good elephant pottery

"Harriet" has been busy.

8/26/2020

I mentioned this on my blog once before, that whenever I am engaged in DIY home improvement projects, I refer to myself in the third person as "Harriet Homeowner." This summer, I have been working on my house more than I have been making pots. Partly because I am not traveling for shows, and have not needed as many pots. And partly because this is how I deal with chaos, by putting my house into perfect order.

Whenever I complete a project successfully, especially if it's something I wasn't sure I could do by myself, I like to raise both arms in the air and declare "I AM HARRIET."

I'll start with the biggest and most impactful project, though technically does not count as a Harriet project. I now have what I am unabashedly calling "real f*cking air conditioning." I got a mini-split heat pump system for my whole house. I had been living with window units for 20+ years. The difference in incredible. We've had some prolonged heat waves this summer, and I sailed through them. I plan to keep using my boiler and hot water radiators for heat, but now I have a backup heat system in case the boiler ever needs work.

This was a project I had saved up for last year, and was just waiting for the spring to do it. Then came the pandemic, and I decided to put it on hold, thinking I might need my savings account for other things. As I've been writing about on the blog this summer, I have found other ways to keep my pottery income flowing. So I went ahead with the mini-split.

I had to move everything out of the way for the mini-split contractors to work. Before I put everything back into place, Harriet decided to tackle a project that she had put off for way too long. There was one last room in my house, the smallest bedroom, that had never been painted.

Although it is the smallest bedroom, it gets the best natural light in the house, at all hours of the day. So it is where I take photographs of my pottery. It also gets used to store miscellany. Before I put everything back, I purged out a bunch of the stored stuff.

The paint for the above room was free, because I had a whole can leftover from when I painted my office a few years ago, which is right next to the above room. When I was done, I had a quarter can left, and I started thinking about the guest room, which is on the other side of this room. I had painted the guest room yellow about ten years ago, and I was tired of the color. So I went out a bought another gallon of this paint, and painted the guest room too.

The walls in the guest room went from yellow to gray, which means I did not need to replace the yellow and gray curtains. Harriet was pleased with that. Now all three rooms in this area of the house (office, photo room, guest room) are all the same color.

My house was full of bad light fixtures. Old, worn-out looking, and builder grade. I spent a lot of time shopping for new ones. I tend to prefer modern designs, but my house is 85 years old. I tried to walk the line between "clean and simple" and "1930s appropriate."

All of the light switch and outlet cover plates on the first floor of my house had been painted over many times. I swear I wasn't the first one to do it! But I admit I did it too during previous painting projects. Harriet said "enough!" The switches and outlets themselves were so dingy, and many of the outlets were so loose, plugs would fall out of them.

They have all been replaced, with new components that match the ones on the second floor of my house, which was completely renovated last fall. I even installed a nifty dimmer switch for the dining room (which can now accommodate either a sewing project or a fancy dinner) and a combination GFCI outlet/light switch for the bathroom. All of the old outlets were two-prong outlets. I learned that these can be replaced with grounded three-prong outlets as long as you have metal outlet boxes and armored (or BX) wiring. This is common in old houses like mine. A grounding wire can be attached to the metal outlet box. For those who are surprised that I did all this electrical work myself, anyone who can maintain an electric kiln can easily learn how to replace light fixtures, switches, and outlets.

While I was touching up the paint around the new light fixtures and switches in the downstairs bathroom, I discovered that the paint in the can no longer matched the paint on the wall. I stirred and stirred and stirred, but it was off by a shade and a half. It looked terrible. So I repainted the whole bathroom.

Now that it's done, I don't mind that this happened, because I'm really into this new color. While I was in here painting, I decided to replace the sink faucet as well. The old one had a "chrome" finish that was corroding away. My memories are fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure it was a cheap model. This new one wasn't terribly expensive either, I chose it because it was the closest match design-wise to the tub's faucet. I hope it holds up better than the last one. I had always regarded the medicine cabinet and exhaust fan as "things that must be replaced eventually, because they are so old." I've had a change of heart. During this project, I scrubbed and shined up the outside of the medicine cabinet, and gave the inside a fresh coat of paint. The exhaust fan's cover plate had been painted over many times. I took it down and scrubbed off all the layers of paint, back to bare metal. Now it's feels nice to keep things that are original to the house, "because they are so old."

Harriet is done. For now. I can't think of a single thing that needs to be worked on right now.

Some of you might be thinking, "it looks like she's getting her house ready to sell it." My answer is that the plan is not imminent, but you're not wrong. I would like to enjoy the air conditioning for at least a while.

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Getting dragged, kicking and screaming, into a new world.

8/21/2020

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The pandemic has now been hovering over us for over five months. All of my shows through the end of 2020 have been cancelled. I’m sad, and a little angry at those who think the public health restrictions don’t apply to them. I miss doing shows, but I would rather give them up in order to take the fastest path out of the crisis. I see other countries having festivals again already, and I feel embarrassed about the US.

I do feel generally happy with my home state of Maryland, for understanding the situation and choosing smart policies. We still have pockets of dumbassery here, but it’s not as rampant as in other parts of the country. When I leave my house, which is rare, I feel safe. Everyone I see is masked, and everyone keeps their distance.

Initially, my pandemic plan was to stay home, keep making pots, and live off my savings account. I thought we would be doing shows again in the fall, at the latest. Well, that proved to be wrong. Right now, there is no clear indication that we can have shows in 2021 either.

As I talked about in my last blog post, before the pandemic I had vowed to never ship pottery again. I found a way to sell pottery without shipping it, which is to sell pots online to local DC/Baltimore area customers, then deliver the pots in person. I also did a sale like this for the State College, PA area. I am planning to do one for the Philadelphia area in the fall. These places are not too far from home. My mailing list contains many nice contacts for these areas, because of the number of shows I have done there.

I am wary about how many times I can reach out to my local customers this way. One of my business goals is to constantly add a steady stream of new fans to my mailing list. This is accomplished by doing shows, and meeting new people at every one. So by selling in the “home delivery” model, I am tapping my existing audience, but not growing it.

My mailing list also contains contacts in further places too. But the numbers get a lot more sparse. I felt like I also needed to reach places where I could not make home deliveries. I was having an argument with my brain. “Just face it you have to start shipping pots again.” “NOOOOO!!!!!” “But you can reach the entirety of your mailing list all at once.” “BUT TRASH, BREAKAGE, ANXIETY, WASTED TIME!!” “You only have to do it until the pandemic is over, which will happen eventually.”

I thought back to my previous online sales. During those long, tedious hours of packing, whenever I picked up an order sheet that only contained one small item, I would brighten up. Small items are the fastest and easiest to pack. They only require a small amount of packing materials. And because the boxes are small and light, they are the least likely to suffer damage during shipping.

So this is the settlement I negotiated with my brain. I would ship pots again, but only small pots, and only a limited number. And only until I can do shows again.

