Clay With Trey | Trey Foster | Episode 1263

0:00This is The Potter's Cast. A podcast home for potters everywhere. It's a community of potters and dedicated to grow their business. We're picking up where the art degree ends. I'm your host, Paul Blaze. Howdy and welcome to episode number 1263 of The Potter's Cast. Hey, I got a few comments from the last episode that I mentioned about AI. I don't know if you recall that, but last week, I think it was Thursday's episode, I'd mentioned that my friend John had told me about his asking AI to evaluate his paintings and the feedback he got back. And so then I decided to say, I wonder if it would work with pottery. Actually, I think he mentioned that and I said, well, that'd be interesting to try. So then I put it, I took a picture of that Kevin, not Kevin, Tim Koalzik's work and asked AI about that. And AI said it looked great. And I said, is it

1:00gallery worthy and is said as a matter of fact, it is. It's in a lot of galleries right now. So that was interesting. So I thought, well, I'll try it with my work and I try it with my work. And it said that it was very nice. And I said, well, is it gallery worthy? And he said, not really. So then I said, it is so. And it said, that's very nice for you to think that it's, but I disagree. Basically is what it said. I'm summarizing all that. You can go back and listen the last week's episode. And so I asked if you'd like to, you know, comment back. That'd be great. Well, I got a couple of responses and I thought I'd share them with you. One of them was from Donna Klein who left the message on the show notes page. And she wrote, she wrote, Paul, I listened to your podcast about asking AI if your ceramic is gallery worthy. I did the same thing with my latest work. And to

2:01my surprise, it said, yes, exclamation point. It also gave me a plan to go forward with my ceramic heart. I'm so excited. I really didn't know how to go forward with so many distractions. Squirrel. Thank you so much. I never miss an episode. Well, thank you, Donna. I'm really stoked that you never miss an episode. That means so much to me. And I'm kind of think that's really cool. Donna, that you kind of got that feedback. Of course, it is from a robot, which is not to say that your work is not gallery worthy. I just find the whole idea completely fascinating that we can get feedback on something like this. I personally won't take any feedback that it gave me at face value. I would obviously, or not, I don't know if that's obvious, but I would definitely get feedback from other people and so on and so forth. But I think that it's probably a pretty good indicator to be moving forward with that, Donna. So I'm pretty stoked about the idea

3:06of it. And I really appreciate the feedback saying that you did that. Anybody else got feedback like that or even just different feedback I'd love to hear it. I also heard Esther Drone. And you might remember Esther Drone. She was on the show a few weeks back. But she had this to say, she left the message on Clay Call button. And so this is what she had to say. Hi, Paul. It's Esther Drone. Your AI that you had critique your work was very interesting. I'm actually glad it didn't agree with you and that it stood its ground. But you know, that doesn't mean your work's not gallery worthy. It is that amalgamation of that AI gets from all across the internet. But that doesn't, different things can happen.

4:08It doesn't have to go with what the majority of the internet rules. However, it would be interesting to ask AI what price, you know, it thought work, certain work, should sell for. That might be an interesting thing for pricing. Also, I have some sculptural work that I used to sell through a gallery and I've not been able to, that gallery closed, changed ownership, closed. And I don't have been able to find the right gallery for that specific type of work. So that might be another interesting thing to use AI for. If you're having a hard time finding the right venue for a certain type of work, because some work cannot sell, you know, in certain markets, you need to have the right venue for it to sell. Esther, that is really great feedback. I decided that I would try what you suggested. So I took, as soon as I heard what you said,

5:08I decided, well, I would just see what it says about a vase that I have here in, you know, next to the studio. So I are here at the studio. And I got my vase. And it's a vase I'm somewhat proud of. I like it. And I just asked it, hey, I took a picture of it. And I said, what would you charge for this? Which is such a common struggle for us, potters, is to be asking that question about how much is my pottery worth in the world? And so AI gave me feedback that it was worth between $85 and $55 for my two toned vase. And I've got it ready. Gonna be going into a show here in November. But I thought, oh, that's, that's quite fascinating. Now, again, like I said to Donna, I'm not going to just take this at face value. I'm going to actually go back and and see what other people

