David Reid and James Klein create incredible ceramics in their studio in Long Island City. KleinReid is a true success story. After art school, the pair naively came to New York and set up a low-budget ceramics studio. They sold their first line to Bergdorf Goodman. (!!!) Now they have several lines and sell to hundreds of stores – read on to find out how they do it.
David and James with Eva Zeisel
Can you walk us through your process?
The process, when it works at its best, is almost subconscious. We talk a lot with Eva (Zeisel) about beauty and I once asked her how she makes something “beautiful.” And she said, “I stay out of the way.”
We start with a general idea, but stay open to lots of wandering. For the “8.5” collection, a beginning thought was 50’s Italian with a little Danish Modern thrown in. But ideas seep in from maybe ten other things we love, and then there probably ten more things we didn’t even realize are influencing us. It all gets boiled down and refined, and we stand back enough to let the good things rise.
The “8.5″ collection
Do you sketch first, or do you just make things?
I sketch more – Jim sketches a little, he mostly makes cut paper silhouettes. They’re more substantial – let you know what the form will be like. Once we map out the collection, James turns plaster models. We refine them if needed, make molds, and then make samples.
How did you get started with ceramics?
James and I always gravitated towards art. We’ve known each other since high school. I started taking ceramics it in college. James did too at the same undergrad. and we both ended up majoring in it. Then I went to Cranbrook to continue studying ceramics and sculpture and Jim went to Alfred. After school we had to figure out what to do next. We knew we wanted to move to New York, so we came here and set up a ceramics studio.
The “Eva” collection
What was your first studio like?
It was maybe 500 sq ft, if that. Our first slip tank was a big, plastic olive barrel we found on 1st Avenue. We made a slipcasting table out of 2×4s with 5-gallon buckets underneath. We borrowed a friend’s wheel to make models. It was as low-tech as you can get. While in school Jim got a student loan to buy our first kiln, and we brought it here in a uhaul.
We thought we would start a production line to make money, and then have time to make our own individual art. But it took off and we never had time for the art. But we loved collaborating on the production work and realized if we made it as personal as our art it could be as satisfying – and much more special.
How would you describe what you were making?
Production at the time, late 80s/early 90s, was really coming from a craft and wheel-based aesthetic, for lack of a better term. It seemed like most of the production being done if it was cast, was still trying to mimic the look of a thrown pot. The pieces would generally be kind of wonky, and the forms weren’t so considered, and it was all about surface – everything got stripes or polka dots or something like that painted on under a clear glaze.
We had a more industrial aesthetic. We collected a lot of early-to-mid 20th century stuff. Ohio was great for that, because so much of it was made there. Our work has always been primarily about form, and a single glaze to finish and accentuate that.
At that time it was a bit of an uphill battle to educate our customers. People would ask, “Why is it handmade?” They found it a little confusing, because our work is not really about showing the hand so much, even though it’s all there. I think people have gotten used to the idea now.
The “C-thru” collection
Who were your first customers?
When James was in graduate school, he made work of an interior designer’s shop on the Upper East Side. After we set up our studio in Williamsburg (Brooklyn) we got an order from Bergdorf Goodman. That order let us quit out jobs and work in the studio full-time.
What was the hardest part about turning this into a business?
Now I think, “Oh, it was easy.” But it wasn’t, it was loads of hard work. But we were young and naive and had nothing to lose — we were just art students thinking, “Why not?” If I had to say what was difficult about starting, it was just that we had to do it all ourselves. We didn’t have any help. But I wouldn’t do it any other way.
Do you still make everything yourselves, or have you worked with factories?
When we started we wanted to do it all ourselves, and then very quickly we were asked to design for Dansk. We worked with them for about four years which was a great learning experience and a good way to get more ideas out into the world. At the time we were producing a dinnerware line in our studio and licensed it to them. It was nice to expand upon the collection and not have to worry about producing it ourselves. We’ve done that along the way – designed for other companies.
We tried to source production for ourselves at one point. We looked all over the US to find good production. In 1998 we designed the C-thru pieces, the ones with the holes through them, to be produced in a factory. But the samples we received were terrible (and we’re picky) so we concentrated instead on sourcing blown glass and soft goods and later prints.
Currently we make our Studio lines here in our LIC studio and the pieces in the Applied line are sourced. We continued to do research and last year went to China and found a small studio that has great quality, and their porcelain is just insanely beautiful and white. It’s funny, we brought it back and I was comparing it to a little Nymphenburg piece we have. And said to James, “Hmmm, the Nymphenburg’s kind of gray…”
The “Applied” collection
Hahahaha!
It was funny. That studio finally made sourced work possible – we knew we could do very high quality pieces there.
What advice do you have for someone who wants to work for themselves like you guys do?
1. You have to be really, really dedicated, and you have to be completely honest, sincere and truthful about what you make. If you’re making something you don’t like or something that is derivative or something just for the money, it’s not going to be satisfying, and I think it shows in the work. Someone else can always make it cheaper so you have to make it unique.
2. Make your pieces more expensive than you think. And don’t be afraid to make expensive things. A good expensive thing will find its market. You can make 5 expensive teapots, or you can make 100 less expensive teapots, and in the end maybe you’ll make about the same profit.
It’s very hard to know how to price things.
All my friends who make things say, “I can’t afford my own work.” The makers get to use and love and live with their pieces, but they’re not exactly their own customer. It’s hard to remember that. We had a friend in a next door studio who worked at Bergdorf Goodman, and we would walk a piece over and ask, “How much would this be?” She would say, “$600″ when we had been thinking, maybe $80?
All through undergraduate school my dad nagged, “Don’t you think you should take some business classes?” And my response was, “No – I’m an artist, I don’t need business classes!” And then suddenly it was, “Ugh, I wish I had taken business classes.” But I think we just used our common sense and learned along the way. We’ve grown slowly and steadily – it’s worked out!
The gorgeous KleinReid studio in Long Island City