Comments on Comments

If people want useful, they should purchase useful, or you should have told them when they were gifted. I have care and feeding cards of various sorts to go along with the appropriate wooden objects when selling.

As to why people think you can put wood into a microwave or dishwasher, I'm stumped. Got a daughter who does her spoons that way, but she knows someone who makes a couple hundred a year, so she suffers no consequences.

Yes. (although I wasn't aware that you and I are closely related until just now)

or do

And yes.

To your list of questions I also get "Can you make up a 6 piece set of these all alike? My friend is giving a baby shower next week."

To which I answer, in deadpan earnest, something along the lines of "Probably can't get them completed by then, but for a 50% deposit I'll drop everything else and give it the old college try."

"How much would that be?"

(Without blinking, flinching or hesitating any longer than it takes to multiply $150 by 2 (it's a rush order) and then $300 by 6 and divide that by 2) "$900.00"

If anybody at any time is willing to give me $1,800 for 6 small bowls to fill with salsa, I'll certainly try to have them ready sometime next week.

But I need to see the cash, all of it, before delivery.

I have begun applying price stickers to everything as soon as it is completed. FAT price stickers. All but the pens and dinkiest bowls have

3 significant digits. I explain that I was getting them ready for sale (true) ... but I'd like them to have them instead. That seems to have ended the 'can you turn six more of these by Wednesday?' sort of questions. At the same time, it also seems to have raised the awareness level regarding the value of the gift. It's tacky, tacky, tacky. But it's not as if they are expected to pay for it, just be aware that they have been given something of considerable value that did NOT come from the dumpster behind eBay.

My friends and relatives are not, generally speaking, art collectors (unless you count baseball cards, bumper stickers, printed tee-shirts and Elvis on Velvet as art) so that price sticker serves as an education for them.

As a hint, I also tend to give mine out filled with wrapped hard candy or M&M's.

And, if they ask, I tell them that they can do all the things you listed, but that if they treat my gift like that, I'm not going to replace it for free.

Better that they ask you and get the appropiate answer that go ahead and complain to you after they damage it. Especially if these were items you sold.

And yes, all the time.

Ralph

If the recipients of your work can't see the beauty of a bowl that started out as maybe a piece of firewood and can't appreciate the effort and creative talent you put in your work, then they should go to walmart and buy plastic bowls that are dishwasher and microwave safe.

Lem Bledsoe

A Lurker wrote:

Last year this time I started on a slippery slope making some tree

Consider, if you will, that these people simply have never held a bowl, or any eating or cooking vessel or utensil outside of the big soup-stirring spoon, made of wood... and they have no idea what it can be used for or how to care for it. Remember, people these days are familiar with mostly ceramic or steel or plastic plates and "glasses" and utensils, and have been taught that highest forms of these are both microwavable and dishwasher-safe.

Yes, I get these questions all the time too, from customers and friends and family. Use the questions to discuss the history of eating and cooking utensils, or just simply answer the questions in the spirit in which they were asked - as a search for knowledge.

If you want them to use the bowls like I do, explain how to do that and how to care for them. If you want them seen as pieces of art, make that clear in your explanations. But don't ridicule your friends and family because they don't know what you know. Teach them, explain to them what they hold in their hands and they'll appreciate your work... and they'll come back for more.

Michael Latcha - at home in Redford, MI

I consider every wood turner to ba an educator. We teach each other how to turn and we teach the public, including our relatives, how to care for our product. Remember, the bowl may be art to you but to others it may be just a bowl. You do not put plastic bowls in a hot oven, but a metal one might be fine. Wood is different yet. Teach them how to treat it. If you are really good, you might even teach them how to look at it and feel it.

It is my thought that wooden bowls have been around for thousands of years, and during those few millenia, bowls have been considered to be something that you put stuff in, and use. It is not until recently that bowls are considered to be anything but utilitarian, so I think it's natural that someone would like to put their popcorn, or salad, or ice cream in the bowl. The price would certainly convince them to take good care of the bowl...or just go to walmart if they need something for their stir-fry. There are plenty of ways to finish your work to accomodate some of the rigorous uses that people choose for their bowl. But also, dishwashers are too, a recently created device that cause havoc with wood during the intense heat of the dry cycle. Microwaves play havoc with the moisture content of the wood. I think the questions are natural, and as a turner, you have a bit of an obligation to educate your friends and family about the nature of wood, the recommended care for their new dish and the probable ramifications if they don't abide by your care instructions.

A Lurker wrote:

I made a Large (16" dia. X 10" deep) salad bowl for my sister out of Mesquete, she loved it and so did everybody else. I made note of the tree rings (maybe 150+) and during the conversation of how beautiful this bowl was, it was brought out that I could make some of these and sell at the swap meet; I just said "people that go to swap meets can't afford things like this" and left it at that. I also told my sister that this was to be used and not just looked at. So it will indeed get used and not abused because she knows now how to care for it.

Mike

Of course. Even if it's very artistic, it's still a bowl, and that's what most folks see when they look at it. If it's a really special bowl (and that sure isn't all of them, at least in my shop) then I make a point of making a little stand so that it can be displayed where a person can easily see the inside. That seems to make it stand out more as "art" to the layperson, anyhow.

One way that I've found to avoid this to some extent is to give vases as gifts instead of bowls- they may not be your cup of tea for whatever reason, but there is a natural tendancy of most people to view a vase as a display object, where they might just think of a bowl, however attractive, as dinnerware. Even *I'm* inclined to make a nice bowl, look at it for a few days or weeks, and then start using it as a change dish or for some other utilitarian purpose. Making a vase is a different story, though.