Minor Reflections

Y'all know I love the week between Christmas and New Year's. It feel like a time out of time, a chance to catch your breath. I have taken to calling it the Week of Reflection, and I use it to consider the events of the past year, and how I hope the New Year will be different, or the same.

This year, though, I don't have a lot to reflect about. I plan to continue the pots-by-the-pound pricing, because that's working, so why mess with it? My revised time distribution has me spending the majority of my time on my two highest priority tasks: making pots, and seeking accounts which can support higher prices. I am still selling pretty much everything I can make, and while I am doing far better than past years, I'm still struggling by most people's standards. So I need to either A) make more stuff or B) get more money for the stuff I make. I've made a lot of progress, so I think the plan for 2016 is to stay the course.

Looming large in the road ahead, of course, is NCECA, and my process-room demo! Funnily enough, that will be a bunch of time spent that is neither making pots or seeking accounts. Don't care, doing it anyway.

I am also opening an Etsy shop for my soaps & other body products. I don't make quite enough of them to sell wholesale or consignment, but I make more than I can use, or sell within my circle of acquaintances. I haven't loved Etsy in the past (well, I have loved shopping Etsy! Just not being an Etsy seller) but I think soap will be a little different; it's not like each bar needs its own listing. I can create a single listing for each variety and they just keep renewing it when I make a new batch.

I've been meaning, also, to create a quarterly e-newsletter, to reach former customers and students, remind them I exist every once in a while. Maybe 2016 will be the year that happens.

I do want to work on discipline in the coming year. I'm not entirely sure how to address it, though...in the past I haven't stuck well to strict schedules. I'm open to suggestions! Anybody else have a problem getting themselves into the studio as much as they need to be? How did you address it?

I have a firing coming up in the January 8th; once that's done I can repopulate the online Pottery Shop. I sold much of the inventory, and it needed refreshing anyway.