I developed some miniaturized versions of my existing designs, just for these sales.

I have now completed two “small pots only” online sales. I learned a lot from the first one. Online sales are very different from art festivals. When dealing with customers face to face, they are polite to me, and polite to fellow customers. An online sale is more like the wild, wild west. There’s no waiting for your turn in a line. Customers race to check out as fast as possible. A lot of seasoned online shoppers seemed to know this beforehand. But some of my mailing list customers were not prepared. I got several emails afterwards from customers complaining that the store “didn’t work” because items just disappeared from their cart. Most of them were nice about it, albeit disappointed. One of them was really mad.

For the second edition of the online sale, I included the following language in my marketing emails and social media posts: “Last time, the pots sold out in minutes. If you have an item in your cart, it is still available to everyone until you finish paying for it. If an item disappears from your cart, that's because somebody else paid for it first. Be prepared! Speed counts!” I did not get any complaints afterwards. I realize now that communicating how the shopping cart works, and that there is an unmoderated race to checkout, is my responsibility.

Here’s another thing I learned. I sent some marketing messages that talked about both my first “small pots only” online sale, and my “home delivery” sale for State College, PA. They were scheduled about two weeks apart, and I wanted to give the State College customers an ample amount of notice. This was a mistake. Some customers conflated the two events. When the State College sale went live, I got orders from all over the country. I had to cancel more orders than I accepted. Once again, most of the customers whose orders were cancelled were nice about it. But one customer in particular simply could not understand why I was refusing to ship his order. Argh.

I learned to never advertise two events at the same time, because this causes confusion. I need to schedule the events far enough apart, so they each have enough room for an their own, exclusive marketing campaign. It was never a problem to advertise more than one art festival at the same time. These events have clear, physical boundaries. Only those who attend in person can purchase. But the online space is just one big, vague space. Defining the parameters of an online event takes a lot more effort and care.

The entire inventory of one online sale.

I’m really happy with my decision to only ship small pots. My definition of “small pot” is one that can ship in a 9x9x9 inch box. This drastically simplified the sourcing of packing materials. I only need to buy two sizes of boxes: 9x9x9 for one pot, and 16x9x9 for two pots. One of the biggest drags about my previous online sales was when I had a large or weirdly-shaped pot, and no appropriate box. Buying boxes efficiently requires buying bundles of 25. It sucks when you only need one of a odd size box.

I offered 40 small pots in the first sale. The packing took about 4 hours, which I found manageable. Packing the boxes was so much faster, and less mentally taxing, than packing pots of a whole range of sizes.

In the second sale, I offered 50 pots. Predictably, the packing took 5 hours, which was also manageable. However, I think I will go back to 40 for future sales. 50 pots took 3.25 bags of peanuts. That’s inefficient in terms of sourcing, I don’t want to buy 4 bags of peanuts and have so much leftover. 40 pots required 2.5 bags of peanuts. Having half a bag leftover makes more sense, and the leftovers easily fit into sourcing for the next sale. Maybe I can pack 45 pots with just under 3 whole bags of peanuts? That would be even more convenient, and might be worth trying.

Sourcing the packing materials is drastically simplified when all of the pots are roughly the same size.

For those who think online selling is “easier” than shows, I’m not so sure. It certainly doesn’t involve any heavy lifting. Or dealing with bad weather. But it still takes a lot of time to put together an online sale. The pots need to be photographed, the photographs need to be edited, then uploaded to the store, along with descriptions/prices/inventory counts. The store’s user interface is a website, and all the steps are done with mousing and clicking, not keyboarding. It’s tedious and slow. It’s easy to skip a step, or to do things inconsistently. It requires paying close attention to something that is very boring. At a show, I can setup a canopy and a full display in less than 3 hours. For an online sale, even though I now have all of my item descriptions saved in a text file for copy/pasting, it still took about 5 hours to put the whole sale together. Not to mention, one of the big reasons why I was so eager to quit doing design work, and opt for a pottery studio instead, is because I was tired of sitting in front of a computer all day. It's also much easier and more civilized to work with customers in person at a show, and to convey your communications more clearly. And as I described above, customers feel more entitled to be argumentative and demanding from across an online space, and misunderstandings are a lot more common.

Putting together an online sale is actually very time consuming. All the check marks ensure that I don't skip a step.

I think it’s important to mention that I really don’t have a big social media following. I don’t have 50K Instagram followers. I have about 8K Instagram followers, and 1.2K Facebook followers. I like to use both platforms, but do not view them as sales generators. I have no interest in playing those games that drive up your follower numbers. Nor will I try to make my pottery studio look “pretty” all the time, because that’s not real. I’ve advocated for many years on this blog that a mailing list is far more valuable than a big social media following. My online sales are coming from the following sources: 1) customers in cities where I travelled once for a show but haven’t returned, 2) customers who used to live in the DC area but have moved away, 3) fans of my blog, which is a very niche audience but those who get it really get it, and 4) students of my online pottery school. My mailing list currently has about 1400 contacts (after recently purging a bunch of contacts so I can continue to use MailChimp for free). So although my following isn’t huge, the connections are more meaningful than the average social media follower. Having spent many years developing an audience of this depth has proven to be invaluable during this crisis. I’ve had to totally reinvent the way I sell my work, and this audience has responded amazingly, both for the “home delivery” sales and for the “small pots only” online sales.

Even though I got a few unhappy notes after the first online sale, on balance I got so many more nice notes! They were thanking me for making my pots available to them. Although I am still shipping pots on a “grudgingly” basis, I admit that it makes me feel good to discover that people in far off places have been waiting for a chance to buy my work.

It took some experience to get my bearings, and correct some mistakes, but I think I’ve made peace with all of my misgivings. The narrow parameters make it work for me. My “home delivery” sales are my main source of income right now, but these online sales are a worthwhile supplement. I’m willing to do it on a regular basis, until we can put this pandemic behind us.

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Improvising in a Pandemic

4/21/2020

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I’m writing down all the details of what I did this past week so that other potters can copy or adapt this idea.

So far, two of my spring and summer shows have been cancelled. I expect to lose a few more. At least. My original plan was to keep making pots as normal, and to try to make up for lost income later this year or next year. I quickly realized the flaw in this plan, which is that I don’t have room to store months worth of production. I can only store about 10 weeks worth of production at a time.

I’ve been seeing a lot of artists trying to sell online more, and that many of them are finding receptive audiences, who miss art festivals as much as the artists do. The thing is, I had sworn off online selling at the end of last year. Or, to be more specific, I had sworn off SHIPPING pottery anymore. I hate packing pots into shipping cartons. "Hate" is not a strong enough word. It’s such an inefficient use of time, and it produces so much trash in terms of packing materials. It creates an unacceptably low limit on volume of sales, due to the amount of time it takes to pack the boxes.

I was so sure that I wouldn’t sell online anymore, that I deleted my BigCartel account.

