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Jon Puzzuoli- Learning From Failures, Glazing, Teaching Pottery and Much More
189 Plays4 years ago
Jon Puzzuoli has been making pottery for about Two decades now. He has a lot of knowledge that can help you develop your skills as a potter. In This episode we talk glazing pottery, making your pottery look nice, finding where to sell your pottery, How failures can help potters to grow very fast, and so much more. Follow and support Jon on Instagram @jpuzz
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Shaping Your Pottery'
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres, where we talk about all things pottery, whether it's making pottery or selling pottery. We got you here on this podcast.
Interview with John Puzoli
00:00:14
Speaker
In this episode, I'm interviewing John Puzoli. I hope I said that right, but he has been doing pottery since
00:00:27
Speaker
for about 2003. And he has so much knowledge on making pottery. His glazing is so wonderful. And you will learn how he approaches pottery and how he learns how he approaches selling his pottery as well. Hope you enjoy this episode. Let's get to it.
John's Journey to Pottery
00:00:48
Speaker
Hello. How's it going? Good. How are you? I'm doing great. I'm very excited to do this. Awesome.
00:00:58
Speaker
So I should get right to it. What's the name of the podcast? It's shaping your pottery with Nick Torres. Oh, cool. So it will be like soon. It has to get like established, I guess. Like, OK.
00:01:21
Speaker
So I noticed on your Instagram maybe a couple of days ago that you got followed by Seth Rogen. What was the reaction to that? It's nice to get attention. If any account has a lot of followers and they follow me, it kind of feels the same. Yeah. I just kind of wanted to start out there because I thought that was really cool.
00:01:50
Speaker
And I know I'd probably be smiling like the whole day if I saw that. So the next thing I want to talk about was I wanted to know
Evolving Pottery Style
00:01:59
Speaker
how you got started making pottery. I took a couple of private lessons in high school and I always knew that creating with my hands was something that I needed to do. And out of high school, I did an apprenticeship
00:02:19
Speaker
at a pottery studio and one thing led into another and I got offered a job and realized that it was something that I could be good at and I set up a studio. So it kind of snowballed on to each other and turned into a job. Could you elaborate more on the practice ship? Like what was some of the main things that you learned there?
00:02:45
Speaker
How to run a studio, how to deal with people, how I've always been a people person. So it wasn't a big leap into teaching, but definitely honed in on my teaching style. And it was a great learning opportunity.
00:03:08
Speaker
At the same time, I was taking a bunch of workshops all over the place and got to be exposed to other people's teaching methods and hone in on how I could thrive and make my own way.
Selling Pottery: Challenges and Strategies
00:03:22
Speaker
So this really helped you kind of find your style of pottery, would you say? I think finding one's own style, it takes many years and
00:03:37
Speaker
And it's just about time and being in the studio and developing. If you put together my work today versus my work that I was making there, they'd look pretty different, but it's one thing builds up on another and you evolve and yeah. Nice. I like it. That was actually one of my, going to be one of my questions was how has your pottery changed over the years?
00:04:10
Speaker
I think it's gotten more sophisticated and refined and has more personality and soul than it used to. There's more intent and I feel like earlier on in one's pottery life, you go through the steps that a pot needs to go through, but it's hard to
00:04:38
Speaker
to see forward to the next dot that's coming and plan the whole way through. And I think when a pot gets planned from beginning to end, it looks more cohesive and you can impart your style better rather than just going through the motions and doing something because it's time for it. Yeah. So
00:05:06
Speaker
Going back on that, how do you apply that to when you're selling your pottery? What do you mean? So you have your own, you start to elaborate your own style. How do you incorporate that with learning to sell your pottery so that it's easier to sell, I guess? Well, selling pottery is
00:05:33
Speaker
a whole different skill set than making pottery. The longer that I make pottery, the more I realized that the making of the pottery is often the most easy of the steps. That selling and putting yourself out there and photographing and doing all the business stuff really is a whole different skill set.
00:06:01
Speaker
And there's a whole bunch of different venues of how one can sell their pottery.
Passion and Professional Pursuit of Pottery
00:06:10
Speaker
But learning to be vulnerable and to expose yourself to the market and not feeling, because you feel very exposed when you're first selling pottery, like what if no one wants to buy it? What if I don't cover my costs?
