Always Original, Often Copied: The Potters of Perfection
The German glaze arrived on Tuesdays, boxes stacked like tombstones in the warehouse doorway. One might think importing ceramic glazes across an ocean was excessive, but perfectionism knows no borders, and these particular shades of ultramarine and ochre couldn't be found within domestic supply chains. For twenty-one years, this small pottery studio had been drilling drainage holes with religious devotion. The importance of proper drainage cannot be overstated in the houseplant community—a fact the average person might find trivial until they've murdered their third consecutive fiddle leaf fig. Water pooling at the bottom of a decorative planter isn't just inconvenient; it's botanical homicide. The studio's lead potter, a woman with hands like weather-beaten leather and fingernails permanently stained with clay residue, would often mutter about "those drainage-free monstrosities from big box stores" while taking unnecessarily aggressive stabs at clay with her wooden tools. Her colleagues knew better than to interrupt these moments. Customers searching for "handcrafted planters with drainage" or "artisanal pottery for succulents" inevitably found their way to the studio's website, where each product description contained the word "drainage" no fewer than seven times. The SEO consultant had insisted this was necessary, though everyone agreed it made the copy read like it had been written by someone with a strange hole fixation. The pottery studio's reputation spread organically through plant enthusiast forums and social media groups dedicated to "ceramic planter solutions" and "proper succulent containers"—proving that in niche markets, functionality trumps all other considerations, including sanity.