Here’s my new version of an online sale, that doesn’t involve any shipping, and works within our current strange circumstances. I called it The DC/Baltimore Area, Maximum Social Distancing, Free Home Delivery Pottery Sale.

Here’s the email I sent to my customer base, explaining all the terms and conditions:

Note the part about taking reservations in advance. This is something I’ve been doing with all of my shows for several years, and many of my customers have learned how to work with me this way. I have found this to be incredibly valuable in terms of building customer relationships. As soon as I sent this email, the reservations came pouring in. Along with many nice messages of support and “go girl!”

I built an online store using the Square store platform this time. I already use (and like) Square to process credit cards at shows, and I was able to build a no-frills online store for free. Overall, I liked this platform better than BigCartel because the payment process was faster for the customers. With BigCartel, I was encountering an annoying problem with overselling, because the payment process took too long when customers were shuttled between BigCartel and PayPal. This meant a second (and sometimes third) customer could buy the same item before the first customer finished paying for it. With the Square store, the payments were processed on the same website as the store, and I did not have any items oversold.

The new store went live at 10am last Friday. By noon, all but four items had sold. I only had one item left when I shut down the store on Sunday.

Then came the next phase … I needed to deliver all of these pots! I had 46 addresses to visit. Fun fact, when I was in college, I worked part-time in a flower shop. On the busiest flower shop holidays (Valentines, Mothers Day, etc), they let me make deliveries instead of working in the store. I enjoyed this so much, being able to work independently in my car. And I got paid per delivery, thus would make a lot more money compared to my hourly wage in the shop. This was way before Google maps existed. So I was confident I could make these pottery deliveries.

First I sorted all of the purchases into neighborhoods.

Then I printed out maps of the region, and plotted the locations of each delivery. I numbered the plot points in the order that made the most sense. Then I numbered and organized the purchase sheets into this order.

I divided the 46 deliveries into 3 driving routes and 3 days. Each driving route took between 3 and 6 hours, for a total of 14 hours. The night before I set out for each driving route, I sent the following email to everyone whose pots would be arriving the next day:

“Hi [……],
Your pottery will be delivered tomorrow, Monday 4/20, between 12noon and 2pm (give or take). I will assume you are home, so I will knock or ring the doorbell, then leave. If you have any special delivery instructions (eg, leave on back porch, etc), just let me know!”

That last sentence proved to be very valuable, because quite a few people responded with instructions. In particular, those who live in secure apartment buildings. This allowed every single delivery to take place without a hitch.

I followed the sorting order as I packed the pots into shopping bags (which takes no time compared to packing them into shipping cartons), and therefore the shopping bags were sorted in my car in the same order.

Let’s talk numbers. While I was cooking up this plan in my head, I was thinking "it would be great to make $3000." After I sent out my email announcement, I got over $3000 in reservations alone. I had also been thinking that I wanted to make about 40 deliveries tops. But the reservations only involved 20 addresses. I realized that the deliveries-to-sales ratio was more favorable than I was expecting. So I raised my goals, and decided to offer a greater amount of pots in the online store.

The total sales from the MSDFHDPS ended being only $30 less than my 2019 average gross sales per show. Sales at shows vary a lot, between $2700 and $12500. And so do the expenses, between $200 and $2000. My expenses for the MSDFHDPS included 47 shopping bags ($0.60 ea = $28.20), and 1 tank of gas ($30). This means the MSDFHDPS came out ahead, given how low the expenses were. I am really stoked at how well it turned out.

How does this compare to selling online? In the past several years, my use of online selling has been limited to once a year. In December, when my annual Open Studio was over, I would offer the remaining pots for sale online. So I have never tried to sell a full-show-size inventory online. The largest online sale I ever had involved 35 pots, for a total dollar value of $2550. It took me about 10 hours to pack all the pots for shipping, spread over 2 days. And remember, this is labor that I hate so much, I felt like a zombie when I was done. There were also some substantial expenses. I spent $264 on shipping supplies (boxes, peanuts). I collected $315 in flat rate shipping fees from my customers, but ended up spending $441 on UPS that year (net loss of $126).

So it took me 10 hours to pack 35 pots into shipping cartons for an online sale. It took me 14 hours to deliver 154 pots for the MSDFHDPS.

Do you see how inefficient online selling is for a potter? Financially, materially, and time-wise? This is true for any artist who sells fragile, bulky, heavy items. And given the choice between spending my time packing boxes, or driving around in my car, it’s a no brainer. Especially when driving can yield so much more net profit. Driving is part of being a full-time festival artist anyways. If you don't like driving, your available choices for shows will be severely limited. When I had dropped off my last delivery, I felt sad that it was over, not like a zombie. And now more than ever, I needed a reason to get out of the house, in a safe fashion.

Does this mean I think the MSDFHDPS is better than shows? No way. As much as I enjoyed it, the MSDFHDPS was missing a very critical component, which was the opportunity to meet NEW customers. To survive for the long term, a pottery business needs a steady influx of new fans. This past week, I reached out to my existing customer base, but did not grow it. I won’t be able to do this too many times. If all of the summer shows get cancelled, I’ll probably do this again in late summer. And if all of the fall shows get cancelled too, I will hold my December open studio in this fashion. But I don’t think it would be wise to do it every month, and hopefully not into 2021. And in the coming weeks, I need to figure out places to store more inventory in my house.

On the plus side, though, the interactions I had with my best fans this week were overwhelmingly positive. They are all stuck at home too, and feeling unhappy. Some of them seemed genuinely tickled that pottery was arriving at their door. Everybody could use a bright spot right now, and I’m glad I could provide a small one. Although I did not grow my customer base with this sale, I do think I built stronger ties with my existing base.

This brings me to one last point, which I have been preaching about for years on this blog … the importance of building and using an email list. It is the best way to stay in touch with people who actually want to buy your work. The ratio of serious customers within an email subscriber base is very high. The ratio of serious customers within a social media following is very low. And even if social media fans buy, chances are you have to ship their purchase to them, which is a real bummer, as far as I’m concerned. And the best way to build an email list is to do shows, because that’s where the right people are. It’s a slow process to build a list, one person at a time. But when you have done it consistently for many years, it can provide immeasurable value, at times when the world has been turned upside down..

(This is pretty much the exact same concept I wrote about in my recent blog post about financial preparedness. Think and plan for the long-term. Practicing consistent good habits over many years will pay you back when you need it.)

Many, many thanks to all the wonderful people who made this event work! And once again, to all the artists out there whose shows have been cancelled, please feel free to copy this idea. My friend Nan Rothwell has already created the Charlottesville, VA Area MSDFHDPS, which goes live this Saturday 4/25. If you are in her area, lucky you!

