Production or Studio

Years ago when I was only a pup in this business I was over at Dorothy Auman's shop at Seagrove Pottery talking with her.
I wanted to consider myself a production potter since that was what you found in this area and it was a term I had heard since I was a child. I was learning to make the same shape over and over again and I was making production in my mind would that not mean I was a production potter?
Dorothy, who was always so patient with me set me straight on the difference between a Production Potter and a Studio Potter.
She told me a production Potter, such as herself, only turned pots (she never threw pots, she turned).
A studio potter, such as myself did it all, they turned, glazed, fired and everything in between and after.
Dorothy, like all production potters in the area only made the pots. Once they were done she rarely ever touched them again. She used to say once I have made them they are Walters to do with as he sees fit.
At JB Cole's pottery I can remember watching the turners there.
They stood at their wheels making one piece after another while someone fixed their clay for them.
That person, the ball man or ball girl, worked from a list to provide clay that was wedged, weighed and stacked next to the wheel. Someone else took the pots away to be fixed, handled and placed in the drying room. After the pots were dried there was another person who took them down to be fired for bisque. After bisque they were unloaded into bushel baskets and a wheel barrow was used to move them over and up to the glaze area. Glazed by the glaze person they were then moved by boards down to the kiln that was the size of a bathroom. Think big, no bigger!
On Saturdays the kiln was unloaded, packed into the baskets and carried down to the shop to be pounced on by the line of waiting customers. Production at its finest, they put out a large kiln load a week.
Mark and I knew many of these production potters and they were content with their jobs as potters. They rarely thought about glazes or felt ownership for their work. Now in this role they often did not get credit for their work either. The owner or shop was given the credit. Think of them as the behind-the-scenes people.
I have accepted my role as a Studio potter in an area that was once known as the King of production.
There are what I would call traveling potters in Seagrove who work shop to shop making pottery by throwing for those shops. They too are usually content to just make pots for others and make money during a time when sales are slow. For the shop owner they can stock pile many production shapes, bowls, mugs, tumblers, pitchers, casseroles and such to either add to what they make or have blanks to do their own designs on.

There are many of the traveling potters who have moved on and opened their own shops making their own work but still find throwing work at shops here. In this case the area has changed.

I think there were a lot of the production potters who felt that in this job the skills they learned were creative and it kept them out of the fields and out of the mills. The ones I remember were happy to be just a turner and walk out at the end of the day.
I was at Cole's once talking with Nell as Waymon, her brother, ended his day.
He washed up, picked up his hat, coat and cane and walked past us whistling.
He said good night and was out the door.
Nell who took over the job of running the place and did more glazing than turning at that point turns to me and says,” He whistles, I worry".
I think of this and those many, many potters of my youth often.
And I get that worry part.
Are you a whistler or the worrier?