Starter Kit. Idea 53 of 500. Cluster 3
Clay: terracotta homeware, cooking pots and lamps, thrown in front of the buyer
The mechanism, from the book
The Zermatt water bottle. Sigiriya has not got a stone with its own name on it.
The first step
Set up a potter's wheel for one weekend where visitors pass, and let a potter throw lamps and small pots while people watch. Sell what is made on the spot, and take orders for larger pieces to be collected or posted. Count how many watchers became buyers. A good ratio tells you the stall has a future.
- Who pays first
- Passing visitors who stop to watch and then buy the pot they saw made, and residents who want good cooking pots.
- What leaves today
- Terracotta sells cheaply when stacked by the road; made in front of the buyer, the same pot carries the skill in its price.
Ask first
- National Crafts Council. Ask which potters could work in view of buyers.
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask whether a wheel and kiln on a roadside site need approval.
Check before you spend
That the kiln is permitted on the site, that glazes on cookware are safe for food, and how fragile pieces can be packed for travel.
Find out these three numbers
- What will a buyer pay for a pot thrown in front of them?
- How many pots can one potter throw and fire in a week?
- What does safe packing for a flight cost per piece?
A comparison from the book
Sigiriya hub. Appendix
"a making-house at the gate where the mask carvers, the potters and the fresco painters work"
Potters working in view at the gate turns watching into buying.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.