A Unique Vision For Reviving American Ceramic Slip Casting Production

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I have been expounding upon my vision for The Great American Ceramic Artists Designer Craftsmen Network for.many years without connecting to a ways and means for bringing it about.

• The central idea is to distribute production of the Andersen Design line through a string of independent slip casting productions,  I particularly envisioned businesses attached to the home.
• In order to maintain control over distribution of the molds, I envisioned one central mold maker who would distribute the molds to the network as needed.

This week I discovered a network of this sort which is already in place which came about through a conversation with the mold maker with whom I have been working with on the the wide gingerbread mug project.

I sent the mold maker a brief description of my vision, 

He came up with h a  suggestion that I contact some of the “Mom & Pop” business listed on his website. As I understand it, the mold maker's primary business is in providing molds for the industry that provides bisque for the public to decorate.

This idea has great potential.This is a network of existing slip-casters across the United States operating a home business, or else a small independent business. They have the production equipment and they like the work

I called one operation and found a woman on the other end of the phone who is very pleasant with whom it was easy to converse. She said she has a storeroom full of molds that she is going to pour- so she loves pouring. The business appears to be doing workshops in which the public decorates the bisqueware- that means they are working with people who love decorating. The level of creativity is likely similar to what is found on Etsy- which is the entire spectrum of talent . There would be, in this model, someone who is employed as the creative stylist. Ideas for decoration can be drawn from the pool of creativity of a public decorating bisqueware. A design royalty will be offered.for a pattern selected to be used in production of the Andersen line. This would provide an opportunity for people to take something that they do for pleasure and turn it into a career, following the tradition spawned by the popular TV show American Idol.

We have to convince a culture composed of free agents to do what they are already doing as a different kind of business.

One needs to at first find one such enterprise who would be willing to work with Andersen Design on these terms. The first entity will be the scalable model. Once something is working successfully. it is much easier to find others.

So I came up with an ambitious idea for a video documenting our mission to find ceramic slip-casters in the USA through which to distribute production of our historic line of ceramic functional forms and wildlife sculptures. Sich a video has potential to be marketed to cable TV such as Great American Country, which features rural American lifestyles.

The story line is that Andersen Design -also known as Andersen Studio, established in 1952 with the philosophy of creating a hand made product affordable to the middle class, now in 2015 our mission is to preserve a handmade work process and in so doing help to revitalize the American middle class lifestyle with a focus on the home business.- or as Daniel Pink wrote about in Free Agent Nation, the independent individualist American lifestyle which is the antithesis of the corporate grid.

In the ideal scenario a videographer takes a trip across the USA visiting various locations and documents the stories of those who are willing subjects, creating a narrative about a unique niche of American culture, which also becomes a journal through which a business such as Andersen Design can be in touch with that community. This is a story about how the individual desire to make things is always present, even when, as I was told by the owner of the studio that I contacted, many of the molds which are being used are made in China.

Taking it a step further, it would be a video documenting our journey in trying and hopefully succeeding in finding a network of slip casters to whom we can hand down the Andersen Stoneware tradition. The video would document our story of transformation from start to successful realization of The Great American Ceramic Artists Designer's Craftsmen Network.

Andersen Design has long been committed to remaining an American made product in a field in which most of the western industry has moved production to low wage global labor markets. Our line has been competitive with those products for decades. We believe the times are changing and that is all the more reason why the time is ripe for a revolution in American ceramic slip-casting and a more intimate work environment than the corporate grid being capitalized by government investments. America is meant to be a land where every one can find a place in which they fit.

The other way to approach this project is to get the studios to make their own videos perhaps by means of a contest and procuring permission to use what they have created in a larger video depicting a larger American story line.

For now it is just an idea in waiting. First I have to convince my own siblings, which is a unique process in itself.