6:08think about it and so on and so forth. But it went through and described why it was valued in that price range and said, here are the things to think about. And it talked about experience, audience, where it's being sold material. Then it gave me a breakdown of like how you can kind of price things. Now, having said that, the way AI is working, as you probably well know, but I'm just going to say for the fun of it, it is definitely going through the entire internet, not the whole internet, but it goes through a lot of the internet and compares what other people say about work and then kind of spits it out to me. It's very, it's very high level big info type of of an analysis. So, yeah, but I just thought the whole process was fascinating. I would love to hear back from you what you think about that. All that, you know, is this a joke? Like should we not even

7:10consider this? Is this something we ought to be pursuing? I don't know. It's just a thought. It's something we're talking about. Okay, today we've got Trey Foster coming on this show. Now you may not know of that name as just straight up Trey Foster, but you might know of him as Clay with Trey, because he's a dude that is definitely on the social media platforms and is known as Clay with Trey. And he's, I mean, the guys, the guys are, he's a bit of a rock star, right? Because he's out there teaching, he's out there doing social media and he's making his own work. And so I had just a great time talking with Trey. He's an inventor. He's making tools. Point is I had a great time talking with him. And I had so much fun just kind of diving into his journey and his, his process of making and what's it like to do all of these things like social media and making time, making sure he says time to make and so on and so forth. So this was a very fun conversation. So let's jump

8:14into this conversation. I had with Trey Foster right after this word from our sponsor, Bushcraft has an email list. Yes, an email list. I know, but hear me out. It's called notes from the studio and it's refreshingly free from marketing garbage. Just restocks, new tools and occasionally a word from Nikolai, which is probably something worth reading. There's no desperate sales pitch. No last chance, nonsense. Just good stuff for potters. Sign up over at Bushcraft.com because your inbox deserves better. Trey Foster, welcome to the potters cast. Thanks for having me. This is kind of a dream come true. Oh, well, dude, you need to have better dreams. It's one of them. It's one of them. But this is really cool. It's an honor to be here. Well, I am so stoked that you're coming on the show. You are, you are someone that my friend Frank Eager, I mentioned him quite,

9:17kind of quite a bit lately. He said, have you seen Trey, have you seen Trey with Clay? He's the best or Clay with Trey. He's the best. And so I started checking the out and he's going, oh, yeah, this dude just dude rock and roll. So what part of the world do you live on? I live in southwest Virginia. Have you lived there your whole life? For the most part, I mean, I've lived in Virginia for my whole life. I grew up about like an hour and a half north of where I am now and went to school on the other side of the state. But I've been in Virginia boy my whole life. Nice. So lived there and how about like in the town you're in right now. So you're not, you said you've lived in Virginia the whole time, but this new town, what brought you here? Yeah. So I live in Salem, Virginia. Apparently every state has a Salem. And this one's pretty great. It's just outside of Rone Oak and I came here for a job and then eventually ended up teaching here.

10:18Nice. And you're teaching what grade level or what what are you teaching? I teach high school ceramics. I've got a full course load of ceramics classes, which is really rare and fantastic. Rare why? Why do you say rare? I think the lot of teachers end up getting to do like a little bit of ceramics or maybe they've got one or two classes of ceramics mixed in with some other stuff. I avoided as much 2D art in college as I possibly could. I don't think I'd be a great drawing teacher by any means. So it's just really cool that I get to teach all ceramics classes. Yeah, that is way cool. Yes, I totally agree. That is a sweet setup that you have going on there. How did you pull this job off? How'd this come about? Oh man, it was kind of crazy. I was working in high school ministry and I was volunteering at the high school a lot and I became friends with the you know, the previous teacher.

