good elephant pottery

And I'm feeling a little devilish about it. But mostly I'm feeling triumphant. And relieved. 

This was my plan: to skip the Buyers Market of American Craft (BMAC) this year, but still get all the wholesale orders I want. I should start by explaining that I wanted to reduce my wholesale workload, down to an amount that made the high cost of the trade show hard to justify. For those of you who want to know, the minimum cost to do this trade show is about $3000. And that is for people like me, who can fit my display into my car, and drive myself to Philadelphia. For artists who need to travel on airplanes, while shipping their display and products, the total costs are closer to $5000. My goal was to reduce the size of my wholesale business to somewhere around $9000 this year (roughly half of last year's wholesale gross). And it just didn't make sense to spend $3000 in order to make $9000. 

But could I get enough galleries to order from me anyways? 

I started laying the groundwork for the plan at last year's BMAC, where I told all of my buyers that I would not be attending the trade show in 2012, instead I would be in touch if they wanted to order from me. In January of this year, I produced a simple catalog for my 2012 wholesale line, and mailed it to my active wholesale accounts, then followed up with emails every few weeks. I have to admit, the first week after I mailed the catalog was very long. Was I being overconfident? Did I just screw myself? Then, I got an email from one of my largest accounts "We got your lovely brochure and will be sending an order soon." I exhaled. The orders arrived over the following weeks. And as of now, I am right on pace to reach my goal by the end of the year.

It worked!

My motivation behind the plan is not just about wholesaling. It is about my complicated relationship with workaholism. The self-employed workaholic's dilemma goes something like this: we complain a lot about how much we work, but we're terrified that the work will go away. Being self-employed can feel like sitting in a canoe in the middle of the ocean. Burying yourself under a pile of work makes you feel less adrift. Less insecure about money. But it has a price ... exhaustion and burnout. 

Lucky for me this isn't new ... years ago, I went through this same transition in my design practice when I started saying "no" to work. And now I think my pottery business has reached the same point. It's not easy. Saying "no" takes an awful lot of strength. My "pile of work" security blanket is gone, and I have to battle the doubt that creeps in and out of my head. 

But now it's mid-March ... I've settled into my timeframe and workload for the next few months. And guess what ... I like it. I work on wholesale orders way ahead of deadline, so I never feel rushed. In fact, when someone orders two casseroles, I make three. Now I don't worry about those pots that don't survive the pottery process. I have extras, what a concept! 

And those extras will come in handy. In between working on wholesale orders, I am stockpiling inventory for art festivals later this year. This is how I plan to make up for the forgone wholesale income. I'm adding a few more retails art festivals to my year, and bringing more inventory for all of them. Last year, I had two art festivals where I nearly ran out of pots with one more day to go. I only made a few hundred dollars on those last days, because I didn't have much to sell. Those were boring days, plenty of time to think about how to change the way I work. And to make myself queasy on fried festival food. I probably shouldn't do that either. 

Once again, I am referring to The Hourly Earnings Project to guide my business plans. The project revealed that wholesaling was the least profitable segment of my business. So whenever I felt exhausted by work, it was clear where I needed to cut back. My plan for wholesale going forward is, if possible, to attend the BMAC every three or four years. If I can amortize the cost of the trade show over a few years, then it will make sense for me. In the meantime I will shift my focus towards retail art festivals, my annual open house, and my online store.

I spent the last month finalizing designs for my 2012 wholesale catalog, and these sample pots are now available to the public in my online store. And, for the first time ever, I uttered the words "hey that's cool" regarding Facebook, because my online store is now seamlessly integrated into my Facebook page, with a "Store" link in the left column of the page.

Does your sweetheart like handmade pottery? Buy him/her a vase or tumbler or pitcher, then fill it with a pretty bunch of flowers. This combines the intense vibrancy of live flowers, with the long-lasting beauty of ceramics. You will be so golden. 

Check out all the new work the online store here.

It turns out that having an online store is very inexpensive and not very much work. The largest expense are the PayPal fees that are deducted from each payment, and that has only totaled $25 so far. I can now process and pack an order in 15 minutes. And unlike packing a large wholesale order, which takes hours and fills me with dread, these boxes are so small and light that I have no worries when I send them off. In the two weeks between my store launch and Christmas, I made a net profit of $650. Not too bad for a newcomer! The storebuilder/shopping cart I'm using (which I really like, BigCartel.com) costs only $10 per month. Now I can easily justify keeping the store open for all of 2012. 

So here's my plan for the online store going forward ... I will keep it open all the time, even during months when I don't really expect to make any sales. I will try to update the inventory every month, removing the sold items and adding new ones. When I'm gearing up for an art festival, I will unlist all the items in the online store, so I can take all my available pots to the show, then re-stock the online store afterwards. 

Right now, I'm busy putting together my 2012 wholesale catalog. As soon as the samples are fired, photographed, and published, I will list some of them for sale online. It should all be done around mid-January. Stay tuned on Facebook! 

Happy new year to all!

First things first ... I need to thank everybody who came to my open house this past weekend. It was my best open house yet. And not by a little, by a lot. It is a dream to be able to make pots full-time, and I know I couldn't do it if folks weren't willing to buy it. I am truly grateful, and I hope you will enjoy your new pottery for a long time.

But now on to something new and exciting ... my online store is now open! Here's a link to get there. You'll also find this link in my blog sidebar, and on the "where to buy" page of this website. For those of you who were unable to attend the open house, I still have some nice pots available, and they are now in the online store. Enjoy!

