The work you don't see in a handmade cup

Every pottery fair brings a familiar question: "How long does it take to make one of these?"

It's usually asked with genuine curiosity, and I completely understand why. Watching a potter throw a cup on the wheel can look wonderfully effortless. In a few minutes, a lump of clay becomes something recognisable.

If that short moment were the whole story, a £30 cup might seem surprisingly expensive.

But the truth is that the few minutes spent shaping the clay are only a tiny part of what you're looking at.

The visible work

Throwing is perhaps the most enjoyable part of making a mug, but it is also the shortest.

Once the cup leaves the wheel, it begins a slow journey. It needs time to dry before it can be trimmed. Slip needs to be prepared for the hakeme brushing, before brushes even come into play. If the cup belongs to my Tatami range, carving needs to be done, one mark at a time, slowly and repetitively. Then comes more drying, carefully managed to reduce the risk of cracking or warping.

Only then can it be fired for the first time.

After the bisque firing, every cup is glazed by hand with one, two or sometimes three layers of glazes or wax resist, before returning to the kiln for a second firing. Once cooled, each piece is inspected, the foot is sanded smooth, and only then is it ready to leave the studio.

Even that simple description leaves out countless small decisions. Is cup comfortable to hold? Has the glaze pooled correctly? Is the rim pleasant to drink from? Is this piece good enough to carry my name?

Making pottery isn't one action. It's a sequence of dozens of small processes, spread over days rather than minutes.

A handmade hug cup with hakeme brushmark and wax resist

The work no one sees

What often surprises people is that making the mug is only part of my job.

Before a piece ever finds its new home, it has been photographed, filmed, edited and uploaded to my website. Descriptions have been written. Orders are packed, labels printed, boxes prepared and emails answered.

If I'm selling at a pottery fair, there are applications to complete months in advance, stall fees to pay, tables to transport, fuel, accommodation, long days standing behind the display, and often many hours driving home afterwards.

If I'm selling through a gallery, a commission helps support the gallery's work, meaning only part of the retail price comes back to the studio.

These hours rarely come to mind when someone is holding a cup, but they are all part of bringing that piece into the world.

Running a pottery studio is running a business

Being a maker also means being the accountant, photographer, cleaner, website manager, customer service department and maintenance engineer.

There is clay to buy, kilns to maintain, glazes to mix, tools to replace, insurance to pay, software subscriptions to renew, electricity bills, taxes, payment processing fees and packaging materials.

Unlike someone employed by a company, there is no employer providing holiday pay, sick leave or pension contributions. Those costs still exist, but they have to come from the business itself.

When people divide £30 by the three minutes it might take to throw a cup, they arrive at an imaginary hourly rate that sounds astonishing.

But that's not how handmade work is paid.

That £30 contributes to every hour spent making, every failed pot that never leaves the studio, every kiln firing, every exhibition, every quiet week without sales, and every expense required to keep a small creative business alive.

Once all of those costs are accounted for, many independent makers earn considerably less than people imagine, often somewhere around the living wage, and sometimes below it.

Close up of a Gaiwan in red clay being trimmed at the weel

What you're really buying

When you buy a handmade cup, you're not buying two minutes at the wheel.

You're buying years of learning. Hundreds of tests that didn't work. The confidence to know when a form feels right. The patience to wait for clay to dry instead of rushing it. The care taken to reject pieces that don't meet my standards, even though they represent hours of work.

Most of all, you're helping sustain a way of making that simply couldn't exist if every object had to compete with factory production on price alone.

A handmade cup isn't expensive because the clay is valuable. Clay is remarkably inexpensive.

Its value comes from the time, knowledge, attention and care that have quietly accumulated around it before it ever reaches your hands.

So the next time someone asks me how long it took to make a cup, I still won't have a simple answer. Because what they're really asking about isn't time, it's value. And worth isn't measured in the few minutes spent at the wheel. It's found in everything that quietly surrounds those minutes: the years of learning, the careful decisions, the unseen work of running a studio, and the commitment to making things well.

Perhaps that's the real beauty of handmade objects: they remind us that some things are worth more than the time it takes to make them.

Close up on the textural hakeme brushwork applied onto a handleless yunomi style of cup