Customers always ask, and artists dread to answer, "How long did it take?" It's a tricky question to answer. Rarely do clay people work on one piece at a time. I usually work on several pieces simultaneously, spending two weeks doing the clay work and twice as much time glazing it.
Right now the sculptures are located at one end of the terrace and the mural at the other. Once the furniture has arrived I’m hoping they’ll be placed with the mural.
I needed to be accountable to the foundation that hired me for my recent mural commission for the Rex Cancer Center. I kept track of how long the project took and added up the hours. I thought you might want to see this glimpse into time spent working on such a hefty commission. Check this out:
Mural
32 hours testing new colors and doing color sketches
48 hours tile making
256 hours drawing and glazing
24 hours creating and glazing the mural border
Sculptures
10 hours throwing the bowls/bases
8 hours trimming
64 hours drawing and glazing the bowls
24 hours making the plates
8 hours trimming
8 hours to glaze the plates
160 hours to make the pedestals
96 hours drawing and glazing the pedestals
64 hours to make the birdhouses
40 hours to glaze the birdhouses
10 hours of loading kilns, recycling clay and mixing glazes
8 hours to ready the pieces for installations and to install
Total Hours = 860
The mural with the handmade trim pieces.