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The DC/Baltimore Area, Maximum Social Distancing, Free Home Delivery Pottery Sale

4/12/2020

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This is partly because I lost one show (so far) this spring to the pandemic, and partly because I could really use a day or two out of my house and driving around in the pottermobile. This Friday, April 17, opening at 10am, I will be holding the first ever pandemically-designed pottery sale, for my DC and Baltimore area customers.

A small selection of work will be made available to purchase online. I will give you the date and approximate time that your purchase will be delivered to your doorstep, free of charge. I will ring your doorbell then leave.

Orders to the following areas will be accepted
In Maryland: Montgomery, Prince George’s, Howard, Anne Arundel, Baltimore City, Baltimore County. Plus, Washington DC, and inside the Beltway in Virginia.

Reservations
Just like with any of my shows, if you were hoping to buy a specific pot(s) this spring, you can contact me and reserve it before the sale begins. I am always happy to do that.

Mark your calendars!
Friday, April 17, starting at 10am. Store will be open through Sunday, or until the pots are sold out, whichever comes first.
https://goodelephantpottery.square.site
(note that I am no longer using BigCartel for my online store. The above url is new.)

Wishing you all comfort and health. Stay strong, and keep up the good work with social distancing and mask wearing!

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Financial Preparedness for Self-Employed Artists

4/2/2020

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This seems like a good time to talk about a subject that many people (and not just artists) hate to talk about. Just like all artists who rely on festivals and craft shows for income, all of my spring shows have been postponed, and possibly cancelled. My income is on pause for an unknown amount of time.

How am I feeling? Well, I was feeling pretty anxious about two weeks ago. The health implications are frightening and uncharted. Then my 20 year old refrigerator decided to kick the bucket. I had to venture out into the scary world to buy a new one, which was then delivered with a dent. I had to venture out again to find another one. I had been following my normal production schedule until then, but the refrigerator situation made me say “take some days off.”

I spent 9 whole days not working. I might be the only one saying this right now, but I am actually feeling pretty good. I spent the whole time prioritizing one thing … getting a good night’s sleep every night. I’ve been eating healthy (easy when you’re stuck at home), doing light exercise (not heavy exercise, which can have the opposite effect), avoiding alcohol, avoiding known sources of stress, reading, meditating, and watching Netflix. I keep up with the news, but not to the point where it gets repetitive. Once the new refrigerator was in place, things here have been so nice and quiet. Being in neutral gear for days is refreshing. My neck muscles have relaxed. I am now rethinking my whole workaholic lifestyle. Maybe I should be taking week-long breaks several times a year.

Notice there is one thing I am not stressing about … money. Even despite needing to buy two refrigerators, and waiting for one to be refunded. The stress from the dead refrigerator was about needing to venture outside, and potentially losing my stash of frozen food. Not money.

If you ARE stressing about money right now, then this crisis should be a wakeup call. If you want to be an independent artist, i.e. reject a conventional lifestyle and go after a big creative dream, you hereby forfeit your right to be a financial dumb dumb.

If this type of talk makes you feel bad, at least you’re not alone. Two-thirds of American adults cannot pass a financial literacy test.

It doesn’t take something as unforeseen as a pandemic to derail your income for a while. You could simply break your leg. If you are not willing to prepare yourself for these work layoffs, then you are not ready to be self-employed.

I don’t believe financial literacy should be taught in schools. I think it should be taught at home by parents. And if your parents didn’t provide this, you can teach yourself. The principles of good personal finance management are actually very simple. But the reason financial illiteracy is so widespread is because of psychological barriers that cause people to avoid the subject.

When I was in my 20s and embarking on self-employment, my mom gave me the book The Millionaire Next Door, by Thomas Stanley and William Danko. It was a real eye opener, and it legit made me change the way I live.

What this book teaches you is that when it comes to wealth-building and financial security, it doesn’t matter how much you earn. In fact, high-income earners are just as likely to be in financial trouble as low-income earners. What matters is how much you spend in relation to how much you earn, and what you do with the money you don’t spend.

It’s also common for “next door millionaires” to be small business owners, rather than regular paycheck types. Because there is less safety and predictability, we are more motivated to build our own safety nets.

In other words, you can make a modest potter’s income and still be financially healthy, and even become wealthy. Like I said above, you need to overcome the emotional barriers that hold most people back. Such as believing that spending money will increase their happiness and self worth, or make others like them more. Or, that the Joneses care about what they’re doing with their money. There’s an all too common attitude taught to artists, which is that being talented makes you “too special” to worry about icky things like bills and money, and that doing so requires you to sacrifice your creativity. This is just a form of denial, of course.

You might be thinking “easier said than done,” and sure, that’s true. But nobody ever said that owning your own business was supposed to be easy. It is supposed to be a serious mental challenge.

I live on an extremely frugal budget. And I never feel deprived. My needs are simple. I always have an emergency fund, which right now will cover my basic living costs for two years. When I need a new appliance, it’s not a problem. I can indulge in occasional luxuries. Though most of what I call “indulging” involves making improvements to my house. Which makes it nicer to live here, but is also improving my wealth.

But really, “normal” luxuries don’t matter much to me compared to what I consider to be bigger rewards … such as living a life of my own determination. I became self-employed (graphic design) at a young age, which is when I got serious about financial planning. It’s a long-term process of delayed gratification. Let’s be clear, I never made a high income as a graphic designer either, just a middle-class income. I was building up a pottery business at the same time. It was a crapton of work. Then one day I reached a point where I could safely let go of my design practice, because my pottery business was delivering a livable income, and I had built a sufficient safety net. I got the life that I really wanted. I get to set my own schedule and make all of my own decisions. I get to have relative peace of mind during a worldwide disaster. In my book, there is nothing I could have spent money on that would be better.

To some people this life sounds amazing, and to some it sounds like deprivation. It’s all a matter of priorities.

Again, if you are stressing hard about money right now, use the stress as motivation to build a financially sustainable plan and lifestyle. One that assumes there will be work stoppages along the way. If you are not currently on a sustainable plan, then you have a lot of work to do. But it’s not too late to start, and it’s too important not to do it. If you are a young person in your 20s or 30s, you have the gift of time. Don’t waste it!

Thomas Stanley recently wrote a follow-up to The Millionaire Next Door, titled The Next Millionaire Next Door. The first book debunks all the common myths about wealth and appearances, and the second book gives you nuts-and-bolts strategies for how to build wealth on any income. If you don't know where to start, then my recommendation is to start with these two books. They are both available as e-books and audiobooks, so you can get them from the safety of your home.

Here’s to prosperous times ahead for all artists.

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There are times when pottery is not fun.

2/26/2020

1 Comment

You want to be your own boss? I think many people who express this have no idea what it really means. All they're thinking is they will no longer feel like a “worker.” I’m sorry to break the news, being your own boss means you are still the worker, but now you are responsible for everything too. Yes, there are plenty of rewards to be gained, especially when it comes time to take credit for your accomplishments. But the weight of responsibility is a constant presence.