00:06:28
Speaker
At first it's just about learning how to price things and how to get yourself out there and apply to shows. And it's a lot about learning. And then from there it gets easier, but it's very time consuming. Somebody asked me today what advice I would give in the selling pottery department. And I said,
00:06:58
Speaker
you know, diversify as much as as possible. Try to sell things online, try to sell things in galleries, try to go on Instagram and Facebook and the more venues you have, the better. Nice, nice. So it's pretty much just going like just make yourself as broad as possible. Yeah, to have your hands in lots of pots. I like that. So
00:07:26
Speaker
Now that we're kind of talking about selling, so you said to have it as diversified as possible. Would you say that having better looking pots makes it easier to sell? Good work. My theory is that if you make pots pretty enough and beautiful enough that they're going to sell themselves with not as much effort,
00:07:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think the more beautiful you make a pot, the easier it's going to sell. But that's not to discount how important marketing is and getting yourself out there. Because you could make the most beautiful work as you can. But if you don't get it in front of the right eyes, it's never going to go anywhere. I like that advice. That was very good.
00:08:22
Speaker
When did you realize that you wanted to start doing pottery full time, like after your apprenticeship? Pottery, I mean, being in the studio and getting to create, I feel the most at peace and when my hands are
00:08:46
Speaker
are busy and making a piece, I'm the most calm that I can be. So knowing that about my personality, I knew that it was something that I needed to pursue, no matter what, and that I could turn it into a life. So there was something in my personality that just realized that it was something that I needed to devote as much time as I could toward.
00:09:16
Speaker
And I think the first part of being an artist is you have to realize that life might be hard for a while and trying to figure out how to make money from it. But if it's something you have to do, you have to do it and you have to give it your all and see if you could turn it into something that could provide for you.
Craft Show Experiences
00:09:36
Speaker
Yeah. Now you mainly sell or how I should say this, you, do you go to art shows at all for like to sell your pottery?
00:09:46
Speaker
Yeah, I do shows, I do events, I do craft fairs. I sell on Instagram and in galleries and wherever I can. Could you tell me a story of like the craziest thing that has happened to you at like a craft show or something? The last craft show that I was at, I was
00:10:13
Speaker
I had only like a six foot table and a little ledge that I could put pottery on. So I tried to bring a couple of different pieces from everything that I have, like very functional pieces and more sculptural vases. And one lady comes up and she goes, you know, you should put handles on your berry bowls. And I said,
00:10:40
Speaker
Oh, I do put handles on my variables. And she picks up one of my variables and goes, oh, not those kinds. And I was like, OK. People are just very honest with their critiques.
00:10:57
Speaker
Wow. I remember I was talking with, uh, Bell Hill pottery. I don't know if you follow him on Instagram, but he said, yeah, he said that he doesn't like selling at craft shows because the one time he did, he, somebody came up to his, his booth and picked up a pot and said, this looks like shit. You put it down and left. Yeah. I mean, people, you have to be okay with that.
00:11:26
Speaker
and let it roll off. I just figured going into a craft fair that if you look at the percentage of people who are going to be interested in your pottery versus like the population that's there, it's very small and you have to just realize that going into that venue that a lot of people are going to walk by your things and it's not a
00:11:56
Speaker
You don't have to take it personally. It's just the math of it. Yeah. So don't let it, don't let it get to you. There's going to be more people that are going to like your pottery than not. Right. Yeah. And depending on the venue that you're in, you're.
00:12:17
Speaker
the more of the general public that you're dealing with, the more rejected you're going to get. So if it's a craft fair, like that I do on downtown Stanford, where there's everybody walking by, there's no filtration that's happening. There's no like marketing, like you're like, I'm getting out of the house and I'm going to buy a beautiful pot today. Yeah. Right. It's, I'm going to walk down the street,
00:12:44
Speaker
With everybody else, or I might want to get lunch and like there's every reason in the world to be on that street and the people the small percentage that are going to be interested in your art is not great so.