11:20And so I would sub for her and she would let me come in and do some like demos and stuff for the class. And then one day she was like, hey, I'm going to retire and I think you should take my job. And I was like, I don't know if you have the authority to do that, but I, it really did sort of fall into place in a kind of crazy way where when I interviewed, I was basically in a room full of my friends and people that I had a lot of connections with just kind of through circumstance. I don't know. It was really cool. When I applied, I think like 40 people applied for the job. It was a ton of people and it was really, I don't know, I felt like I was really out of my league. I didn't have a teaching license at the time. And so I was really, it was really a big ask for me to apply because they were going to have to kind of do some extra steps to get me in. But it worked out. You said that you were doing volunteer work there. You said like ministry,

12:22what could it's just like a private school that you're volunteering with? No. So it's a public school. And then just because I was, because I was like working in the community, I would just like volunteer at the school in my spare time. Okay. So you were doing some, when you say minister, like you were doing like like youth ministry or yeah, pastor or something like that. And so then you were, you were completely free in your free time. You would go and hang out at the school. And I'm assuming with permission. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is volunteer based stuff. I wasn't just like sitting around showing up. What's that guy doing here? Yeah. No, it was, it was all very, very legit. And just, you know, I think every school is looking for any sort of adult in the community that is like a positive force and wants to do good. You know, obviously we're not going in there. And there's rules and things. But yeah, just being helpful, giving kids somebody to

13:28talk to. And so, you know, I was substitute teaching mostly or just kind of helping out with certain, you know, with small things, after prom stuff like that. Yeah. So how did you get involved with the clay department? Naturally, just because I was into ceramics, I found out that they had like a full ceramics classroom. So I, I can't remember where I met the teacher there, but I, you know, I think I might have just subbed for her one time and then gotten to know her through that. Or I subbed for the other art teacher and their rooms kind of connect. And so somehow we made that connection. And it was really exciting. It was really fun. So you were already into ceramics and doing pottery before that. Yeah, I went to, I went to, I did my undergrad in visual arts or fine arts. And pretty much only did pottery. That was kind of the main focus of everything that I did. I

14:29it was sort of an accident. I was trying to make my own major to do some video stuff. And they didn't really have anything for that. So they told me to just take some art classes. And I took a ceramics class and I loved it. And so I just kept doing it. And I took every ceramics class that they had. And I made a couple others with my professor and it was a blast. So the, so the school that teacher was retiring, right? Yeah. Yeah. Were they heading off to a new place or were they just done with teaching? Yeah, she'd been teaching for 30 some years. She had built this ceramics program from the ground up, starting with like, you know, like a wheel and some, and some clay and had turned it into this really phenomenal ceramics program. And so I got to take that over without really having to doing it, the heavy lifting. Why did she have her eye on you? I think just because I was around, I don't know, you know, like I said, she didn't really actually have any sway and the ability to

15:30hire me. But she, I was the first one to get the heads up, I think, when she was like, hey, I think I'm going to actually retire this year. I think she retired maybe one or two years earlier than she had intended to. And it just, it worked out really well. Mm-hmm. So when she said, when she said that, did you immediately put your, your name in the hat like right off the bat? No. No, I had no intention of being a teacher. And it, it really felt like I wasn't qualified. It really felt like I I didn't really have all of the pieces in place that I would have needed to. But I started talking to some friends. When I was a principal, some other teachers and asking them like, what would I actually really need to do to make this happen? Mm-hmm. And I worked really hard to kind of pad my teaching resume really quickly. I went to some, some conferences and I did some special trainings. I read some books and just tried to fill my resume with more than just like, I'm decent at making pottery. How long ago was this? This was in 2018, I guess, 2019 was my first year teaching.

