the *green* ware question

Hello Friends,
I am finally getting to my next guest blogger (whom by the way was much more timely about getting it together than moi!). Laura Zindel is not only a brilliant ceramic artist but also a very dear friend. She and I met thirteen years ago at a restaurant we both worked at in San Francisco for a brief time (I walked out on the job two weeks after I met Laura but I made sure I had her phone number before I made my dramatic exit!). We've shared studio sales, mold making sessions, kiln disasters, wedding dress shopping, honeymoons (I was invited to her and her husband's honeymoon!!), babies born, family, relationships past and present, late night stories, bottles of wine and of course any number of ceramic related issues that constantly present themselves. Laura never ceases to wow me with her work and I am so happy to feature her here because as far as I am concerned you can never get enough of this fabulous, talented and successful lady. Plus she brings up a very important topic which I think you all will find very interesting. Please read on...

Laura Zindel working in her Vermont studio

Hi,

I am Laura Zindel -Diana's Blog guest. Diana is one of my favorite potters, not to mention my very dear friend and comrade in clay.

Diana asked me to talk about a new subject on the horizon, Green Ceramics. It is not something that I made up, or really wanted to be a part of, but I will tell you my story and hopefully it will give others a place to talk about their ideas. Diana was my first go to girl on this subject and we have had many conversations since it started.

It all started one morning when I received this e-mail:

Hi,

I'm extremely interested in finding out a little more about your product.

I'm in the process of opening up an environmentally friendly, socially responsible store in Los Angeles and absolutely love your china and prints. I was wondering if the pieces are as environmentally friendly as they can be with the glazes that you use....it's extremely important to me as i want to feature beautiful pieces that are socially responsible, plus I love the insect and bird motifs....could you please get back to me...

Do you have a rep in the Los Angeles area, or do you fulfill all your orders directly?

What is your minimum order?

Well, you would think that such an e-mail would flatter and interest me, not elicit my immediate response, which was anger. I did not understand my feelings at this point but my instinct had red flag warnings waving everywhere.

I wrote back and told her that no ceramics are Eco friendly because of the firing glazing process and if anyone was telling her something different I wanted to know about it.

What happened next was a week or so of e-mails back and forth between us, me trying to set her straight and her telling me what she had found out about my world of ceramics. In one letter she told me,that there were a bunch of potters that were very Eco -friendly, and then gave me their e-mail addresses so I could see for myself. Supposedly there was this whole movement toward socially responsible ceramics that I was somehow not a part of. When I decided to jump on board and join the party, then she would want to sell my work.

When had this happened I wondered, How had I been living outside of something so big and not heard a word about it? So I started to do some research. First, I contacted everyone I knew in the clay world whose knowledge I trusted, to see if they knew something I didn't. And then I stayed awake more nights than I care to admit, to prove that ceramics was not Eco-friendly, that we raped the land and let out excessive emissions into the environment. At one point I started to questioned my sanity, What was I doing? One morning, around three am, my husband caught me surfing the Internet in the living room, which I never do. I told him it was within his rights to ask me to stop if my behavior was interfering with his ideas about me as a wife and mother. He went back to bed.

I went to the web sites of the environmentally friendly potters that the gallery owner told me about. On one site, a potter making very nice copper reduction pots states on his web site ... No toxic materials are used in these ceramics, they are therefore maker, user, and environmentally friendly . The work is 'Reduction' fired in a 40 cu. ft. Natural Gas kiln to a temperature of approx. 1340 degrees centigrade (cone14). The firing takes about 24 hours to reach top temperature.

Just about everything in this statement makes me so mad I don't even know where to start. First we have silica, then copper, then reduction, 40ft cu kiln, and end with Natural Gas I think, are you tripping. This is the kind of stuff that is really going to confuse someone that does not know about ceramics. It confused me, and I know a thing or two.

A list of my experts and their responses to the question of Green Ceramics.

Whitney Smith:

Hey Laura,

I've had this question asked of me, and my response is always that ceramics is not an environmentally friendly process. I don't know how you make an environmentally friendly glaze, I don't even know what that would be. Firing uses a lot of energy, if not electricity, then gas or wood. I suppose I could investigate this further, I'm interested to know what your response is to this and how it got you worked up.

John Hull, Life long educator and Potter:

You got me thinking... Green... I am still getting my thoughts together but here are a few things.