00:12:59
Speaker
But if I go to an event like an indoor art show where that's the only thing happening, then the intent for all those people is to I'm going to go there to look at art or buy art. So the percentage is a lot greater. So the if the percentage is really small, that people are going to be interested because the public event, you're going to get lots of comments like that and just realize that it's
Glazing Techniques Discussion
00:13:27
Speaker
It's the math of it. Don't take it personally. I like it. That was great. So the next thing I want to talk about is your glazing. I would like to know your process for glazing. So I noticed that you do some sprays and then you also pour the glaze as well. Yeah, I do everything. I'm a teacher.
00:13:57
Speaker
at least half my income in teaching. So I have to be very diverse with my knowledge base and have to be able to teach all the different methods. And I employ all of them when I'm glazing. The most valuable advice that took me years and years to really wrap my mind around is you should be glazing the pot in your mind
00:14:27
Speaker
as you're making it. And there's a lot of decisions that you make while you're creating a piece that dictate what glazes would look the best on your piece. So I try to go into a project knowing how I'm gonna glaze it. And I'll make decisions from there that flatter the glaze. Because if I put texture on a piece,
00:14:53
Speaker
And then I realized, oh, I wanted to use that glaze, but that doesn't go well with texture then.
00:14:59
Speaker
it doesn't look cohesive. So you have to go back to connecting all those dots and be thinking about as you're making it or before you started making it on how it's going to get glazed later on. And then you can, as you're making it, you can talk yourself through the glazing process. Like I'm going to spray this glaze on the top. I'm going to brush this on. I want it to run a little bit over here. Maybe I'll do something to catch a running glaze midway down.
00:15:29
Speaker
the more you can connect those dots, the better. It will come out. How long did that take you to kind of like almost perfect your glazing? Well, I mean, I'd be kind of cocky if I said that I perfected it, but I've honed it into where I'm happy.
00:15:56
Speaker
I feel the most creative and interested in the glazing process. And I think that going back to kind of what you said before with dipping and brushing and spraying and stuff, I think a potter needs to know all those different techniques and know how to best employ them.
00:16:23
Speaker
Because glazing isn't so straightforward. I think of glazing like different friends. Each friend has a different purpose in life. You know, there are crazy friends, there are stable friends, there are friends that are going to be the same this year and 10 years from now. And there's ones that are manic and the glazes are the same way. You have to know their personality and how they want to be applied and what they're going to do in all circumstances.
Teaching and Learning in Pottery
00:16:51
Speaker
So if a glaze is
00:16:53
Speaker
really runny or you like it the way it looks when it's thinner then spraying it on is going to be the best. It doesn't matter if you want to get it on thicker dipping if you want to. These are just general rules that I live by but
00:17:11
Speaker
You have to try all these different techniques on all the glazes and see what looks best with the glazes that you use and then stick with that technique. Now, when you find a glaze, how often are you producing that glaze that you have made or found? You mean how often am I mixing it? How often are you applying it to pots and stuff?
00:17:46
Speaker
I try to stay with a base glaze collection that I go to over and over. And I'll have smaller batches of other glazes that I can use in tandem with those base glazes. But those base glazes I'm using on
00:18:13
Speaker
primarily everything and they'll get supplemented with other glazes. I teach at an art school in New Canaan and gosh, we probably have like 30 glazes, maybe more. And I really only like four of them, five of them. So you can, well, for my own look.
00:18:42
Speaker
already discounted. Yeah, going from my aesthetic, I've honed them into those like five. So the more you eliminate, the easier it gets to learn places because you get to use them over and over and see their personalities. And
00:19:03
Speaker
And then your work also looks more cohesive than like in collection. How often are you testing new glazes to see if you want to like get other ones? New glazes? So not very often from like a whole new base recipe. Not that it's
00:19:32
Speaker
Not that I never do, but what I'm more often doing is taking a base glaze that I already know about and changing it up. So that's a new glaze to me, but that might not be what you meant. Well, I think that is kind of like testing because it's just taking something and making it kind of your own, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Artistic Identity and Pot Personalities
00:20:01
Speaker
So.
00:20:02
Speaker
I touch so many, since I'm the head of ceramics at the school that I teach at and I fire one or two glaze kilns a week, I'm always looking at other students pots as like test tiles and glazes. And I can look at a pot and see the glazes that they used and figure out if that's a potential area for me to explore on a pot.
00:20:31
Speaker
So you like to look at, I guess other people's work to help you inspire you a little bit. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be an inspirational pot. It could be like the way that the glaze came together on the rim is inspirational or I can pick a pot and see something that I like and how to apply that to future work.