16:42So the, the COVID, the COVID shutdown year was actually my first year teaching. Okay, so that, oh, that was your first, welcome to the, welcome, welcome. Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was a wild ride. Yeah. So that was your first year teaching. And before that, you were doing other things and then you start volunteering. She says, I'm quitting. You say, I'll go for it. And then you pad it, you, you padded all your, all your, as much as you could into your, um, into your resume to be able to get the job. Why did they pick you over someone else that had all the teaching cred already in place? It's hard to answer that question without seeming like I'm sort of tooting my own horn here. But, um, after my interview, they called me up and they were, they were, they were frankly kind of blown away. They were like, we've never really seen an interview like that before. And the thing that I focused on the most on my interview was that I just really cared about kids that I, I wanted to see my students at the grocery store. I, you know, I didn't

17:45want to avoid them when I saw them in public. I wanted to be a figure in their lives that they could count on and be, yes, a teacher, but also someone that like they really felt like had their back. I think that combined with like a pretty decent knowledge of the curriculum, you know, I'm being, I worked as a professional potter for a little bit of time, not much before, um, doing some other stuff, but I think the combination of those things was really what kind of set it all up. Hmm. So pretty much, you show up with, with the unique heart for not just getting a job, but for making inroads into students' lives. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. And they'd never really talked to a teacher that way or talked to like a prospect that way. Someone who cared that much about not just the job, but the students. And I'm sure, I'm sure they've

18:47met plenty of teachers that like love their students and like want to be impactful or want to do, you know, more than just teach, right? Going beyond the content, like they kind of talked to us about a lot, but, um, but yeah, they were, they were really impressed by the interview process, which I thought was really funny. I had always said before that that if I could choose any job in the world, I would want to apply for jobs as a job. I just love the job. Nice. Yeah, like, like sort of the, like, I don't know, not a professional interviewer, but a professional, professional interview taker. I love applying for jobs. I think it's like this puzzle, this kind of game where you can really sort of put together this, like, I don't know, this like best foot forward sort of this like best self. It's just really fun to answer those questions. I don't know, I've always really loved it. That's, that's unique that you like the job process that much.

19:49You have gone not just into being a teacher at the public school, but you are also a teacher online in the sense that you use your Instagram as a platform for explaining the how-toes of ceramics. Yeah. That's pretty phenomenal. It's fun. I really enjoy it genuinely. What's the, what's the draw to that? Well, originally there was none. I had some students that were like, man, you've got to make, you've got to make videos and like post them. And at the time, I had no social media. I had, my Instagram had been hacked from when I was in like college, like my original Instagram. And so I was, I just kind of saw off social media and really just wasn't doing much. And so I had some students that pushed me in that direction. And I had no idea what the like social media space looked like at all. And so when I first jumped on, I had no, I don't know

20:55if I, if I knew I was going to be teaching, I thought maybe I could just make some somewhat impressive looking videos or, you know, you see a lot of videos of people like breaking stuff or messing stuff up. And I tried all of that and it just felt so, so fake, so disingenuine. And, and so I noticed really quickly that the videos that did really well were where I was just teaching stuff. And it was usually really simple stuff. It was usually beginner level, you know, how to make a pinch pot, how to make attachments that stick and that don't crack. And things that, basically, I'm covering in my ceramics one and two classes. And, and that just felt so much more natural to me. It felt, it felt good. It felt, I really struggle with how dark the internet is and how selfish the internet can be. And so it felt a lot better to be putting some more like helpful positive things into the internet, especially in short form media because short form media is, is tough.

