Quick Tip: How to Easily Transport Ceramic Work! You'll love this tip for transporting your work safely! Joseph Delphia

Today's Quick Tip comes from Joseph Delphia in the Ceramics Monthly archive. Joseph was often bringing pots from his collection to his classes to share with students. Of course, he wanted to keep those pots safe in transit, but he also wanted an easy way to do it again and again.

His solution: an impact-resistant case (like those used to transport cameras and such). If you don’t want to buy a case, you could always use a cardboard box and get some of the perforated, tear-apart foam inserts that can be easily adjusted to correspond with the exact objects you wish to transport. Read on to hear more! – Jennifer Poellot Harnetty, editor

I teach at a community college and enjoy sharing pots with my students as much as possible. Without access to a large teaching collection at the college, I started to bring pieces from my own collection to the studio. However, I found the process of packing, transporting, unpacking, sharing, repacking, and returning the cups safely home to be cumbersome, inconvenient, and stressful. As a result, I wasn’t doing it very often.

Looking for an easy transport method, I stumbled on weatherproof, impact-resistant cases (the kind often used to transport electronics or camera equipment). My case came from a discount tool store but similar products are available from a variety of retailers. Some manufacturers even make them with perforated, tear-apart foam inserts that can be easily adjusted to correspond with the exact objects you wish to transport

My case cost less than I spent on many of the cups and mugs in my collection and I adapted it to hold six mugs. I left between one and two inches of foam around the outside edge and between each cup, sizing the holes to accommodate the majority of the pieces in my collection. The foam stretches to hold the various forms snug and secure. I can now quickly and confidently pack and transport pots from my home to share with my students. It’s also a great way to bring a few pots along to a demo or to transport new additions home to my personal collection from a conference or trip.

Photos: Cara Rufenacht.

**First published in 2020.