Why We Treat Everyday Like Earth Day: Beautiful, Simple Ways To Be More Environmentally Friendly

*This is a guest blog post, edited by Joel Cherrico and written by Macy Kelly: CSB/SJU Marketing Intern at Cherrico Pottery. In this post, Macy addresses the ways we practice being eco-friendly at Cherrico Pottery.

I’ve never met anyone who loves getting a box filled with packing peanuts. We know, they make a mess. At Cherrico Pottery, it’s important that we deliver your pottery as safely and as eco-friendly as possible. That’s why our peanuts are 100% biodegradable. Sustainability is a fun challenge that we take on in multiple parts of the Cherrico Pottery process.

Packing and Shipping

Up to 40% recycled content in bubble wrap to initially wrap the pottery.
“Lightweight” boxes instead of double walled boxes cut our cardboard use almost in half.
Packing and shipping with local egg cartons saves materials and money, even though we only use them occasionally.
100% biodegradable peanuts to secure and protect the pots in boxes. They not only decompose in water leaving no toxic waste, but they are FDA compliant and made with “static-free organic starch.”

During Kickstarter, we used over 1,000 egg cartons to ship 1,000 pots. Egg cartons can always be requested via email during the checkout process in place of the biodegradable packing peanuts. When a shipment from Cherrico Pottery arrives, you will see the logo hand-painted on each box. This is because there is no point in branding with paper stickers or stamps on the boxes when we strive to be as unique and real as possible, while keeping the artistic vibe alive.

In The Studio

Joel sacrificed natural gas kiln firings and Copper Red Glazes, even though he used to get gorgeous results. You can view and learn about them in these three blog posts:

https://www.cherricopottery.com/2012/11/25/gas-firing-stoneware-pottery-at-cone-10-natural-variations-in-the-copper-red-glaze/

https://www.cherricopottery.com/2012/09/03/how-to-glaze-ceramics-like-a-painter-but-let-the-kiln-do-the-dripping/

https://www.cherricopottery.com/2012/04/24/copper-red-glazes-the-elusive-bright-red-pottery/

His business model is devoted to long-term environmentalism. Gas kilns are easier to load and can produce beautiful pottery in bigger batches, but natural gas is a non-renewable resource. It doesn’t give opportunities to utilize free solar energy raining down from the sky. Electricity does. The electric kiln is not more environmentally friendly currently, but solar energy has the power to change that.

Kiln placement is another simple, smart choice that saves energy. Joel’s kiln is located in the middle of the studio, so it doubles as a radiant heater all winter. He also dries pottery using the heat of the kiln, saving energy and money every time he fires by being able to turn off other heaters.

Saving energy can be simple and beautiful, even with an act as simple as bringing pots outside to dry in the sun instead of using fans.

After taking a three day workshop from Steven Hill Pottery, Joel learned how to successfully apply up to 8 glaze layers on one pot. In this video, you can learn some of Steven Hill’s process too.

Cosmic Mugs have 4-5 layers of glaze each, but Joel chose not to purchase steel spray guns that Steven uses to get his magnificent colors. Spray guns require energy to fill a compressed air tank, as well as a spray booth to catch the airborne glaze chemicals. Instead, Joel created innovative ways to get similar effects simply using brushes.

It’s the same reason Joel uses kick wheels to make pottery rather than electric, motorized wheels.

Why Donations Relate to Environmentalism

Businesses aren’t required to use environmentally friendly materials or donate anything, ever. Cherrico Pottery has shipped worldwide to 16 countries, so we think it is only right to explore how we can help make the earth a better place. All of these donations are impacting the world in positive ways:

Moon Mug auction with a 20% donation to the B612 Foundation: b612foundation.org
GWR Pot #1 with a 20% donation to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital
GWR pot #159 with 20% donation to three different charities shown in the product description.
Monthly membership and occasional larger donations to The Planetary Society: planetary.org
Monthly membership and occasional larger donations to The American Craft Council: craftcouncil.org

What’s Next?