22:01And so that's where I really gravitated towards was like teaching and kind of pushing in that direction, if that makes sense. Yeah, totally. And now you're making these little tools, these little I don't know sure what you call, what do you call them the tools you're making? I call them polywags, it's like the name of them. And when people ask me what they are, it is kind of, it's kind of hard to explain what they are. I mean, they're very simple. They are a chamois, like a small strip of chamois cloth attached to a finishing rib. So there's a couple different shapes of these ribs. And it came out of the necessity of like doing something to not lose your chamois and your throwing water and then your reclaim. And so I had already been making my own ribs out of like cut up credit cards. And so the first prototype was a, was basically a cut up credit card with a chamois attached to it. And I found that it was like the only tool I really needed to really like pump out a bunch of mugs. I come from more of a production

23:07background for making mugs. And so, you know, I'd be doing orders of like 50 or 60 mugs. And this was like the only tool I was using. And so I was like, I might be able to, you know, I might be able to do something with this. And something I never thought that I had was like an entrepreneurial spirit. I really thought I was going to be a sort of show up to your job and go home and do that for 35 years. I'm a retire kind of guy. And then making videos has kind of brought that out of me a little bit. And so making a product has been a blast. Probably the most fun thing I've done in a while. But you were using it by yourself regardless of whether you were ever going to market it. You made it and then started marketing it. Yeah. So I made the original prototype and was just using it. And then I was like, this is actually like, I think people would use this. And so my cousin had a C and C machine. And so originally they were going to be really pretty expensive. They were going to be kind of high-end. They were going to be made out of exotic hardwoods like Ebony and all these other woods that I'd

24:11never heard of that he had laying around. And so we were cutting them out of that. But it was just, it was kind of a slow process. There was a lot of refining. And so I just went and bought a laser and started cutting them out of acrylic. And they worked way better because the acrylic was so much thinner. And I could, I could make a lot more of them like a lot faster. And so yeah, it just kind of, it grew very quickly and it happened all pretty fast. But it's been really fun. So you designed them and load up the, the, the program was what you're going to have cut out. And you can cut out 50 the same one just back to back to back. And then you're putting a rivet in there to be able to hang the chamois on it. Yep. Yeah, it's exactly it. Dude, it's such a good idea. They're very fun to use. I'll have to send you a set. There's, I was amazed at how much I enjoyed using them. Well, the, the, the chamois I think are absolutely essential when throwing. But I am surprised how many people don't use chamois they use. They'll use like the between their fingers

25:15or they'll do something that's, that's, or they'll use a sponge. Like even the, they'll do it with with the, the fine throwing sponge by mud tools. But I think that, I think a chamois really gets in there and makes it so, so much smoother. I don't know of any of the other product that does, that does lips as well as chamois does or the tops of pots as well as chamois does. Yeah, and I tried a couple of different things. You know, I, who was it? Dan Finnegan, Dan Finnegan uses, pieces of plastic. Yeah, like shopping bag. Yes, I've seen that. I've done it myself too. Yes. Yeah, so he would cut up his, his clay bags and use those and I mean, those are impossible to find. I mean, if you, if you just let go of that thing and it goes flying off your wheel, they are just miserable to find. Yes. And they, they, you know, and I think this is a matter of personal preference,

26:16but they sort of cut away clay. They really like scoop sort of that slurry off the lip where I think a chamois is more kind of compressing and is sort of sort of molding. Yeah, that slurry at the lip a little bit more and I really love that feel. It's just, I love it. Yeah, it really does. I think it really makes a big difference. So I love it. So you call, you call them polywags. Yeah. Why do you call them polywags? So if you, if you kind of hold one up, it's got like a tail and then sort of a body and it looks like a tadpole. And so, um, tadpole doesn't sound nearly as cool as polywags. And so I've got a notebook where I wrote out, I don't know, probably 50 different ideas for names and I don't remember why your win polywags came up, but as soon as it did, I circled it and I never went back. Yeah, it's a good one. That was my, my nickname for my cousins when I was growing up, they'd call me poly and then they say that was just like the name they would do. And then then one of them started calling me polywag and it, with my cousins only, that name is stuck