Towards the end of last year, one of my glazes developed a pinholing problem. This glaze would make an occasional pinhole before, but suddenly the problem became much more prevalent. As soon as my holiday sales were over, I began trying to fix the problem.

Here's an example of too many pinholes. I pushed the contrast, and oversharpened the photo, in order to make them more visible.

A common cause of pinholing is that a glaze is being applied too thickly. This is an opaque white glaze, and it’s true I had to apply it thickly in order to get the right opacity. So my first attempt at solving the problem was to add more opacity to the glaze, so that I could apply it less thickly. On the test tiles I was firing, it seemed to work. No pinholes on the test tiles.

The glaze has another nice feature, which is that it is slightly runny. By applying the glaze less thickly, I lost the runny quality. So my next step was to add the runniness back. I tried increasing the flux so it would melt more, and I tried decreasing the stabilizer. Both approaches yielded promising results, according the the test tiles. However, it still didn’t look as nice as the previous glaze.

I had been using test tiles that were about a year old. Around this point in my testing, I ran out of tiles, and made a few dozen more. On the very next test firing, the pinholes came back.

SON OF A BITCH. It wasn’t the glaze. It was the clay.

In hindsight, it became perfectly clear. I first noticed the pinholes while setting up my display at the PMA Craft Show in November. About three weeks before that, I had bought a new supply of clay. The pots for that show were the first pots made with the new supply of clay.

All of the test tiles I had fired up to that point (in this photo) went in the trash. Useless.

Another common reason why pinholes form is because the glaze is being overfired. I had not considered that option, because I had not changed my clay, glazes, or firing schedules. I use two clays, and mix them together. And now I understand that one of them has changed. It is now maturing at a lower temperature, and my firing schedule was now “too hot” for the clay. The overfired clay was overfluxing my glaze, and causing the pinholes.

I solved the pinholing problem by lowering the final temperature of firings. But just like all things in ceramics, it’s never as simple as that. For starters, I learned that if I lowered the temperature too much, another one of my glazes, a semi-matte, started to look too dry. This means that my range of acceptable firing temperatures had gotten much smaller.

Here comes the next problem. One of my kilns (named “Dr. Evil”) was bought in 2003. My other kiln (named “Number 2”) was bought in 2013. They are the same model kiln, but during that ten year gap, the kiln went through several design changes, and the digital controller also went through several upgrades. So really these are two different kilns. Before this problem arose, I knew that Number 2 fired hotter than Dr. Evil, despite having a lower set point for the final firing segment. I was not tuned in exactly to how different the firings were, because it never mattered before. This means I had to figure out a new firing schedule not once, but twice, one for each kiln separately.

Many test firings later, I figured out that the right answer was to lower Dr. Evil’s final set point by 7 degrees, and Number 2’s final set point by 15 degrees.

Then came the next problem. It is now important to get my kilns to fire as evenly as possible from top to bottom. Again, it is normally not considered a problem to have as much as a half-cone difference within a kiln load. But it’s a problem for me now. The solution for this has two prongs: learning how to calibrate thermocouples, and changing the way I stack shelves in the kiln.

Calibrating thermocouples is a fairly straightforward process. I never had to do it before. Now I will calibrate them when they’re new, and use witness cones in every 10th firing or so, and calibrate them as needed as they get older.

Changing my shelf stacking plans took quite a few test firings. My entire stacking strategy before consisted of using a minimum of 6.5 inch posts on my bottom shelf. 6.5 inch posts allow the second element from the bottom to barely be under the next shelf. The bottom zone is the hardest for the kiln to heat, and I thought that was as much help as I could give the bottom shelf. But I was wrong. Using 6.5 inch bottom posts still made the middle zone fire 10-20 degrees hotter. The answer was to increase the bottom posts to 8 inches tall, keep the space at the top of the kiln 7 inches tall, and pack four or five shelves into the middle zone. It felt extreme to use such tall spaces at the top and bottom, but I’ll be darned, it works! Now Dr. Evil can keep all zones within 4 degrees of each other. Number 2, with its newer controller, can keep them exactly even.

Did you know that the temperature at the middle of a kiln shelf is cooler than at the edge of the shelf near the elements? If you don’t place your witness cones at a consistent distance from the elements, your cones will give you unreliable readings. I know that now.

And here comes the next snafu! That’s right, I’m not done with those yet. During the 2 months that I was trying to solve these problems, I had relay failures in both kilns, at different times. I should have seen it coming. Both of the relays that failed were past the age where they could fail at any time. And I had been doing so many test firings, one after another, it’s not that surprising that I pushed them over the edge. A relay failure meant that I had to wait at least two days for new ones to be delivered. Which meant my testing had to screech to a halt, during a time period where the clock was ticking loudly, thanks to the upcoming ACC Baltimore show.

(I am now keeping a set of three relays on hand. Next time a relay fails, it won’t cause a delay.)

I was continuing to produce pots for the show, while conducting all of these firing tests. The longer it took to figure out all of these various issues meant the pots were piling up, waiting to be fired. There were several points along the way when I contemplated dropping out of the show, thus forfeting almost $1600 in non-refundable show fees, because I didn’t know if I would get the pots done.

Not fun.

In the end, I got all of the issues figured out almost 2 weeks before the show, which gave me enough time to get everything fired. I was firing non-stop for days, and the kilns turned out one perfect glaze load after another. I did not drop out of the show.

Dr. Evil is still firing less consistently than Number 2. This might be due to its older controller, but also because its elements and thermocouples are about 80 firings old. Roughly two-thirds of their lifespan. Thermocouples naturally get less reliable as they age. Number 2’s components are almost brand new. Dr. Evil will get new elements and thermocouples next summer or early fall. I can gauge then how much more consistent the kiln can be, if at all. Anyhow, the amount of variation in Dr. Evil’s current results is small enough to make good pots. These are the witness cones I am getting from both kilns now. Dr. Evil produces cones within this whole range. Number 2 produces cones that consistently look like the third and fourth cone.

There are so many details to my new kiln firing “rules” that I knew I should write them down so I don’t forget. I made this small poster to hang near the kilns.

After a bumpy 2 months, I am tired. I wish I could take a little time off. On the bright side, I am nearly out of pots, thanks to a great weekend at ACC. So I need to get back to work, whether I feel like it or not. Because I am still the worker. Am I upset that one of my clays changed its composition? No, because there are many valid reasons why a manufacturer would need to tweak their formula. And they don’t need to ask for my permission first. As a person who relies on pots for income, and relies on manufacturers to make the clay, it’s my responsibility to expect these changes to happen. And to be adaptable when it does. When you’re the boss, you don’t get to blame your problems on others.

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New Decade

1/1/2020

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This is my "office" today. I have a big video project to edit, but I also wanted to watch the sun rise over the ocean on the first day of the new decade. It felt so auspicious. Wishing you all a sense of auspiciousness today. I am looking forward to a bunch of plans, big and small, and I hope you are too.