My fifth annual Holiday Open House is this weekend! 

Saturday, December 10, 12noon - 5pm
Sunday, December 11, 12noon - 4pm

Free gift with purchase! No hints. 

I will be unveiling some new designs, including these new rectangular plates. Dinner plate is 8x10.5" ($35), salad plate is 6x9" ($25), dipping bowl with a stamped bamboo design is 4" square ($10). 
 

This oval serving platter will coordinate nicely with the above tableware. 16x10" $90
 

I've worked on a few versions of this Everyday Tea Set throughout the year, and this one is my favorite so far. It is inspired by the design of a traditional Chinese gai-wan. $95 for the set.
 

I've updated the design of Captain Casserole with a larger, more oven-mitt-friendly handle. $85

And I'll have a whole lot more. Those of you who have attended my open houses know that my display is bigger than a typical festival booth, including a "sale" area with seconds, experiments, and discontinued items. Hope to see you this weekend!

(did I mention free gift with purchase?)

I'm back from my indie-craft experiment at BAZAART. It was definitely different from my usual show experience. I learned a lot! Some was good and some not so good. 

Here's what was good about it ... it was much easier to pack and set up for the show. Usually, packing pottery for a show is a complicated 3-dimensional puzzle, trying to get all of those pots of various sizes to fit into as few boxes as possible. It takes a while. Packing my simplified indie-craft inventory was a breeze. All the pots were small, and many were the same size. The entire inventory fit into two boxes, neither was full or very heavy. I was able to bring a smaller display. My usual display is three or four tables, plus two shelves. For this show, I brought two tables and one shelf. I only needed room for nine different items, and I could keep extra quantities stored until space became available. Two boxes of pots, and half my usual display fit so easily into my car. I could actually see out the rear-view mirror! Normally, packing the car is another 3-dimensional puzzle, but not this time. I set up the display in less than two hours. It usually takes 3 to 3.5 hours. I took it down in one hour. That usually takes 1.5 to 2 hours. Overall the good news is ... taking an indie-craft approach to pottery selling is a lot less work.

The show was very busy, about as busy as last year. I was writing up sales all day, and barely had a chance to sit down. But here's what wasn't so good about the results ... because all of my items were under $50, the grand total of sales just didn't add up to last year's. In fact, my sales were only 67% of last year's. That's a big drop! Last year, my sales included a $250 platter, a $175 vase, amongst other high-ticket items. This year, I didn't have a single receipt over $100. And that was the difference. Last year, the pricier items were 39% of my sales. This year, I didn't have them. 

Was it worthing trying? Yes, I needed to find out what would happen. But I'm not sure it's worth repeating. This doesn't mean I won't apply for other indie-craft shows, I still might. But only if I think my normal inventory would seem appropriate. 

This reminds me of one of my conclusions from The Hourly Earnings Project. When I compared the hourly rate of a big art festival vs. a small art festival, I decided that the small art festival was nice and easy, but anything worth doing takes a lot of hard work. I'll add a new, but related, conclusion now ... if you aim smaller, that's what you'll get. 

This weekend I will be at BAZAART at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. This show is, to some extent, an indie-craft show (google the term "indie-craft" if you don't know what that means). Though not entirely, it is a mix of indie-craft, fine craft, and fine art. I used to look down my nose at indie-craft, because it typically does not require decades of practice to master, and the price points are kind-of low. But I can see that indie-craft is a growing segment of the art world. And the more I observe it, the more I appreciate it's one area of strength that traditional crafts could learn from ... an emphasis on good design. I never thought of pottery as belonging in that category, but design has always been a priority for me, because of my education and my previous career. And last year when I did this show for the first time, I was surprised that I did quite well amongst an indie-craft environment. 

So this year I am trying something different ... I will thoroughly embrace an indie-craft-style display for my work. My usual packing list for a show is a full-page, two-column list of items, including many one-of-a-kind items. But for this show, my packing list is only nine items, and I will bring lots of volume of these nine things. These items were chosen based on good design, things that appeal to both pottery fans and non-pottery fans. And everything will be under $50. 

Bowl with chopsticks $40 each or 2/$75
Enormous coffee mug $35 each or 2/$65
Mini elephant $20
Elephant tea light holder $40 or 2/$75
Chickadee tea light holder $22 or 2/$40
Small birdhouse $48
Set of four coasters with crab fossil $30
Personal teapot $48
"Peace + Joy" ornament $10

When my students ask me "what will happen if I try this new idea?" I answer "there's only one way to find out." So this weekend I will be taking my own advice. If this goes well, I may start applying to more indie-craft shows next year.

I've begun the groundwork for the online store that I pledged to open in 2011. And yes, I am tracking my time and will eventually add this to The Hourly Earnings Project. I'm very eager to see how it compares to my other avenues for selling. But patience is required, I decided to calculate the Hourly Earnings value at the end of next year. It turns out that setting up an online store doesn't actually take that much time, which is nice. But it didn't seem fair to count that time towards a short time period of sales. After a year, I'll probably want to revamp and improve the online store anyways, so it makes sense to assign a year's worth of value to the setup time. 

So here's my launch plan ... the online store will open on Monday, December 12. This is the day after my Holiday Open House. It will be a small launch. I'll take a few nice pots remaining after the open house, and offer them for sale online.

If you are on my mailing list, or a facebook fan, or a regular reader of this blog, you will get all the details soon!