27:17my whole life whenever I see them, which is every, I don't know, it's been a long time since I've seen them, but I saw them last summer and they said, polywag. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, so it's my little, my little nickname that I got growing up. How have they been, how have they been received out there? Um, pretty well, you know, I have no, I have no gauge for, you know, what it should look like or, um, you know, it feels successful. I think, you know, the initial drop I sold out and I scrambled to do it again. I didn't have enough supplies to make more and so I scrambled to get more supplies, make more and then sort of the second drop I sold out and then now I've got enough of a supply that I can just kind of keep going and I sell, I don't know, a couple of every, every other day, I'll probably sell one or two. How much do you sell you for? They are, man, this is going to stretch me. I think it's 1599 or 1499 for one of them and then if you buy all three of this

28:22shapes, you get a discount. It's like 40 bucks. That's not, that's not crazy expensive. No, and I think, um, yeah, I think it's doable for what you get out of them and I don't, like, I've tortured tested these things and I really, I don't think you're ever going to need another one. Mm-hmm. Have you thought of teaming up with somebody like GR pottery forms or turtle tools or bushcraft? You thought about teaming up with someone like that? I have talked to a few people, yeah. I'm really, I'm pretty, pretty good friends. It's funny to call people your friends that you only know through the internet but I'm pretty good friends with Kelsey at Tortuga Tools and she's been a really great mentor really with anything. And honestly, Tortuga Tools was a huge part of kind of getting my channel off the ground. I think it brings a lot of clout, like, especially with younger, younger viewers when you have tools to review or you get, you know, a box of free stuff and they were very quick to send me a bunch of really, just really

29:27awesome stuff, very generous amounts of stuff. And so my students get to use their tools, bushcraft to send me a bunch of stuff. He's fantastic. He sent my students a bunch of really cool tools to use. My classroom is full of really awesome tools. But yeah, it's been fun to kind of talk to different people and see what might be possible. And I'm trying to figure out what it looks like to sell it wholesale at this point, even though I'm, you know, making these in my backyard. So, yeah, well, it was, I've had the honor of having both of them as sponsors of the podcast, Tortuga Tools. She is a really special person and bushcraft, super special dude. And so, bushcrafts currently, they're still rocking a roll in Tortuga. We're currently not doing it right now, but I love them. They're just a great tool. And also, I love what they do for the community. And I love the idea that they are supporting you like that by just being there to back,

30:29stand behind you. As a public school teacher, you guys can really make a big deal in this. You make a big difference in this world. Plus, you're also like a figure, a figure in the community of ceramics. So, yeah, of course, they want to, they want to support you that way too. So, yeah, love both of them. Yeah, they're awesome. Yeah. So, you have, you have kind of talked to somebody, but you don't, you haven't pulled the trigger on anything yet or maybe not ready to talk about it. Yeah, I don't, it's, it all happened really quickly. So, there hasn't been any like super, you know, big plans made. I've always told myself like, once I can't, if it gets to the point where I like can't keep up, or if I want to make some sort of switch that like I couldn't do myself, then I'd probably try to partner up with somebody or pull somebody else in on something. But right now I'm, I really enjoy, you know, doing it. I haven't done a ton of leather working in my life, but I had like enough leather working tools laying around that the chamois stuff, you know,

31:32was pretty easy to do. And so, right now I'm able to keep up. And so, I'm just going to kind of keep doing that until maybe something else happens. Nice, very cool. You have, you have a couple of different types of wheels in your studio. You've got the Brent wheel. And then you've got, you've got the Scott wheel. And I don't know how many you have of each. I'm assuming you probably have more Brent's, but you have, you have on your, on your Instagram feed, you have, you have one post that says, this wheel basically cleans itself. Yes, the, the new Scott legend that, that Scott sent me was, I don't, probably the most mind blowing thing that's happened in the year and a half that I've been doing this. I have, I have a lot of wheels. I have a very old Shempo that's from like the 70s. I have a clay boss that's from the 90s. I have a tiny little Brent wheel that is,

