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Sunshine Cobb | Episode 404
Sunshine Cobb is back on The Potters Cast and she wrote a book, Mastering Handbuilding. Once I discovered the book was out, it was time to get Sunshine on the show again to get the inside scoop on her book and an update since Sunshine’s first visit on the show. Sunshine’s new book is full of beautiful pictures depicting examples of her masterful handling of clay as she explains the process of the craft of handbuilding functional wares.
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What is it about working as a potter that you don’t like?
They funny thing is, usually it’s just the tedious tasks like glazing. I try to enjoy it but I mostly put on a zombie movie and glaze. I don’t even think about it, I just do it. Marketing is hard, that aspect of the job, the computer work. I’ve gotten to the point where I set those things as a priority and they have gotten a lot easier these days. Any time you try to sell your work, really my least favorite thing is standing next to my work and selling it. It is the worst. The reality is I can stand next to someone else’s work but I find it hard to sell my own. At a festival by day three I am cursing the existence of sales and wondering what I am doing. So that to me is always the hardest part but it is also what you gotta do.
On Page 22 of your book you have a page of tools. Which one is your favorite?
Dude, all of them. They are all indispensable objects to me.
If you had to pick one.
The cheese cutter is one that I use tremendously. This wood knife, actually my friend brought this back from China for me. I love that. It is made out of bamboo and it is the most perfect wood knife. Then there is what I call my Sunshine stick. It is a cut off measuring stick, but I sell them as Sunshine sticks. If I forget my knife when I am doing a workshop, oh man, it’s not good. But everything else I can usually makeshift.
You said that you hate doing marketing. What do you do for marketing?
It’s funny. I did a lot of social media and I keep up on that as much as I can. It has lost a bit of its shimmer. I used to really love taking pictures and sharing pictures, I don’t really enjoy doing that quite as much as I used to. I can’t stand the ads now on Instagram. My New Year’s resolution is that I have limited my social media to once a day and that’s it. I do e-blasts and try to keep up with a newsletter. I do that kind of stuff and do a lot of cards and different types of things to give to people. I really kind of keep it low-key. I do kind of have this fantasy of paying someone to do it because I am not aggressive in a way that successful social media people are.
What is one self-care tip you would give to a potter?
I wish I had learned when I was in grad school, I went to Utah state and I love my experience there but it was a funny thing if you didn’t go for a day, people were like, Dude, where were you? I just took a day off. So that notion of self-care, it would have been really nice if I was encouraged to go use the school gym or go do something for yourself in order to deal with stress levels and anxiety. We put ourselves at a really low priority and we really need it for focus and energy to be able to make and be productive in our practice. I wish those kinds of life-skills were incorporated earlier. Now-a-days it is just exercising and eating right and taking care of myself. When I go to the studio I will now set hours for myself and I take a bike ride break. I go out and ride my bike for an hour. I live right near a bike path. You can kind of feel like you are in a cave when you are in the studio all day.
Do you have any hobbies outside of ceramics?
Yes, I am obsessed with knitting right now. I love knitting, I love yarn. I just finished my first two sweaters and a pair of socks, I made a hat. These last couple of months have been knitting heavy. My very first sweater I knit was for my nephew and both sleeves were totally different. He doesn’t wear it any way because it’s made of wool. He says, Itchy, itchy, itchy. So yeah knitting, and I love printmaking. Wood cuts are something I love to do. I love that I have things that are low stress. I can do a wood cut and it’s just for me. Ping pong. Ping pong is always fun. It’s been awhile since I played but I love doing that.
Do you see what you are learning with your other hobbies come into your work?
Not really. No. It’s that funny thing I think we sometimes think that crafty is a bad word but I was the ultimate crafter back in the day. I wanted to learn how to quilt, I wanted to learn how to sew, I wanted to figure out how to do these things. When I go do workshops I want to take all the other classes in addition to teaching mine. So I a have this love of learning new processes and it doesn’t have to all be in a thing. I have incorporated some of my wood obsession with clay in a different way, but not with pots. I really want that to be a separate thing. So I think sometimes it can but the reality is when you devote yourself to one thing it eats up your time.
You mentioned that you love to cook and you are trying to be healthy. So what is your favorite healthy cooking that you are doing now?
My goal is to live a 95 percent vegetarian lifestyle. So you know with travelling it can be really hard. They will give you an iceberg salad and call it dinner. So one of my favorite things these days is a coconut curry chickpea with kale and stuff. It’s delicious.
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Instagram: @shinygbird