good elephant pottery

Had to switch to a new clay, thanks to the pandemic.

5/12/2022

It is now over two years since the pandemic first started shutting down our lives. The virus is still around, but the situation has evolved to where the healthcare systems are not overwhelmed. Art fairs and craft shows have been back since last fall. I still wear a mask when I am in indoor public spaces. And I take an at-home Covid test a few days after I’ve done a show (all negative so far). It’s worth taking these easy precautions, in exchange for being able to run my business using my preferred format again.

I was forced to make one big change. My claybody was a mixture of two clays, and one of them became very difficult to buy, due to supply shortages caused by the pandemic. My clay was still being produced, but the manufacturer could not produce several of their more popular clays, and therefore they would not make any shipments to my local supplier. Last fall, while I was still hopeful that the supply issues would be solved quickly, I had the manufacturer mail me 100 pounds of clay, just to tide me over for a few weeks. The postage cost as much as the clay.

When I posted this photo on Instagram, someone commented “Pre-wedged via the USPS!” Ha ha, yeah, the texture was great, after apparently getting dropped many times. It soon became clear that the shortage would not be resolved quickly. I calculated exactly how much clay I would need to get through the rest of 2021, and had the manufacturer send it to me via a freight shipment. The freight shipment was a little more expensive than USPS flat rate shipping. But as you can see, USPS beats up the boxes pretty hard. The manufacturer did not want to send 400 pounds through the mail.

When this shipment arrived, I could finally exhale. This was very stressful, all the uncertainty and the extra expense. The situation wasn’t over, I had a big decision to make. Should I stick with a clay whose manufacturer was having serious problems? They weren’t alone, other clay brands were having shortages too. There is one that wasn’t, and they have a clay that is very similar. They sent me a sample so I could start testing it. This takes a few months and a lot of test tiles. I had to figure out how to mix it with my other clay. Was the ratio the same or different? I had to figure out how to fire it. It turns out it needs to be fired a little hotter. The new clay is a slightly different color. A little less red and a little more yellow. It also has no speckles, which is a feature I never thought much about in my old clay. But once they were missing, I realized how much I needed them! I solved this by buying some granular manganese, and adding back the speckles. That involved a whole new round of tests, to figure out how to mix in the speckles, and how much.

The right amount of speckles for me is between 0.1% and 0.2%. Many thanks to the Digital Fire website for clear guidance on adding granular manganese to a claybody.

So I had my speckles back and the glazes fluxing (almost) the same as before. I was still nervous about the color being slightly different. Would customers notice? Or care? It turned out I was way too close to the situation to be able to judge that clearly. I made over 450 pots for my first two shows of 2022, using the new clay. I sold all but five of them. I guess the slight difference in color is something only I can see. (Or it’s just in my head.)

Going forward, it’s possible I will switch back to the old clay, if the supply problems get worked out. The new clay does not present a shortage problem, but it does require a special order through my local supplier, which takes some lead time. (btw, my local supplier, Clayworks Supplies in Baltimore, was really awesome to work with through all of these tribulations. No doubt they were going the extra mile for countless other customers too.) Mixing in the manganese speckles also takes some extra work. So the old clay is more efficient, but only if it’s available. The way I see it, I have two good options now, which provides some insurance during times when supply chains are unstable.

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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.

Edit: After this first home delivery sale, I discovered a website called RouteXL.com, that calculates the fastest driving routes for me. Big time saver for the subsequent events! I ended up doing this type of sale four times for my local region, plus twice for the Central Pennsylvania region, and once for the Philadelphia region.

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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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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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.

Sharon got married during our senior year, and this was our class's wedding gift to her. "Wear your underwear on your head" was her metaphor for creativity. The font used on the sign is a inside joke.

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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I got on TV at the Smithsonian Craft Show

4/30/2019

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At this year's Smithsonian Craft Show, I was interviewed by Voice of America's Korean TV station. There were quite a few Korean artists in the show, so I am thrilled that they picked me. The program is in Korean but they let me do my part in English with subtitles. Here's a link to watch. The segment is the first 1:30 of the program.

The whole show itself was another life-defining experience. This is the apex of the craft world, and it is a real honor to be so well-received here. Both by the attendees of the show, and the committee of gracious and tireless people who organize it every year. On the last afternoon as things were winding down, I wanted to lie down on my back in the middle of the aisle, with my ankles crossed and my hands behind my head, and just gaze up into the soaring architecture of the National Building Museum. And to contemplate "what's next?" Don't worry I didn't do it.

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Old Knowledge, New Skills

4/2/2019

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I mentioned in my last blog post that I've been studying hand bookbinding since last summer. This is a serious option for me, in terms of what I'm going to do with myself after I retire from pottery. I don't want to sit around with nothing to do. I also don't want to do any more heavy lifting, or to be tied to a bunch of heavy equipment. A bookbinding operation fits on a desk, and can easily be moved from place to place. It seems like a good fit for how I want to live.

Even though my retirement is several years away, I think it's important to start learning this now. I need to figure out two things: 1) Do I like doing it enough that I would be happy doing it a lot? 2) Can I make a decent "beer money" income with handmade books?

