commissioning a custom piece

A commission is the best-kept secret in buying handmade: for roughly the price of two shop pieces you get one made for your hand, your shelf, your person. It is not reserved for weddings and rich uncles. Makers commission dinner sets, single perfect mugs, urns, gifts with a story baked in. What it needs from you is a good brief and realistic patience, and this is what both look like.

what commissions cost

Rule of thumb in australia: a commissioned version of something a maker already does runs 1.2 to 1.5 times their shop price; genuinely new forms or sets run higher because development eats firings. A commissioned mug lands around $80 to $150, a dinner set for four from $600, an urn or significant vessel $250 up. Deposits of 30 to 50 percent are standard and fair; kiln losses are the maker's risk, not yours. The economics behind those numbers are the same ones in what handmade ceramics cost.

the brief that gets good work

• Bring feelings and functions, not blueprints: 'a morning mug for big hands, holds a lot, colours like a storm' beats a technical drawing every time.
• Reference pieces from the maker's own work: 'like your carved mug but taller' anchors everything in what their hands already do.
• Say how it will be used: dishwasher life, left-handed pourer, oat-flat-white proportions. Function constraints are gifts to a maker.
• Hold the colour loosely. Glaze is chemistry plus flame; a maker promises a palette, not a pantone.

timelines, honestly

A single commissioned piece typically takes four to eight weeks: making, slow drying, two firings, and the maker's existing kiln schedule. Sets take longer because they are made with spares (a set of six is thrown as nine; the kiln chooses). Christmas commissions are booked by september across most of the craft. If a maker promises a bespoke set in a fortnight, be curious about how.

what a good process looks like

1. A short conversation about use, feeling, references, and budget.
2. A written summary: form, size range, palette, price, deposit, timeframe. One paragraph is plenty; it protects both sides.
3. Progress photos at leather hard or after bisque, with room for one round of small adjustments.
4. The reveal, with the maker telling you what the kiln decided. The best commissions end with a story attached.

This studio takes a small number of commissions in the same spirit as everything else here: thrown by one pair of hands, fired until the kiln has had its say, photographed through the process the way every piece in the catalogue is. Write to studio@saaramic.com with the feeling and the function, and we will talk about the rest.