Is East still East & West still West? Musing about salad bowls.

I believe the far east product wont advance much further and will alwys be distinguishable. What you can do are two things: sign your work (ask collectors - signed work such as pottery or furniture is much higher in value) and emphasize use of local, non-industrially felled trees. Those who care will alwys prefer these. Last but not least - your musings are on a commercial basis. Most turners I know consider turning a fun past time, an appreciation of nature and one of its most appealing raw materials, an art or practice/celebration of craftsmanship. If you turn for income, far east competition is a niche killer, indeed.

Arch ???:

That's the #1 reason I don't even *try* to sell turnings. I've had a few offers on various peices, and people always want me to compete with Walmart and Target. While it is easy to explain the vast difference in quality between a hand jointed piece of furniture made from real hardwood and a crappy particle-board IKEA style piece whacked together with knockdown hardware to a potential customer, I can't figure out a good reason why they *should* pay me what I'd like to get for a turned item, other than I spent a lot of time on it and could use the money. While it'd be nice if that was reason enough for people to pay me, that's just not how it works!

So, stuff from the lathe remains gift material. There are a few things that I will sell, but only on commission, and only if it's something that isn't generally availible.

If you need to sell the stuff that comes off your lathe, you need to cater to your target audience the same way you would with anything else. In most cases, that's going to be people with money they can afford to burn- an occasional look at some of the high-end home decorating magazines, like American Bungalow and similar, should be a good indication of what is currently popular. It's a sort of fickle market, and a maple bowl with a coat of wax might be the big thing one day, while a carved lacewood hollow form polished to a mirror-like shine is the only thing anyone wants the next.

Sizzle versus steak. Some like 'em pretty, hand-crafted of local woods or are willing to pay for more that name on the bottom. Your stuff hold any less Romaine than "famous name" turnings which cost a bunch more lettuce?

Though we can sell based on pure utility as well. As I remind people, you can put popcorn in a steel bowl and it tastes the same, just don't set that sucker in your lap. Wants a half inch of insulating wood to save the family jewels. You can put the chips in Corel, but they don't have that little recurve on the inside of the rim to keep your greasy thumb from slipping and spreading the contents into Aunt Martha's lap as you pass it.

As to the business of dust-gathering "hollow forms" versus their ceramic clones, I think the potters have a real leg up. They've got the ease of forming, the hand craftspersonship, the name on the bottom, and any number of glazes and firing methods working for them. Some turners paint, stain or dye their stuff in hopes of imitating them, but it's more for self-gratification than added value. I sell the shelves to put those things on.

Max, Jesse, George, Just to acknowledge your thoughtful responses. It's very satisfying to have had something to do with this kind of balanced give & take among fellow turners. Thanks.

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

Arch - first, good to see you post. Seems like it has been a while.

I think there will be a flood of low end bowls and turnings from Indonesia, S. America, etc. if it can be determined that those things can be made and sold for a profit. The amount of mass produced work from those places has steadily increased, and certainly their manufacturing methods and finishing have as well.

But this has always been the case. There is a turner that used to frequent this group a few years ago that has sold his turnings to make a living for many years. He told me that if he didn't have the side income from his own mass bowl and platter turning efforts the he could not stay afloat. So in effect he was his own competition, and the there were only three differences in his "studio pieces" and his mass produced. 1) mass produced was in big volume (I seem to remember a M. Mahoney-like 600+ a year in addition to his studio work) 2) The pieces sold at 50% of the studio price, and 3) they weren't signed by him as an artist

While many people can appreciate good workmanship and a fine chunk of wood, how many are willing to pay what we might think it is worth? A pressed monkey wood/acacia/who knows what wood bowl that you can beat the living crap out of for $20, and buy another if it gets screwed up, or $200 for a nicely shaped and oiled maple bowl from an artist.

The artist's bowl required special care and feeding, and to some extent, special handling. The Indonesian bowl can be bounced, kicked, dropped and then cleaned easily. No oiling necessary, no special care, no worries. So is the maple artist's bowl worth 10X more? Only you and your client know.

The prattle about "educating the public about our craft" is an old saw. And I might add, it is in every aspect of any craft work. You should have heard the boys I knew (excuse me, artists/crafstmen) that were making humidors in the cigar days of the late 80's and 90's. They were selling their boxes (exotic wood on the outside, melamine on the inside with a humidifier strip) for about $300 to $600, and couldn't keep up with the orders.

Then the foreign imports came in from every direction. Some more expensive, most much less. Artistry didn't matter at that point, nor did educating the public. The question of the day was "real or percieved value". Out of concern for my buddies whom would never let me live it down, I passed on buying a humidor at Sam's club that was a tastefully inlaid solid mahogany with polished lacquer finish affair. It held more cigars, had a better humidifier, and even had a built in hygrometer. It was $69.

I also remember the "ironwood" artists from the 70s. Guys went out to the desert areas and found ironwood bushes/trees that would make good project candidates. They did well for themselves until someone in Mexico discovered that the Sonoran desert was covered in it. They cut down so much and flooded the market so thoroughly that all that is left of the market is cheap, ugly carved crap.

I can't help think that somewhere along the line we may see mass turned bowls from S. America if some enterprising person will just go raid the burn pile at the edges of the rain forest to get exotic woods. There is a lot of material, a lot of man power, and a ready market. I promise you this; If I knew someone I could trust to run it after I set it up, I would go down there and do it. I think the market is ripe.

As always, just my 0.02.

Robert

That's not eacatly high volume. I am fully equiped to make two an hour. I would, if there was a market.