And there's another reason why I'm starting this now. Some people think that being a professional artist means you get to do fun things every day. Total fallacy! If you achieve full-time professional status as a creative person, your life involves doing the same things every day, over and over, day after day. It's important to get off your hamster wheel once in a while, before you forget how. If you depend on your creative work for your income, falling into a rut is deadly. I've seen it happen too many times, when a very talented person grows to hate their own work. It's sad. Shifting your brain into "learn mode" can do wonders for the way you feel about your daily work.

There's nothing like cutting off all the stitches of your hand-bound book, because you realized you made a crucial mistake at the beginning, to remind you what it feels like to be a beginner again. Which then forces you to see how far you've come in your own area of expertise, and to contemplate all the years of practice it took. It makes you feel pretty good, not bored or burnt out.

Bookbinding brings me back to all of my favorites aspects of my previous career as a print graphic designer (an almost extinct breed nowadays). Such as pawing through pretty paper samples, cutting and folding, knowing how to make tiny adjustments to accommodate paper's third dimension, among others things. And of course ... measuring! My favorite verb. And I get to say hello to my old measuring friends, Pica and Point.

Since last summer, I've taken two workshops at Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center in Hyattsville, MD (which I highly recommend). And I've started reading a series of books by Keith Smith, which were recommended by my instructor. These are the first projects I've made by myself at home, without the guidance of an instructor.

I'm calling this first design the "List Book." I am a zealous list maker and note taker, and go through lots of these little notebooks. From now on, I'm going to make them instead of buying them. The first one took me over five hours, as I figured out the design from scratch. You can see how many times I changed my mind about the details. And like I mentioned, I made sewing mistakes that forced me to start over.

Here are the text signatures. I printed the rules with my laser printer, and was able to space them for the size of my own handwriting. And once again my previous career training helped, because I already knew the definitions of signatures/sections, sheets, and pages, and how to count them.

Here is the book's cover mapped out. The back cover has an extended tab. It can be folded inside the back cover out of the way, or slotted into the front cover to keep the book closed, or used as a bookmark.

After spending five hours on the first one, the second one took only thirty minutes.

Here's a closer look at the stitching on the spine.

I have already begun using one of them. The size is just right, the cover and pages hinge very easily, and I like the way it holds itself open in a relaxed stance when you put it down. Overall, it's very comfortable to use, kind-of like a handmade mug or bowl.

After finishing these small books, I decided to try something more ambitious. I also use a lot of 8.5 x 11 spiral notebooks. I call them "Show Books" because it's where I record my before + after inventory lists for every show, and where I add up my sales. This book has fabric-wrapped hard covers, and is stitched together with a form of "coptic stitching." This stitching allows a thick book to lie open by itself, and even to flip the front cover around to the back. I'm a little skeptical that the linen threads will hold up to abuse, because this book gets carried with me to every show inside a messenger bag. But so far it feels nice and sturdy. And just like the List Book, the covers and pages hinge very comfortably. I guess time will tell how well it holds up.

I've already started using this book too. I have a growing list of reservations for my upcoming 2019 shows. I like that this is on the very first page of the book, which means it will be easy to find and edit this list.

I would also like to develop a journal-sized notebook, and possibly a calendar/planner. My plan is to have a few prototypes of these available for sale at my next Open Studio in December.

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A Well-Earned Break

3/14/2019

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When I decided to do pottery full-time, I was okay with the idea that vacations might not be in the budget. Just one of many sacrifices I was willing to make in order to pursue something that was more important to me. An artist's income is unpredictable. We can't control when the next recession will arrive. We might get sick or injured and be unable to work for a while. Cultivating a sense of security is a top priority. The way my pottery business has developed has been worth every sacrifice. In recent years, I have become more comfortable, eager even, to plan nice vacations for myself. And sometimes life sends a reminder to reward myself for good financial health.

This is a trip I've made before, and will be repeating again for sure. I went to Sarasota, Florida, to watch the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico, and to watch the Orioles play some spring training games. It was so nice to get away from winter for a few days!

A friend of mine saw this photo on Facebook, and teased me for reading what appears to be a work-related book. I have been studying bookbinding since last summer, and I swear the subject is geeky fun for me! It combines all of the best parts of being a print graphic designer, my previous career, with all of the handmade craftsmanship principles of my current career. It's possible I spent my break from the pottery studio setting up my life after pottery.

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A new domain name for the Online School

1/4/2019

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Counting from the day I began learning how to use a video camera, I've been building the Good Elephant Pottery Online School for 2.5 years now. As of today, there are 22 videos. I'd say I'm about half way to finishing everything that I was envisioning from the start. And I'm really pleased with the way it's turning out, including the feedback I'm getting from students.

Looking forward, I will start spinning off the Online School from Good Elephant Pottery. I plan to retire from making pots full-time at some point, but I want the Online School to keep running. So it's time for the school to get its own domain name!

learnpottery.com

As you can see, the names "learnpottery.com" and "Good Elephant Pottery Online School" are both being used. I figure anyone who learned about the school because you know me, or my pots, will continue to associate it with Good Elephant Pottery. Anyone who learns about the school from now on will probably identify it with the new domain name, because it's shorter and easier to remember. Either is fine with me!

Along with the launch of the new website, I have just released new videos on the subject of glazing. Glazing Basics is free to watch. Glaze Like a Pro ($39) reveals all of my techniques and attitudes about cone 6 oxidation glazing, and subject that sorely needs more nuanced and in-depth instruction.