32:41I don't even, it's, I've never seen anything else like it. It's a really small Brent's, I think, modeled, I don't know, maybe it's an A or a C, I can't remember, but it's really, really small. And so it's almost, it's almost portable. It's so small. And then I just got that new Scott wheel. And it's, it's crazy. It's really cool to see how wheels have, have changed throughout, you know, the last 50 or so years, but the whole splash pan comes off, the whole wheel head comes off. Isn't it the best? Yeah, you just dump it out. I mean, I, I rarely clean my wheel. I clean my wheel out of, out of necessity, right? When it gets so full that I can't use it anymore, that's when I clean my wheel. And oh, dude, yes, tray. In my studio, when, when it was my studio in the garage, that was exactly how I always did it. I rarely actually clean it unless I was changing clay colors. And I had, I didn't want to contaminate one color to the other. But then when I had to go to

33:45the community studio, that was the one thing that I was like not looking forward to was cleaning my wheel every time I use my, my studio. I just thought, it's going to be such a pain because I, I just like be able to go out there and throw them when I'm done throwing, you know, what I can, I can use all that time instead of like saving the last 15 minutes to clean up. So I, yeah, didn't quite like the, like the idea of having to clean up all the time. But now that I'm walk up to a clean wheel, dude, it's so nice. Now that I have to do it, it is really nice to walk up to a clean wheel. It is. And I, I, I got into some bad habits of, you know, I don't clean my wheel a lot at home. And then I would go to work and set up on a wheel there, do some demos. And next thing you know, I'm like, why are my students so bad at cleaning their wheels? And then I am merely had to point my finger back at myself and be like, oh my gosh, I have set just the absolute worst example for cleaning up your wheels. And you know, you make some excuses

34:51for yourself. You're like, well, I've got to do this again. You guys get to leave. And I got to do this all day. And I mean, you can only say that for so long until you realize like you've left your wheel dirty in a, basically a public studio for like four days. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You can't demonstrate, you can't, you can't demonstrate clay throwing like throwing with clay. And then without the other side of it, which is like, you got to clean it up after yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They watch everything you do. It's, it's amazing. Um, well, listen, Trey, we're going to take a break and we come back. We're going to go to the mud meets the bat round. But first we're going to get a quick word from our sponsor. If your studio currently has bored stacked against the wall, pots hiding under tables and green we're playing a dangerous game of Jenga, well, Georgie's has something for you. It's the Brent Warecart that's built for serious studio organizations. It's made with heavy walled steel pipe

35:57has locking four inch casters and comes with durable plastic cover to help protect your work. And you can get one through Georgie's and it's amazing. The Brent cart and its shelves are available by special order and you can even supply your own shelves if you want to. So go to Georgie's.com and check out the Brent Warecart because your pots deserve better than Jenga. When you're throwing your foot shouldn't be fighting your wheel. Scuts, foot pedal technology gives you smooth, precise control with transitions that feel natural as you move from one speed to another because when you're centering, you know, pulling a wall or making those tiny adjustments that turn almost there into there it is control matters. And if you're using Scuts SSX controller, you get an even smoother, quieter operation. Less fuss from your wheel and more focus on your hands,

36:59your clay and what you're trying to make. So check out Scuts Smooth Operation so you can stay in the zone. Sky dot com. Okay, bro, I'm really stoked that we got the, that we get to have you on the show. And I'm looking at a dude that is a teacher, a social media guy and also trying to be an entrepreneur. How do you make sure you still have time to make that has been one of the biggest struggles. I think for me, I fired my kiln one time this summer. And so luckily the content kind of forces me to make things but it forces me to make them much more slowly. That makes perfect sense. If you could knowing that you are limited in your making time, if you could only make one piece

38:05or one form again and again, what form would you lean towards making? Oh, that's so easy. I'm a mug guy throwing through. I love mugs and I finally started making some mugs that I really am proud of and I would consider it to be sort of arc mugs. And so those are coming out of the kiln tomorrow. And I'm super pumped. Oh, nice. And from what I heard, those are going to be some of the pieces that will be on our show notes page, right? As long as they turn out good. You know, otherwise it could be some old material. Some very old material. Yeah. Okay, here's back to my, my questions I have for you. You are a maker and you're also a teacher. But are there skills that you think about that you wish you had under your belt that you don't have now that you would like to pursue? And what is it? Yeah, I just ran into this recently. I am teaching an adaptive art class this

