[Clayart] Cookie cutters and commercial stamps

[Carolyn Curran]

I guess the internet and other almost instant forms of communication have
increased the number of.people who try their hand at marketing pottery
while using someone else's motif on a cookie cutter and someone else's
design done with a purchased stamp or roller.  The availability of
inexpensive microwave kilns and mini potter's wheels is also a factor in
the abundance of  what I might call simple  bread and butter items found at
many craft shows.   Yeah,  I  myself have used  "boughten" cookie cutters
for ornaments and so have many other clay artists,  but all of a sudden I
am seeing a TON  of these  look alike ornaments appearing on Ebay and Etsy
and at shows.   I may be a clay snob,  but I bristle  when someone  shows
me a "mass produceable" ornament or other small doodad  they have purchased
at a craft show and compares it   favorably with a truly individual item.
I don't begrudge them their inexpensive Christma tree decoration, but it's
getting so that  the general public is beginning to think  of these items
as examples of  creative craftsmanship.  They may be "handcrafted", but
most of them are not examples of creativity  but of simple copy work.  Did
ancient potters think this way when the potter's wheel came on the scene?
And how about commercial glazes or other supplies  that are not made from
scratch?  Plaster molds?  Laser cut  designs and 3D printers?   Thoughts
from Carolyn, the potter currently. without studio
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