00:20:55
Speaker
I find myself, I do that too. I like to look at other pottery and I try to incorporate into my own work as well. I find that almost like the probably the easiest way that you can learn and grow faster as a potter, I guess. Yes. So let me see here.
00:21:18
Speaker
Oh, so you started, I noticed on your Instagram that when you reveal your pottery and it's all finished and glazed, you come up with some nicknames. Could you tell me the story behind that? I think the forms that I throw are very reminiscent of a body and particularly a woman's dresser overall appearance.
00:21:46
Speaker
Since I feel like they are very feminine and they do all relate to different parts of a body or wardrobe, that it was a natural progression into giving them names and a personality and coming up with a story. And it's fun to also think about while I'm making it and have that be a part of the glaze or a part of the story and captivate people is fun.
00:22:13
Speaker
I think that gives it like a lot more personality. I enjoy like reading them. It kind of makes me laugh a little bit just thinking about the... I'm not a poet, but it definitely takes a lot of time and energy to come up with a captivating few lines to grab people and impart some personality and interest into it.
00:22:38
Speaker
Would you say that has helped you like either grow on Instagram or help you like sell your pots a little bit better in our increased engagement as you say? I think so. I think that it, it makes them more, more special. I think it makes them more, yeah, more special for, for people. Um, little more regal. Yeah.
00:23:08
Speaker
I like that, that is, I might have to steal that when I come up make pottery. So now I want to talk about teaching. When you first started teaching, what were some of the difficulties you faced for teaching pottery? God, this could be a whole four hour long talk of
00:23:40
Speaker
I think the skill set of teaching is a different skill set than making pots. So you have to make something understandable and try to get into the shoes of the student to, because everybody has a different learning style. Some people are more hands-on, some people are more verbal.
00:24:11
Speaker
Some people are more visual. So you have to really try to understand each student individually and try to come up with the best way to impart your knowledge on them. And it's going to be different for everybody. So if you had to give like three pieces of advice for somebody that is new to pottery, what would they be? A new person trying to learn pottery? Yeah.
00:24:41
Speaker
Hmm, that's a good question. Uh, that it takes time and give it that time. Uh, so that's one component. The second component. The just try to devote as many hours as, as you can.
00:25:08
Speaker
The more you get into the studio, especially after you've learned something to when you're practicing, the shorter that gap is, the better you're going to learn. And I find the people that learn the quickest and make the best pots sooner are those who can accept loss. So accepting loss and learning from it and moving on.
00:25:38
Speaker
If you slice pots in half, you know, look at the wall. That's a great way to learn. But some, like some students can't do that. They can't deal with that loss of needing to go through that and not keep everything. Not keeping everything is a good way to learn that everything's not precious.
00:26:04
Speaker
And if you're going to be in pottery for so long, there's a lot of loss in it. You might lose a whole kiln of stuff. You might have a half of the kiln load runs and attaches onto the kiln shelf. So, but you can still, you can learn from that. That's not a total failure. You can take a lesson away from that and apply it to work in the future. But any work that you spend on the pots that have already been unsuccessful.
00:26:33
Speaker
is time that's not well spent, that you could make like 20 more pots by the time you ground down a bottom or something. And it's still gonna be garbage. It's still gonna be something that you're not gonna be proud of. It's not really sellable where you can just toss that in the dumpster and go back into the studio and make a whole bunch of new work.
Advice for New Potters
00:26:56
Speaker
And it's gonna be infinitely better than
00:27:01
Speaker
than anything you could do to a pot that's already died in essence. So basically it comes down to fail as much as possible so that you can learn more. Yeah and you could also learn from other people's failure. I mean I think that's what makes me a great teacher. I get to teach all those lessons of ways that I've failed and hopefully I keep somebody else from making those same mistakes because I've already done that or already
00:27:30
Speaker
going down that road and let's not go down there. I like those three vices. What is your favorite thing about teaching pottery? I love to see the gratification and the happiness that comes out of
00:27:57
Speaker
someone when they when they got a pot back or when they realized that they could do something that's very, it's very rewarding. Well, I think that was pretty much everything. I enjoyed this conversation a lot. Thank you. You're welcome.