39:10semester, which is I'm so excited about. But I my goal for that is to make tools for my students to make clay a little bit more accessible. And so my school got me a 3D printer for this. And I just I do not have the modeling skills, the 3D modeling skills to make what I want to make for them quickly. And so I am trying to to do as much research and to grow that skill as quickly as possible. Now, you said that you make work slowly, but you're still making work. What do you do with the work that you make now? That's such a good question that I wish I had a better answer to. I really don't enjoy selling at markets. I think part of the reason that I moved into the space that I'm in is because I did not want to spend my weekends sitting at a booth and selling.

40:13But I do maybe like one or two a year. And so I save up stuff for that. And then I'll hopefully finally sell some pots on my website, which I've like never done really. Okay. Into the classroom. You said during your interview process, one of the big things that drew them to you was that you said you wanted to share you wanted to care for the kids deeply. What's one thing you do for your students that lets them know you care for them? The number one way that I want my students to know that I care for them is by teaching them to care for each other. And so what that looks like in my class is every Friday, we put the tools down, we sit down, and we just talk. I have a question that we all

41:15answer together and I make them memorize everyone's full name. And so that way, that way, every person in the room is given the dignity of like everybody knows your name, people know things about you. And I think when you know people's names and when you know things about them, then you start to care for them. That's so powerful. I love that. What book did you recommend us to read? It's a series of books and it's children's books. It's called The Wing Feather Saga by Andrew Pearson. He's a singer-songwriter and he wrote this series of kids books that are just beautiful, just absolutely fantastic kind of low fantasy. And I'm reading them to my kids right now. This is my second time through them, but they're phenomenal. The name of them again? The Wing Feather Saga. Wow. Sounds interesting. Sounds interesting. Okay. I have one last question for you. Great.

42:19Trey, it's 50 years into the future. And I don't know how this could happen, but you've passed away and you're able to listen in at your funeral. What theme would you want to hear most come up? I think, man, that's a big one. That's that goes well beyond clay. I don't care if clay comes up in my funeral one bit. I want to be known as someone that was dependable. I want to be known as someone that led people towards light good places. So good. So good. Well, dude, if people want to follow you, they want to be able to keep up with your journey and to find out about your polywags, where should they go looking? I'm on every social media that you could probably come up with under clay with Trey. Very nice. Yes. And I love a good rhyme. So that's works so well. That works so well. But, dude,

43:25I really appreciate this conversation. I love the heart that you have for your students and for the people that are following you on on the social media world. I just I just love what you're doing. And so, dude, you're making a world a better place. We have to mud from your hands. Give you a high five and lots of love to your Trey. Thanks, man. I really appreciate it. Big thank you to Trey. This was so much fun spending time with Trey. I feel like when I do these interviews, I feel like this so often at the end of a conversation, I feel like, oh, good now, I just made a new friend. This is number 1,000, 250 or 63. That's how many friends I have now. Well, it does feel like that that he was just such a great guy to talk with and I had really enjoyed this conversation. If you want to see Trey's work, I've got it for you over on the show notes page. You'd go to thepoderscats.com-4th-1-2-6-3 and that'll help you get connected with Trey

44:31and find all the ways that you can be able to spend time with him. Okay, my friends, until next time, I hope you have an amazing rest of your day, so lots and lots of love to you. I'd like to introduce you to a way that you can help support the podcast. It's called Patreon. Patreon is a way that you can become a patron of the show. Less than a bucket show is all I ask. If that sounds good to you, then I'd like to invite you to visit today's show notes page and sign up through the link in the notes.