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New pots for the Open Studio 2019

12/10/2019

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I've got several new designs, and some updates to existing designs, that will be unveiled at this weekend's Open Studio. For new designs, the prices I'm charging this weekend are introductory prices. I'm just looking for feedback and reactions from my existing customers at this point. Final prices will be determined throughout 2020 depending on how sales go.

I've been trying to figure out this design for over two years, and think I've finally done it. A ceramic tea steeper with a stainless steel handle. It fits into any cup, or at least all of the cups I make. $25 each.

Most of the teapots I've made in the past will not work with the tea steeper. But I will start making teapots with a top opening that is large enough. I like how the two stainless steel handles parallel each other.

The 4.5 x 10 inch rectangular tray that I introduced last year was such a big hit, I have now developed its larger cousin. This tray is 7 x 13 inches, and features a koi fish illustration. I've made lots of koi-themed pots, this is a new, more loose and gestural approach to koi fish. $60 each.
EDIT: The Koi Fish Trays are now sold out.

Crab coasters are back! I used to make these sets years ago, but discontinued them due to production headaches, mostly having to do with glazing. I am re-introducing them, now made out of an espresso brown clay that looks striking when unglazed. $30/set of four.

I have made several different versions of a kimchi dish over the years. The newest design is a hexagon! 6 inches across. $17 each.

The small pitcher, meant for cream or maple syrup, has been updated with a subtle "flower petal" alteration of its rim. They are about the same size and scale as before. $35 with a handle, and $30 without a handle. EDIT: the pitchers with handles are now sold out.

Those of you who follow my blog know that I am learning bookbinding. A limited offering of hand-bound notebooks will be available this weekend. These are 3.75 x 5.25 inch books with 96 pages. I call them "List Books," and are designed for jotting down a shopping list or to-do list, then shoving it in your pocket or purse. The extended flap on the back cover keeps the book closed, or acts as a bookmark. $12 each.

This was a big year for seconds! This is the only event where I will sell seconds, and this year's selection is larger than usual. Including quite a few imperfect mugs. Some are almost firsts and marked down just a little. Some are steeply marked down. All seconds are still fully functional pots.

Good Elephant Pottery's 13th Annual Holiday Open Studio
Saturday, December 14th and Sunday, December 15th
10am to 5pm both days
Hope to see you there!

(For those of you not in the DC/Maryland area, my annual Online Sale will open on Monday, December 16, at 10am ET. Stay tuned!)

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A big leap forward for my fixer upper.

11/20/2019

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The last few weeks have been crazy! There is never a convenient time to have a construction project done in your house. I wanted to get this done before the end of the year, and mid-October was actually the best time to start. I had to leave town for five days for the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) Craft Show in the middle of the project (more about that show later in this blog post), so in total the project spanned just over four weeks.

I've mentioned in previous blog posts that renovating this house is "my other life's work." Of all the improvements I’ve made, this project has maybe had the most visual impact, because of the amount of square footage that was improved. This is a 1.5 story bungalow, and the entire second floor was renovated. I believe the space was originally an unfinished attic. A previous owner finished it into a living space, and did a lousy job with all of the finishes. I do like that it is a big open space. I’ve been using it as a master bedroom. I lived with the poor finishes long enough! I hired a pro to tear it all out, and redo it.

This is what the drywall used to look like. Weird trim pieces on the corners, and what appears to be caulk applied with the fingers.

There were several large cracks like this. This is not due to water damage. When the drywall was removed, there was no evidence of water damage anywhere. These cracks were due to bad installation.

Here’s what the drywall looks like now. Perfection!

The first floor of my house has some really nice carpentry around the windows and doors. The second floor had these basic frames, and more lumpy caulk.

All of the door and window frames were built to match the nice carpentry on the first floor. Furthermore, the framing next to the windows had no insulation, because the original windows needed space for the pulleys and weights that operated the windows. Those empty spaces were stuffed with insulation. The upstairs used to be colder than the downstairs. Now, the opposite is true.

When I bought the house, believe it or not, there was a big four-tube fluorescent light fixture on the ceiling. The kind you’d find in a garage or workshop. When I moved in, I replaced it with this inexpensive fan. It was much more appropriate for a bedroom, though it was the room’s only light source, and not very bright compared to the fluorescent fixture. It was also a bit frumpy. That’s what you get for $100 from a big box store.

Now that is a sexy fan! And it is not the only light source anymore. I added an array of discreet wafer lights. Now the light is well-distributed across the entire room, and the brightness level is just right.

This was the biggest eyesore. This janky railing around the stairs was big, and right in the middle of the room.

The new one is spectacular! A just like the window and door frames, it now matches the carpentry style in the rest of the house, befitting of a 1930s bungalow.

The room did have some closets, but they were unusable. The slope of the ceilings meant you could not stand upright in these closets. The finishes inside these closets were even worse than the rest of the room. The drywall was even sloppier, and wood-grained contact paper was used as flooring. I wish I was joking.

The new closets are fully and easily accessible. They are finished on the inside as nicely as the rest of the bedroom.

It would be a dream come true to impress Marie Kondo.

The empty floor space in this photo is where I used to store my clothes, on garment racks and freestanding shelves. It is so satisfying to have it all tucked away into proper closets. I have no intention to add more furniture to this space. I am enjoying the calm of emptiness. At most, I might put down a yoga mat and develop a daily yoga habit. The curtains are my DIY contribution to the project.

I mentioned earlier that the PMA Craft Show took place in the middle of the project. It’s one of those shows that can still make me nervous, on the same level as the Smithsonian Craft Show. The days leading up to the show were tough. I got food poisoning, and then my boiler blew its pressure release valve. I was stressing hard. The construction project was actually going very smoothly, but the noise and disruption meant I was not my usual self. I felt like the universe was telling me not to go to Philly. But one cannot drop out of the PMA Craft Show. It might be a once in a lifetime opportunity. I was lucky to get a plumber to come out and repair the boiler. Then I had to leave a freshly repaired boiler unattended for five days. Talk about stress! The show turned out to be amazing. I wish I could have enjoyed it more. Hopefully I will look back on it and remember the good parts, rather than my high blood pressure. This kind of stress makes you question whether homeownership is worth it. The good news is that I came home to a warm house and a boiler that was humming away quietly. A few days after that, the contractor handed me a completed project, and I fell in love with my house all over again. Homeownership is totally worth it. The long-term benefits far outweigh the occasional struggles. Last night, I slept in my new bedroom for the first time, like a log. I had been dreaming of improving this space for so long. It is surreal and delicious to wake up to this reality. Though I will say, I hope the period of time between now and the end of the year is as boring as possible.

MaxC Impressions was the main contractor for this project. As you can see, their work is incredible. Like I said, the project ran very smoothly, and the whole crew was very professional and easy to work with. I am thrilled with the final results. Big thanks also to EV Electric and TW Perry. And I need to thank Tom from WInegar Plumbing for fixing the boiler!

