I currently make decorative ceramic platters, bowls and vases. I was asked recently why I don’t use food-safe glazes, and I guess I just never thought about it. Would my products be more marketable if they were food-safe? Or would they lose their artistic edge as a decoration-only piece? What if some were food-safe and some were not? I just want to be sure I am offering the best product possible to my customers.
Well, maybe you use the glazes you do because you can’t get the colors you want with glazes that don’t contain lead. That would be a good reason to continue using your current techniques. However, if you’re using these glazes because you always have it may be time to consider a change. We are aware of the health risks of continued exposure to lead found in some glazes and it is impossible to import functional pottery that contains lead. Potters in this country who produce functional work long ago moved away from lead glazes. So if you want to make your work food safe you need to change glazes. I’m not a potter but I know this can be complicated, but it may be worth undertaking.
There are certainly reasons to want your work to be both functional and decorative. First, the duality would open up a larger market for you. Second, marketing guru Pamela Danzinger is telling us that the consumer is becoming less interested in items that don’t function; we don’t want to dust stuff any more. You could begin with the platters and bowls, lead is not an issue with vases. Customers might be confused if some of your work is food safe and other of it is not. A good goal could be to transition as fast as possible. On the other hand if you have a solid market for your decorative pieces you may want to produce two lines and use Angela Fina’s approach. Angela a potter in Amherst, MA produces a line of Ikebana containers and sometimes uses glazes that are not food safe. Some of her forms could be mistaken for serving bowls, she writes “Not for Food” on the bottom of these pieces with a ceramic pencil. If you chose to change your work be aware that it may take your customers a bit of time to catch up with your new ideas.