Our goal is to break ground on a new pottery studio that supports future pottery production with 100% solar fired pottery. This is a ridiculously ambitious goal, but not out of reach. If Tesla can debut an entire product launch on stored sunlight, then it must be possible to power a kiln.

If you want to help us accomplish this goal, please consider buying a pot.

🎁🎉 April Pottery Giveaway 🎁🎉

What’s one thing you do to encourage environmental sustainability? Leave a comment below before this Friday telling us one thing you do to try and be more environmentally friendly in your daily life, your job, hobbies, travel, anything! Joel will pick the best 3 comments and give them one of three pots ($459 value) totally free: World Record planter #26/159 ($159 value + $20 packing & shipping), one Cosmic Mug inspired by a Planetary Nebula ($125 + $15 packing & shipping) and one Cosmic Mug inspired by a Molecular Cloud Cluster ($125 + $15 packing & shipping).

To enter, you must leave one, genuine comment, or the moderator will not approve your comment or include you in the giveaway. Please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name, as the latter comes off like spam. Please allow 24-48 hours for your comment to appear. You must also be on our email newsletter distribution list to qualify, so please make sure you are signed up. Joel will pick one winner Friday around 6pm Central and you will receive the pottery shipped to you nearly anywhere globally, totally free.

*UPDATE 4/28: ENDED. Congrats Holly, Liz and Kelsey and thanks so much to everyone who participated! Did you know that the word, “solar” was mentioned on this post/comments about 27 times and the words “recycle” and “recycling” and “recyclable” were mentioned about 275 times WOW! I hope you had as much fun reading these comments as I did. – Joel

21 January, 20174 April, 2017

Follow the Leaders: The Search for 1,000 True Fans

Enter the Inspirational Pottery and Book Pairings Giveaway (active until January 27th, 2017) and you could win one of 5 Random Cosmic Mugs paired with one of 5 copies of “Tools of Titans” by Tim Ferriss totally free. Tools of Titans is a compilation of nearly 200 interviews that I had already heard before reading the book. This story tells how the lessons and strategies from “Tools Of Titans” have helped the Cherrico Pottery Team and I during our search for 1,000 True Fans.

The reason we are giving away five copies of “Tools of Titans” is because the real world stories in this book have helped me and maybe they can help you. They’re incredible.

“The Tim Ferriss Show” podcast was the precursor to Tools of Titans. I’ve listened to almost every episode. Here is what I learned:

How meditation could help me break a Guinness World Record
How to create something remarkable that could succeed on Kickstarter
How to create a “muse” and get it into the hands of thousands of people worldwide.

“Don’t take advice from anyone who has not been able to implement the same advice successfully themselves.”

– Tim Ferriss, quoted in his Podcast Episode #144

The reason we’re giving away five free Random Cosmic Mugs is because we simply want to spread more cosmic love here on our Pale Blue Dot. Over 100 Cosmic Mugs have already entered the world for free through our blog giveaways, by giving them out to my friends and by shipping free pots to important people.

You could call giveaways a “marketing strategy” but in some ways they are totally inappropriate and irresponsible.

“Money is to a business what oxygen is to the human body. Cash flow is the lifeblood of business. The bank pumps cash in and out like the heart pumps blood. Sales bring in money like the lungs bring in oxygen. In 2013 I experienced the terror of running out of money, which was akin to feeling suffocated.”

Quoted in my American Craft Council authorship: “A Potter’s Journey: Launching a Pottery Business Venture and Fighting to Keep it Alive”

Businesses need revenue. Plain and simple. I’ve felt the suffocating pain of running out of money before. Why should we spend so much time, effort and money giving away free pottery when we need pottery sales to survive?

Since 2014, we have been shipping free Cosmic Mugs to people you might refer to as “celebrity influencers.” Our goal was to get our best pots into the hands of people who are already impacting millions of people in powerful, positive ways.

Here are just a few replies from folks who received Cosmic Mugs as gifts:

Many of these replies brought me to tears. Giving away free Cosmic Mugs let me directly connect with my heroes. If you own a Cosmic Mug, you are in the company of all of these people.

