12 reasons why you should gift handmade ceramics to yourself, your entire family, all your friends and even your enemies

1)      It’s pretty.

2)      It’s unique.

3)      It’s useful.

4)      You don’t have to keep finding new gift ideas all the time, but it doesn’t mean that your gifts will be boring or repetitive. You can choose from a hundred possibilities (plates, bowls, mugs, sponge holders, candle holders, vases, soap dishes, trays, trivets, casserole dishes, coffee cups, butter dishes, nativity scenes, animal sculptures for the kids, artsy sculptures for the adults, and so on…) Besides, each potter has a different style, so you can start a collection of mugs or plates on someone’s behalf and keep giving a different one every year.

5)      If it’s not functional but sculptural, it is still useful to make all your friends wonder about why you display this useless thing in your house.  They’ll be really impressed when you tell them it’s art.    

(I’m joking, beauty IS useful for its own sake. Maybe I should write an entire post about the usefulness of useless things.)

6) Ceramics will break eventually, especially pieces that are used daily, so you can gift the same thing every two to three years and they’ll be delighted because they loved the first one.

7)      Having a big vase in your lounge is always a good idea in case someone breaks in and you need to hit them on the head with something hefty.  Plastic is useless for that.

8)      Having ceramics around is also handy when you have an argument with your significant other and want to make a point by breaking something on the wall (make sure you keep a few pieces you don’t like as much or got tired of to make your point.  Don’t initiate an argument close to your favorite ceramic piece).

9)      You can brag that you support local artists. You can support international artists as well, that sounds even better. Just pick a few ceramic pieces as a souvenir when you’re on vacations abroad.

10)  If you give the people you like a functional piece of pottery, they’ll think about you fondly every time they will use it, daily or more.

11)   If you give the people you don’t like a functional piece of pottery, they’ll think about you with dread every time they use it but will keep using it because it’s pretty and useful.

12)    Owning ceramic pieces is the closest you’ll get to immortality. Ceramic pieces lasts forever.  We still find prehistoric ceramic shards around.  It’s a wonderful contradiction that pottery is delicate and incredibly strong at the same time.  You’ll have been dead for thousands of years and a piece of ceramics you drank your coffee from might be unearthed from the ground.   Sure, it will be in pieces, but probably bigger ones than you at that point.

Main illustration: garden sculptures by Lisa Weller