May 09, 2026

Oh, your prices are so high, can you give us a discount…

By Ritika Anand

This is a very common statement we hear as studio potters in any pop-up exhibition. There is a certain expectation from us as potters to keep the prices of our pieces in check. I try to understand from where they are coming from, perhaps comes from a point of curiosity or comparison and not as a criticism. The ceramics industry scene has evolved immensely over these past few years and the buyer appears to have a wide view and range of options to choose from factory made, production made to studio pottery i.e. complete handmade and handcrafted pieces. The price range then varies drastically, so do the buyer’s budgets. So while it is fair for the price questions to be raised, it’s perhaps also a point to consider if the studio artists, seemingly desperate to survive and therefore grateful for every sale, should sell at a heavy discount or loss.

When someone visits a ceramic exhibition or a studio pottery show, they rarely ask the basic questions – how long did you take to make this particular mug or what goes behind creating any piece. And when they do, the answer comes back to one critical point: the process.

As a studio artist, I make small batch pieces, all by myself. The surface you see is not just design – it’s the time spent noticing, testing, sketching and ultimately building every piece over a period of time.

Ceramics isn’t one step. It’s a chain of invisible steps, where each stage depends on the one before it, and a lot of it depends on the material's timeline. Even if we work faster, with consistent practice, the drying and the firing time still take the time they take.

What actually happens between wet clay and a finished piece

Here’s the behind the scene version – simplified but real -

Clay prep which involves wedging/reclaiming so that it becomes workable.
Making – hand building or wheel throwing and sometimes both
Carving, detailing when the piece is leather hard or at a stage where it can be held
Drying – slowly until its bone dry or it will crack and ultimately burst during firing, sometimes takes days especially due to extreme weather conditions and this is where patience saves the work or destroys it.
Bisque firing, the first firing where the pieces harden, clay turns into ceramics and prepares it for glazing. The firing time here ranges anywhere between 8-10 hrs

Glazing – making the glaze color from scratch, mixing testing applying cleaning foot rings so that it doesn’t stick to the shelves
Final firing – the glaze becomes glass; the surface becomes permanent and ceramics becomes functional (firing ranges from 12-14 hrs) and then cooling of the kiln before unloading..another 24 hrs atleast
Finishing and quality check – sanding bottoms and surfaces of the piece, checking for stability and functionality
Packing and dispatch – careful packing so it reaches you safely (this is part of the job and the most crucial one)

Now this is the visible list.

The invisible part?

Kiln schedules, cooling time, weather, studio workload, and ofcourse the surprises because clay doesn’t run like machines. What you place in the kiln will not necessarily come out the way you expected or imagined while making. At times it does and other times it takes more work.

So why does it cost what it costs?

Because pricing isn’t just for the materials i.e. clay plus glaze. It also includes the time across multiple stages of preparation for the batch (spread across days and months), raw material and studio operations cost, and above all the cost of the artist’s effort of years of practice. The cost of risks + rejections, inventory is not even counted in.

All of the above is not listed to justify the price but sharing a perspective for you to understand, what you’re bringing home isn’t just a piece. It’s an output of the artist’s deep personal connection, efforts and the personal touch plus attention as part of the long, slow process of crafting.

A simple way to think about it

When you buy handmade ceramics, you’re not paying for an object that appeared overnight. You’re paying for the whole chain, including the failures it took to get good and the artistry it took to look as aesthetically good as it does when finished, and the care to send it safely. It’s our job as artist to produce excellent work, a piece that our buyers can use without fearing or doubt.

There’s a reason the timelines are longer; pieces vary slightly and collections are released in small edition batches. The nature of the medium, and honestly that’s what makes it worth collecting.