I have asked a few people about this and they are bring up interesting points...could be a question of how green we are. Better to be more green than less green...

You and I work at home. We don't drive to work using fuel... that's green.

Your products are functional and don't get thrown away... that's green

When they get broken and are disposed of, the don't have a negative environmental impact... that's green

Your construction process doesn't use energy (electric potter's wheel, ram press,etc.)... that's green

You fire to a relatively low temp in an efficient kiln emitting no harmful gases (as in reduction)... that's green

Your kilns help heat the house and work space... that's green... you are quite green.

and on and on, BUT... Energy use, mining and transporting of materials and all that is a question. I will keep thinking as I am sure you will. x john

Don Santos, Head of Ceramics, SF City College:

I would reassure the LA person that your work is "as green as possible". But you are correct that ceramics in general is not particularly GREEN. In general as long as your glazes are semi-gloss to gloss they are food safe. The toxic metal oxides need to tied up with enough silica to not leach out. Gloss glazes tend to have this quality. But what makes ceramics inherently not green is the amount of energy that is wasted when we fire. If you can address the energy issue by saying you use the waste energy from your kiln to heat the studio, at-least you are using the energy twice. I hope this little bit of advice helps you.

Bob Lupica, CEO Niagara Ceramics:

When I asked Bob if his company was green his immediate response was: Absolutely! He then gave me a long list of the ways that I large ceramic manufacturer like Niagara recycled almost every scrap of material that was not boxed and shipped to a customer. (Well done Bob!)� But he also said that Silica was the new asbestos, and we could not make glaze without it. (bummer).

Sherman Hall, editor Ceramics Monthly:

(This was a phone call so I am recapping)� Sherman did not think that ceramics was green, because of all of the materials we use and the emissions let out during firing. Then he offered his team of technical experts to help support me in my mission to help educate my gallery owner, which I thought was very generous. What he said that most impressed me, was that it was important that all potter's not step over the line in describing ceramics as environmentally responsible. He said that it would only hurt all of us in the long run because the green police would eventually show up to collect.

Grace at Design Sponge:"I think that design shouldn't go out of its way to use materials that are incredibly toxic (ie: injection molded plastic) but I think for artists producing small editions it shouldn't be an issue of criticism if someone uses wood or ceramics. For me, if the production size is small it's not a big deal. No one jumps on fine artists for using oil paints, do they?"

What I came away from everyone of these very informed people was that all of them are concerned with the questions of how we might hurt the environment, but resigned to reality of making ceramics. I wrote one final e-mail to my green gallery owner, a tome really. It was filled with elaborate information about all of my findings. I was no longer in the breezy e-mail zone, but somewhere I had never gone with someone that wanted to sell my work. I was trying to talk her out of it. I thought I would not be hearing from her again.

To my surprise, a month or so later, I get this e-mail.

Wow Laura! You are thorough....it's been a while since I've written but i wanted to see if i can purchase some of your ceramics for my store...you've been the most honest and thorough person that I've talked to regarding ceramics....yes, it's true, some people tout Eco friendly products, but after talking to them, they are doing exactly the same as you....plus I LOVE your stuff WAY more than theirs....

so after having done a lot of research and talking to people at the International furniture fair, I'd like to purchase some of your incredible ceramics....

what is the best way for me to go about that do i order directly from you?

please let me know.

I have a lot of respect for someone very bent on wanting things to turn out their way, ( I know a thing or two about this attitude.) and then concede to the facts. She told me that she decided that ceramics would not be touted as green in her store, but she was going to give my bugs a "back story", instead....let people know how insects, birds, snakes etc... are necessary to our survival. I am ok with this approach. Its an honest one and I like it. I know I gave in pretty easy at this point, but this was never really my fight to begin with.

I realized when I managed to get a grip, that what I was really angry about, was marketing. Left in the hands of someone without scruples, my work could lead an unsuspecting public into thinking that buying my work was somehow going to help our environment, a terrible lie. But I will always believe that buying handmade work is better than the alternative, and that buying from your local artists is the best possible thing you can buy.

I want to thank all of the people that put up with my ranting and raving, while I did my "research" and Thanks to Diana's readers for bearing with a long story. If anyone wants to read the tome, filled with the undeniable facts, I can e-mail it to you.

Thanks especially to Diana for her Blog! I love it, and I think it is historic and wonderful.

Cheers!

Laura Zindel