Podcast: Play in new window | Download
David Sullivan | Episode 990
David Sullivan is a potter and manager at Sawmill Pottery in Putnam, CT and adjunct at Quinebaug Valley Community College. Primarily though, David is a teacher. Having taught in different community studios for nearly 15 years, David strives to impart the value of thoughtful slow craft to his students while instructing them on best techniques.
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
Give me a brief description of a studio manager.
So the main job of a studio manager is maintaining a comfortable and clean studio space. What that might entail is anything from making your clay orders, glaze materials, or fixing kilns, ordering kiln parts, all of that to managing a staff if you are lucky enough to be in a studio that is large enough to have staff and you might not be the person who has to recycle the clay everyday and clean the floors everyday. At this point our studio has grown and I think the most important thing is to know when you are going to need to make those orders and what you are going to need to do to keep the community happy before it becomes an emergency.
You mentioned that you are an adjunct professor.
I think often the dream job of potters is to get one of these jobs at a school to have this reliable source of income, so I am lucky enough to be someone that does have this. For me, I want to create a safe learning environment for people to form good techniques and possible like myself find out if clay might be part of their lives going forward.
What does making pots look like for you?
As we are going down this order it is the next step for me. The teaching and the managing things take priority so for making pots for me is to still make sure you have time to play in the studio and experiment and to remember why you found clay. No one gets into this life because they really love mopping floors. It’s because we really like getting our hands in the mud and making something our of it. So I try to fit it in as best I can when I have some time.
Let’s talk about selling pots.
If you are going to make pots you’ve got to have a place to put them and at a certain point your cabinets grow too small and it’s time to sell some work. I don’t have to rely on selling pots as a major part of my income but it certainly is a percentage of it. I sell a lot of pots out of our gallery and I also sell at some craft shows and that sort of thing.
Do you have everything you need in life to be happy?
Oh sure. I certainly am a happy person. I think that was something that was really engrained in me by my family, was to do things that make you happy and if you are doing things that make you happy every day you are going to have a happy life. I think that is part of why I have have followed clay for the rest of my life and I have no regrets about that.
Book
The Arcanum by Janet Gleeson
Contact
Instagram: @dsceramics