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I was a designer first.

9/25/2019

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This is Sharon Thorpe, one of the amazing teachers I had as a college design student. That was a long time ago now! I graduated in 1992. If you think she looks too young to have been my professor, that’s because she was one of those high-energy go-getters from a very young age, carving out her design career and teaching college classes.

This might come as a surprise to you. Back then, the design program at the University of Maryland was not part of the UMD Department of Art. We were part of the Department of Human Ecology. Human Ecology was akin to home economics. What began as craft and home decor classes evolved into Crafts and Interior Design, then a Graphic Design program. The Department of Art did not want anything to do with teaching design. They said it was “vocational” and did not fit with their liberal arts mission. I did not fully understand this as a teenager. But after being a design student, being a design professional, teaching in an art college, and now working in the ceramics field, the difference between my education, and a fine arts education, is something I think about a lot. I feel lucky and grateful to have made that choice.

In the mid 90s, the economy was in recession, the university was cutting costs, and the design programs were eliminated. These were small programs, and there were active design programs at other UMD campuses. One of my former professors ended up teaching in the Department of Art. He described how different things were there. Suddenly, when he gave someone a B on a project, he would hear from that kid’s parents, demanding that the grade be changed to an A. My classmates and I howled with laughter. When we were his students, we knew that As were rare and only for truly exceptional ideas and effort, and we never felt entitled to them.

This was the culture I experienced in college. I grew up so much during those years. It felt like an accomplishment to be voted “class artist” in high school. But college is way more competitive, there are so many talented students, and suddenly I was getting critiqued for the first time! Also new to me were deadlines, craftsmanship, the whole functional aspect of design, and what seemed like an insane amount of work (I will end up feeling differently about the workload later, keep reading). We had a semester-long class called “Professional Skills” where we learned how to put together a resume and a portfolio, how to apply for jobs, how to be interviewed, and about the various career formats that were available to us. To those who think this is too “vocational,” if only they understood the value of what they missed.

I still have a box full of samples from my 20 year design career.

College-level design programs are very different from the rest of academia. We had a few full-time professors, but most of our faculty were “adjuncts,” meaning part-time and non-permanent. In most fields of academia, including fine arts, adjuncts are considered lower-tier, because they are not deemed qualified for full-time status. In design academia, adjuncts and full-timers are on the same level. In fact, adjuncts with busy and accomplished careers are sought after in good design programs, because they bring a real world perspective to what they are teaching. They make good role models, like Sharon Thorpe and others like her.

In the early 2000s, I taught for a couple of years at a well-known art college in DC. The commercial arts departments of this college were taught mostly by adjuncts, similar to the education I received. Our classes were in a building several miles from the college’s main location. So I didn’t mingle with the fine arts teachers. Until someone created a listserv for professors of this college. At first it was fun, but before long I saw the severe culture differences between fine arts teachers and design teachers. Again, we were mostly adjuncts, and they were mostly full-time. For example, the college had been charging them $5/month for parking at their downtown building. The fee was being increased to $15/month. The whining was unbelievable. I had spent a few years working in an office downtown, where parking spaces had been $125/month. The complaints grew into vague screeds about how much abuse and indignity they had to suffer at the hands of their employer. The disconnect with reality, and the sense of victimhood, were a big shock. And then they started voicing their anger over how much adjuncts got paid, twisting it as “adjuncts get paid more than us” which was not true at all. Adjuncts got paid per class, not a full-time salary, which broke down to a higher per-hour rate. We got no benefits or job security. But that “per-hour” calculation was enough for full-timers to lose their shit. The story might be funny when it’s about college kids with overprotective parents. But when the story is about 50 year old art professors, it isn’t funny anymore.

I left that job after two years. I love teaching, and I really liked my colleagues in the computer graphics department. But I was really turned off by the culture I saw among the full-time teachers. This college had a fancy reputation, but underneath I saw something rotten. I didn’t want to be associated with it. And besides, even though some thought I was being paid too much per hour, I was charging much more than that in my private design practice. (That’s what a vocational education gets you.)

So back to the subject of “role models.” When I was a student, I’m not sure I fully appreciated it at the time. Now as a middle-aged adult, looking back on my career path, I now understand the importance of role models. You can learn the nuts and bolts of any field in a classroom. But being a professional anything takes a lot more than nuts and bolts knowledge. Good role models show you, in a much more comprehensive way, “this is the type of person you need to be after you get out of school.”

I’m sure there are exceptions to what I’m about to say. But in my experience, those with fine arts educations, including ceramics, probably did not have access to real world role models. They were taught by people who have never ventured very far from a college campus themselves. The system that hires fine arts professors favors those who have paid the most into the academic system. Academia tries to prove its own relevance by requiring its teachers to have MFAs, which are not cheap! There are no scholarships or grants to pay you to get an MFA. You pay for them yourself, to the tune of $50,000 to $75,000. And this is on top of the cost of your bachelor’s degree.

Those who manage to land a rare job in academia are very possessive about it. This is another reason why fine arts programs can’t hire working artists to teach as adjuncts, and bring more real world experience to college classrooms. Their culture depends too much on things like “tenure” and “full-time.” Adjuncts, with our independence from such things, are a threat to them. Just look at the contempt that the full-timers had for adjuncts at the school where I taught.

It’s hard to quantify exactly how much (or how little) an art degree is worth, but here is a report titled Artists Report Back, A National Study on the Lives of Art Graduates and Working Artists that tried to do so. I recommend reading the whole thing, but here are some key points:

• Among those with fine arts degrees, only 10% of them become working artists.
• Among working artists, only 16% of them have fine arts degrees. 40% of them have no bachelor’s degree at all.
• 7 of the 10 most expensive colleges in the U.S. are art colleges.
• The average earnings of working artists is $30,000 per year. Those with art degrees are doing a little better, averaging $36,000 per year.
• Designers and architects were excluded from both the “art graduate” and “working artist” data, because their higher earnings significantly skewed the data.

To summarize in my own words, for those who paid up to $200,000 for a bachelor’s degree in art, 10% of them will earn $36,000 per year. Which is only $6,000 more per year than their counterparts who did not get an art degree, including many who do not have a bachelor’s degree at all. The other 90% will not become working artists.

The study authors summarize, “We acknowledge that some arts graduates are satisfied with work in other fields, but the fantasy of arts graduates’ future earnings in the arts should be discredited.”

Again, I feel lucky and grateful to have gone through a different system, with a totally different culture, and different values. Hooray for vocational school! Not only did my education set me up for the professional world, the experience of working as a designer also set me up to run a pottery studio.

