We recently went to an open house at Heath Ceramics. A high end ceramics manufacturer in Sausalito and definitely an interesting visit. As a hobbiest potter, I was a little torn as to what to think about their setup. The 'handcrafted' portion of what they do is very minimal compared to what a traditional defined potter does. They use forms, slip-casting, and jiggers to make pretty much everything. The human element seems most prevelent in cleaning up the pieces before firing, and glazing them. I certainly understand why they do things the way they do, it is a fine line to walk to be able to make enough pieces to actually be a large business that can do global orders and still have some of the desirable characteristics of traditional pottery. Throwing by hand takes forever in comparision an automated factory lacks character. For example they can form a large bowl in 30 seconds with their not quite totally mechanized process. Cleaning it up, getting it glazed with a airbrush, and fired doesn't take much longer it terms of human time that goes in the bowl. The bowls will be almost exactly the same but just slightly different enough from each other that they have much more character than something that really is produced in a modern automated factory somewhere that turns up in a big box store for 30 bucks.

My qualms with the "marketing message" vs what I percieve as "the reality of the situation" aside, they have a great facility. Huge kilns with drop down walls made of spun glass are super efficent and I'm massively envious of them, big dry rooms, awesome glazing stations, and a wonderful clay mixing/recyling room. The tour was great because during the openhouse they actually have people at the various stations showing how all the tools work (typically the tours wouldn't have any demonstrations) and the workers are quite capable of knocking out piece after piece - though we were on the last tour and I suspect the workers all wanted to go home and get some use out of their weekend. ;) Their tiles were really nice and I know from making tiles myself what a pain it can be to do those right. The designs are all nice, mostly post modern, that for the most part have been around for 40+ years. The founder was a potter and is exhibited in various design museums, and I suspect her name and the assicated prestige of Heath ceramics really helps them in the business and global marketplace as being a status symbol since while they can knock out maybe more pieces than a tradition potter they are still very limited in production compared to a huge factory in China. I think that if one were able to afford it the pieces are great and much better than your big box store stuff. They do have seconds and overruns on tile availble at a discount, and the openhouses each year they sell everying at 20% off which is even better. If I ever end up with a house that needs some tile I would definitely check them out.