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Tiffany Saw | Episode 668
Nine years ago Tiffany Saw touched clay for the first time and instantly fell in love. After spending years in NYC community studios learning to throw, Tiffany went to Jingdezhen, China to refine her carving techniques. Tiffany is inspired by traditional Chinese and Burmese imagery and loves spending hours carving her pots!
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When you are pricing how do you find potters of comparable type of work that you would say that’s a person I could glean from for getting pricing ideas? So how do you compare yourself to other artists when there are not a lot of others like you out there?
I think there are a couple of people at my studio, you know, they sell their stuff for a lot and when I see their things going for…their vases going for at least a hundred that aren’t carved, I’m like, Okay I need to price my piece a little higher than that one. So I feel like when we have sales at the studio I take in how much everyone is pricing their stuff for and comparing it to how many hours I have spent carving each piece, I usually don’t…it’s not really the size of the piece that I factor it on. I feel like the throwing part is not the part that sucks my time up. I usually base it on how many hours I spent carving it. the more expensive it will be.
How do you keep from underselling your work or undervaluing your work?
I think that was really hard in the beginning but I have really have come to an okay place of I can just keep this piece as a beautiful piece to keep on my bookshelf or in my apartment until somebody really wants to buy it.
How do you differentiate between what you are willing to pay and what you know the market should pay?
I think having done pottery for a couple of years, there’s a difference between someone who doesn’t know all the steps and all the hours that go into making just one piece and I think when I am tempted to undersell because something hasn’t sold for so long I think if I wanted to buy a piece my friend made and watched them paint it for hours. I would not want to undersell them.
Do you then just need to be confident and stand with your pricing?
Yes. I think being around so many artists living off their work that helps me stand a little stronger by my prices.
So do you have an actual formula that you use to say I want to make this much an hour or something like that?
I don’t really have a formula. I make the majority of my money on teaching. So I am not so fixated on selling my stuff to make a living. So usually I go by, if it’s a plate and I’ve spent 5 or 6 hours carving it, which the plate is a larger canvas, then I have to sell it for at least two hundred or three hundred. If it’s a cup and I threw it pretty quick and I was carving it for an hour or two it usually goes for ninety or one hundred. And for the past year or so I usually only throw tumblers and carve them. So that simplifies things.
What do you like to do when you are not doing ceramics?
I like to do yoga. I like to very occasionally go for runs at the park. And actually Sunset park which I live really close to has the best view of Manhattan and the best sunsets. I also love to cook but only when I have the energy and I’ve been away from the studio long enough.
Book
Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
Contact
Instagram: @tiffanysawceramics