percent works for me, you know.
Did it help to alleviate or bring to an end deadlines and schedules?
For the most part, yeah. I would say definitely. I would say the frantic-ness of the deadlines, fifteen or twenty-five years ago getting work together, it was my wife and myself and I used to have one of my students as a studio assistant and I put in sixty hours a week in the studio and both of them would put in forty a piece at least. I was also younger and it was kind of the norm then but after twenty-five years of doing that, at least in my case, it was an opportunity that presented itself which is kind of what I was looking for. Which is the online.
Where you able to scale down in terms of how much you had to make then?
Yes, well also because my work changed. The collaborating with my wife and being able to produce a lot more with more hands going into the studio than just being me from start to finish for everything. I can’t. I mean I suppose I could but I would be making things that I personally don’t want to make. Then the question is why would I make it if I don’t want to make it. I have to have something that I am looking forward to the outcome. I am beyond happy with how things are right now.
Is it easier to measure costs and income more easily now?
I guess. I try to stay away from the money. I know it is important as a business. I used to go through three or four tons of clay a year. Now maybe half a ton. Definitely there are a lot less expenses, I mean firing the kilns and kiln upkeep and restocking glazes and ordering clay. Yes, everything is scaled down I guess, a bit but kind of intentionally to make me happy with what I am doing.
Does that mean it is less time intensive also or do you still spend the same amount of time making?
From back when we were doing the shows and more production type of work? Yeah, the type of work that I am doing is just much more time consuming so I make a lot less. I see potters out there, not that they are right and I am wrong or vice versa, that’s what they can do where they can throw two-hundred mugs a day. That’s like a nightmare for me, you know? It would take me weeks to texture. I really prefer small batch one of kind of things. Even though I use that blue glaze an awful lot.
Have you found that you can be more creative because you are not driven by a schedule?
Yes, I still have a schedule but it’s my schedule now. I mean, I will have a deadline and I will talk to my daughter about the kiln schedule and photography and getting things listed for a particular day, but if it doesn’t work, I can always change that day. Which is kind of nice. I am happy with how it is working right now. I am extremely happy.
What is your favorite tool to use in the studio?
My favorite tool would have to be my hands. Without the hands, none of the texture stuff is designed to make texture that I use on there. Like a little metal bead that my youngest daughter was poking with in the summer and I said, Let me see that! I would abscond it from her and play with it, it was a little metal bead and I epoxied a little wooden dowel to it. I name my stamps after my daughters. A favorite tool, that’s a tough question. Maybe I should give it some more thought on this end.
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