The month of April is busier for me than the month of November. It wasn't always like this! About 12 years ago - or 13, depending on how you count - I started an event called the Maine Pottery Tour, intended to showcase the incredible well of talent of Maine's community of ceramic artists.
This year we have 71 participating studios, over 100 artists - the largest tour so far. It's been a long road, getting from there to here. I'm proud & excited about the success of the tour, and also exhausted, if I'm honest. The bigger it gets, the more work it is. I have a lot more help than I did those first few years - Ellen McCarthy of Peeper Pond Studio has been amazing, as has Milly Welsh of Zwellyn Pottery, whose secret identity is a wed developer - Milly built the Maine Pottery Tour website, and this year has made for use an incredible app to help visitor plan their pottery tour weekend. They are donating their time -as am I - so if you feel like showing them some love on their Facebook pages, you'd be doing me a solid.
As often happens in April, I am a little stressed. I've got to complete two firings between now & then - one that I am loading today - and schedule social media posts on all fronts, and do a number of ad buys both online & in print newspapers. As usual - maybe more than usual - I feel like I am falling down on the job. I keep reminding myself: there are ONE HUNDRED artists on the tour. All of them are (or should be!) promoting, too. It's not all down to me.
Actually pretty good message to carry into the rest of my life: it's not all down to me. There are other people pulling their oars, too; if I need to stop & catch my breath, nothing terrible will happen. In fact, that's what I've been doing, as I write this: taking a break from loading the kiln. It's chilly out today, although pretty seasonal, & after our two big spring storms, it's a mudpocalypse out by the kiln. Gotta hope for a dry stretch, coming up to the tour.
Back to it! I expect to unload Tuesday - Patreon subscribers at the Medici level (& up) get first access. Oh & speaking of! Subscribers at the Pottery Patron level get 10% off in-person purchases during the Maine Pottery Tour. Click the link to learn more.
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