Designers are taught how to take an idea and convert it into reality, using the elements of design, contextual relationships, time and space, hierarchy, color theory, etc. A good design is an aggregation of a bunch of complex parts, even for those of us who strive for simplicity in our final outcomes. We are taught how to put the parts together, and how to make them work with each other. And to speak the message that we want to convey. Now I use all of these skills when developing pottery designs. By now, I have seen plenty of “wow” pottery made by other potters, but so much more that was an “almost wow,” where somebody didn’t quite put it all together. Including work by potters who were formally educated. Or, they only learned how to make work that looks exactly like an established potter’s work, rather than learning how to build complete designs out of their own ideas.

We also learn the “design process,” starting with a concept, followed by a first draft (or three), followed by cycles of review and revisions, until finally all of the issues are resolved. I’ve seen so many good potters who will make a new design for the first time, shrug and put it out for sale. They don’t seem to understand that the first attempt at a new design is never a complete design. The complex parts need to be resolved. When I put first drafts out for sale, they are viewed as prototypes and their job is to gather feedback, not to be regarded as finished designs. I’ve also seen professional potters scrap their entire line of work, and start working in a completely different aesthetic without any testing or feedback. That’s not professional art, that’s gambling! A new aesthetic also needs to go through the design process.

Remember when I said that studying design was an insane amount of work? Our design classes involved maybe three projects per semester. It seemed overwhelming to a student because there is so much to learn, and all of those details to resolve. About three years into my professional career, one day at work I stopped and counted my projects, and realized I had completed 17 of them in the past month. The projects were not any less complicated, but my brain had evolved to process and resolve the details much faster. This is why many potters don’t bother with the design process when developing new pots or aesthetics. When you’re not used to doing it, it seems overwhelming. But after you have done it hundreds and hundreds of times, it seems like a normal thing to do, and it can be done quickly.

As a designer, the design process is followed by a technical post-production process, which allows a printer to take the finished design and reproduce it. This is one area where formally-educated potters get what they need. The technical training in college pottery programs is strong. My issue with academia on this subject is that it doesn’t take four years, or the expense of a bachelor’s degree, to learn this. I had a high-school nerd’s background in chemistry, which helps. But in general, the technical side of pottery can be learned through books, workshops, and community colleges, for much cheaper than a bachelor's degree. The same is actually true for the production aspects of design. My college training in design production was “the old way,” involving photo-typesetting, wax, non-repro blue pencils, rule tape, etc. Within two years after I graduated, it was all being done on computers. I had to learn production all over again. But it didn’t require going back to college. Today, these skills can be learned in adult education settings, faster and much cheaper. The valuable part of my college degree was the “how to think like a designer” part.

Designers learn to take the word “deadline” very seriously. I’ve met so many artists who have no idea how to manage their time. Or they have no concept of “parameters” at all, things like time, budgets, continuity, graphic standards, etc. Part of a designer’s training is to have these concepts drilled in. This has been a big advantage for me as a potter too. There’s a big difference between the festival artists who read the exhibitor packets in advance, and therefore show up knowing all of the show’s rules and logistics, and the artists who wing it, in terms of who has an easier time at the show. And who has enough energy for a year-round schedule of shows. Your level of preparedness also impacts your relationships with show producers, and your fellow artists. I also had a big advantage when working in the wholesale sector of the craft industry. As I took orders at a trade show, I would tell the buyer the exact date to expect their order. This is apparently very different from the way most wholesale potters/artists treat delivery timeframes. Many give their buyers a big window of delivery time, and don’t think it’s a big deal to be late. There was one order where I had to miss a deadline due to a bad firing. I called the buyer, told her what happened, and asked for two more weeks. She practically gushed at being told in advance that the delivery would be late. I entered the wholesale marketplace in 2007, at the beginning of the last recession. And even though many artists and galleries struggled during the years that followed, my pottery studio grew from part-time to full-time during those years. I believe my dependable approach was a big help to buyers who were under a lot of stress.

Criticism and feedback are big chunks of a designer’s workflow. We process it all, and try to get the most out of it. We learn to distinguish the valid from the invalid. We learn to understand the motives behind it. I don’t see it as a personal attack. As a festival artist, for every sale I make, dozens of people walked out of my booth and thought “nah.” It doesn’t bother me. But a lot of artists cannot stomach that much perceived rejection. I’ve seen many talented artists who fall apart when criticized. Or get angry. They have no ability to use feedback as a tool. Again, I suspect this is because they didn’t have the right teachers. Or maybe when they had a good teacher, their parents intervened when that teacher gave them a B.

Lots of feedback from other people also causes you to develop a strong sense of your own personal aesthetic values. This is another area where a lot of aspiring potters struggle. They are searching for their “voice” or their “look” and don’t know where to start. Designers don’t have to search. After hearing so many opinions about our work for years, we know exactly what we believe. At the very beginning of my pottery business, I was thinking “I want to make quiet, understated pottery, using gray and white glazes on brown clay. Rustic, but also modern. Functionality will be my highest priority, with strong nods towards historical Korean pottery.” These values have carried me all the way to today.

Designers get their creative brains into gear whether they feel like it or not. This has shaped my overall attitude towards working, which is different than a lot of artists. Another artist at a show once said to me “You must be sick of making mugs.” I answered “No, not really. When you decide to become a professional potter, you just have to accept that you’re gonna make thousands of mugs, and you need to be positive about it.” Pulling mug handles is admittedly not my favorite task. But I have never lost sight of the fact that being a potter is a great privilege, and an indulgent choice. The least I can do is work my butt off. Too many artists believe they have to right to work only when they feel “inspired.” I roll my eyes.

Finally, maybe the most important thing about my design training, as it relates to my pottery business, is that graphic design is a job that can be easily formatted for self-employment. Especially after all the production was shifted to desktop computers. And it helped to have role models for self-employment as college professors. I became self-employed at age 26. By the time I launched a part-time pottery business, I had been running a design business for 6 years. Over the years I have met so many potters, and artists in general, who have never learned basic business practices. In fact, I’ve met many artists who have confused and conflicted ideas about money. They all dream of getting paid but don’t want to be seen as a “sell out.” Designers don’t see money or business as something “dirty.” We see it as earning a honest living, which is part of being a responsible adult.

And here’s another huge benefit to having built a design business first. It took eight years for the pottery business to grow into a real income, and during those years I did not go hungry. This is something that pains me greatly about those with ceramics degrees. Many of them leave college believing they can make an income right away. Nobody told them it would take years, maybe a decade, to slowly grow their business. You need to have an income during those early years. Thanks to my design business, I never had to make decisions about my pottery that were driven by financial pressure. I developed my body of work, and my audience, in ways that never felt like a compromise. The design business afforded me the space and time I needed to succeed at pottery on my own terms.

Really, the whole point of this blog post is to talk about the reasons why most art businesses fail: lack of financial wherewithal, poor work ethic, can’t manage parameters, can’t take criticism, can’t objectively shepherd their creativity into viable work. I believe this type of training is missing from most artists’ educations. At some point while I was becoming a potter, it dawned on me that the reason I do not suffer from these things is because I became a designer first.

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