Sea Otter by Christine Andersen in brown slip and white glaze with bronze accents
Andersen Design has a large body of classic slip-cast designs, created over the course of seven decades, including our wildlife sculpture and functional forms, and original glaze and body recipes. From 1958 to 2018 Andersen Design designed and produced a unique and classic line of slip-cast ceramic designs that maintained their market appeal as sold in our retail gallery, website, nationally known catalogs, small Main Street galleries, museum shops, and international department stores.
Our small production used the slip casting process, original glazes, and decorating colors mixed from raw materials and encouraged the individuality of the artisan’s hand, producing both production work and one-of-a-kind art pieces. As small-scale makers, our market was never saturated. The appeal of Andersen’s was constant through the decades. The products are engaging to produce, and an asset for starting a hand-crafted production studio. perfect as a small business in our attached to a home or stand-alone studio.
We would like to find small production studios to produce our products. This requires rubber master molds that make it easy to produce production molds and to serve as a prototype relationship in what we envision as a decentralized network of studios working collaboratively.
Andersen Design’s Gentle Sandpipe
Sleeping Sandpiper by Elise Isabell Andersen in Graphic Brown
Because another company is producing a commercial version of the brown slip very similar to our own, items decorated in our brown slip technique are the easiest to work with on a trial basis as working with commercially available decorating colors and glazes will greatly simplify things.
We know how to design, make and market a product. The most challenging part of the project is what we don’t know, which is how to legally structure a decentralized network involving intellectual and other kinds of property. We need to work with expert legal counsel to work out the relationships. I believe that actively working with one or two studios as we are figuring it out, will help to understand the relationships on all sides.
This project is a prototype project for setting up working relationships that can be expanded upon.
Wide Gingerbread Mug in Brown Tree decorated by Elise Andersen
Join at this year-end and give a tax-deductible, end-of-year donation.
We will need to find the studios that we can work with. Making ceramics has a deep appeal to humanity. Today there is a hobby industry that decorates slip-cast forms in their home studios which may be a resource for our endeavor. The interest is there.
We need your help in reaching our $30,000 funding goal before December 31, 2022. Your end-of-year gift supports a qualified legal council and setting up a studio, or several studios to produce products and promotional costs for our website where we will represent a curated group of designer craftsmen in addition to our own line.
Help us to re-launch Andersen Design to benefit a new generation of American Designer Craftsmen with a gift of $200.
Make a tax-deductible donation on The Field
Or make a bigger impact and consider setting a recurring donation of $20 a month ($240 annual)
Make a tax-deductible donation on The Field
If you would like to send a donation by check, please make it out to The Field and write “Andersen Prototype Studios Project” in the memo line and click here for address.
With your support, we envision a year of groundbreaking new work on developing decentralized collaborations with independently owned studios.
Until then, have a very happy and healthy New Year!
Cheers,
Mackenzie Andersen
P.S. We depend on you to make our year of creating a new concept of collaboration a success. Consider giving $500 or more and join our Inner Circle, and get exclusive updates about our work, our collaborator’s work, and opportunities to make special requests.
Mackenzie Andersen is a sponsored artist with The Performance Zone Inc (dba The Field), a not-for-profit, tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization serving the performing arts community. Contributions to The Field earmarked for Mackenzie Andersen are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. For more information about The Field, or for our national charities registration, contact: The Field, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 906 New York, NY 10038, phone: 212-691-6969. A copy of our latest financial report may be obtained from The Field or from the Office of Attorney General, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York.