Tag: Tesla Powerwall

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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

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:

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

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Where Will You Be One Year From Today?

One year ago today, the Cherrico Pottery Team and a group of close friends documented me setting the World Record for ‘most pots thrown in one hour by an individual.’ You can view the official record here or actually watch a video of me setting the record here:

A lot changed in one year. Tens of thousands of new fans started following my artwork and our Facebook live videos have been “going viral,” which is just a fancy term for getting popular. Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly gratified that so many people are inspired by my art and career. The Cherrico Pottery Team and I are doing everything we can to serve these new followers and customers (make sure you are signed up for our email newsletter to snag any new pottery when it emerges from the kiln). It’s just that popularity doesn’t seem like a good goal.

Better goals entail crafting gorgeous art, serving customers in a thriving business, supporting an artist lifestyle and making the world a better place. Building something long-lasting and beautiful seems more helpful and honorable than building something popular.

With that that mind, this is my goal for the next year:

“One year from today, my goal is to break ground on a new pottery studio that supports future pottery production with 100% solar fired pottery.”

This goal is ambitious and has never been done before. It has that in common with setting the pottery Guinness World Record on a Kickwheel (the previous record of 150 pots was set on an electric, motorized wheel).

I might not accomplish my goal, and that’s okay. This is the mindset I had when attempting the pottery World Record and it served me well. If you have an ambitious goal and fall short, you’re still headed towards success. Anytime I embraced this mindset, my efforts filtered into other surprising successes, like when celebrity Tim Ferriss made new YouTube videos and a Cosmic Mug popped up in the background, or when I got a personalized letter from Neil deGrasse Tyson. He’s the Director of the Hayden Planetarium in NYC and host of StarTalk Radio and StarTalk on National Geographic Channel. He was one of the initial people who inspired creation of Cosmic Mugs back in 2014.

You might fall short with an ambitious goal, but you often fall into a higher level of accomplishment than you might have ever thought possible. Plus, the “worst case scenario” probably isn’t that bad. Tim Ferriss has a great TED Talk that illustrates the incredible power of questions like, “What’s the worst that can happen?“

Journaling helps. These bullet points are a summary of my journal entry from a year ago. They describe my “worst case scenario” plan for a failed GWR attempt:

  • Try again in one week. The record requires 350 pounds of clay and I have over 1,000. I can try again at least once more without consequences.
  • Determine exactly what went wrong. Remove the hindrance through practice for a minimum of 1 hour, twice daily.
  • Fire the practice planters and sell them for $5-10 each to cover costs. People bought nearly all 1,000+ practice planters in 2015, so they are a guaranteed sale.
  • If you injure your back (side note: I threw out my back practicing for the record) then add one more week for a recovery period and attempt the record in two weeks.
  • If you run out of money, sell more Cosmic Mugs to the waiting list of people who didn’t get one during Kickstarter.

That’s it! There was literally nothing else to worry about, even if I failed. That was comforting. Stress and fear melted away, my focus returned to the record and I conquered it.

What are your goals? Where do you want to be one year from now? Leave a comment at the end of this post telling us something you want to accomplish, a place you want to live, a career or personal goal, any goal.

(GIVEAWAY RULES: Leave a comment on this post telling us about your “one year goal” before Friday, March 10th, 2017 at 5pm Central and we’ll enter you to win GWR pot #101 totally free. One winner will be chosen randomly and announced in these blog comments the same Friday around 6pm Central. To enter, you must leave one, genuine comment about your “one year goal” or the moderator will not approve your comment. 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. Thanks! *ENDED. Giveaway Winner: Comment #105, Christa”).

This post was published March 7th, 2017, but it might live here on the internet for decades. Whenever you happen to read this post, share one goal you hope to accomplish one year from now. Put it in the comments below, visible to anyone. Mark your calendar to check back one year from now. What’s the worst that can happen?

To accomplish great things, it’s often important to selectively ignore popularity, red notifications and the intoxicating smart phone buzz. Focus on setting and achieving goals.