Giveaways are expensive, but they create incredible connections that impact the world in powerful, positive ways. Even with the high expenses, that seems like a worthy goal.

“You are the average of the five people you most associate with.”

– Tim Ferriss, quoted in Business Insider

P.s. Thanks for reading this far! I’m curious…who are people who have impacted your life positively? Scroll down to leave a reply here on our website and we will give you 3 more entries to the Inspirational Pottery and Book Pairings Giveaway (active until January 27th, 2017).

Image sources:

Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chris Hadfield, Seth Godin, Ryan Holiday, Bryan Callen, Tim Ferriss

16 January, 201715 September, 2018

The “Wow Factor”

Seth Godin describes a “Purple Cow” as an example of something truly remarkable. Any person on the planet who happened to pass by a purple cow would exclaim, “Wow!” It would be worthy of remarking on.

The “wow factor” was how I described my art during college, before I ever heard of Seth Godin. It needed to help people feel a sense of awe. College professors urged me to explore abstract, sculptural art and the result was Mindscape: an art installation with over 1,000 abstract sculptures.

Sculpture doesn’t currently pay the bills. During college, I discovered that pottery could, but needed to change my path. One of the biggest challenges since has been trying to craft truly remarkable pottery that is capable of communicating a comparable, “WOAH!” as stepping inside 1,000+ sculptures.

Purple Cow helped me filter this energy into an original, gorgeous coffee mug, which evolved into the “Cosmic Mug” over years spent finding my artistic voice. Communicating the “wow factor” through photography was another obstacle we had to tackle, while switching from local pottery sales to online sales all over the world.

This photo has the “wow factor” thanks to talented photographer Nicole Pederson.

“If a narrative isn’t working, well then, really, why are you using it? The narrative isn’t done to you; the narrative is something that you choose. Once we can dig deep and find a different narrative, then we ought to be able to change the game.”

– Seth Godin, qtd in “Tools of Titans” by Tim Ferriss, Page 239.

P.s. Seth Godin is also featured at length in “Tools of Titans” starting on page 237. Enter the Inspirational Pottery and Book Pairings Giveaway (active until January 27th, 2017) and you could win one of 5 Random Cosmic Mugs paired with one of 5 copies of “Tools of Titans” totally free.

5 January, 20165 January, 2016

Cosmic/Mountain Mug Giveaway & Survey: The Future of Cherrico Pottery

I hope everyone had a great New Year’s celebration! The Kickstarter is over and all of the Holiday pottery shipped globally. If you’re a backer and still waiting for your pottery, please know that I am getting back to the pottery wheel in just a couple weeks. Everyone should have pottery delivered much earlier than the projected March 1st. deadline.

In the meantime, please enjoy another free mug giveaway!

Cosmic/Mountain Mug Giveaway & Survey

Your feedback will help us decide the best ways to move forward with post-Kickstarter funds.

I’m off to the Rockies for my annual trip out of the Midwest and into the mountains. Traveling on the Amtrak Train provides 22 hours each way to write, design new pottery and to plan the next step for the business and pottery studio.

“…it is obvious that Shoji [Hamada] approached his life and work in a holistic manner, and that his workshop, house, clothes, and lifestyle were all related to his greater motivation for working in clay.”

– About historically famous potter Shoji Hamada, February 2009, from “Three Generations of Hamada Potters,” Pucker Gallery, Boston.

17 December, 201517 December, 2015

1,000 Pots and 1,000 Egg Cartons

The Kickstarter is over and all of the Holiday pottery shipped globally. If you’re a backer, check out our most recent campaign update for all Cosmic Mug shipping information. If you just want to see a glimpse into the cosmic pottery process, scroll to the bottom of the update for photography and video snippets:

Three Cheers for the Backers!

Thanks again for your support!

Having no fear leaves us free to take risks and thereby learn from our failures and successes. If we produce safe, calculated pots, then that joy of discovery is lost and our growth cut short. The way to continue growing is to risk the unknown. An old Chinese proverb says it best, “Fear came knocking, faith opened the door, but no one was there.”

– Jenny Lind, “A Question of Quality,” The Studio Potter