White Tea & Bamboo

The Fine Mess online store will be open for just 5 more days this season! I will close the store on the 12th, to guarantee any orders will arrive in time for Christmas, and because I have a show on the 13th for which I will need the pieces. I just listed a new soap - check it out here!

To order, click here

Fun with Marketing

One upside to my decision to keep soap in the realm of "hobby" is that, while I still sell soap, marketing for it has become far less consequential. I can have more fun with it and not worry whether I sound professional or just perplexing. Case in point: the newest soap off of the curing rack, Green Planet.
It's always been a challenge for me to describe soap scents. Top notes of this, base notes of that...does anybody know what heliotrope actually smells like? For my new soaps, I tried instead telling a little story in sensory images, that give a sense of the fragrance, instead. Like this:

I did something like this with some plates last fall; instead of describing what the plates looked like, I did a little character sketch of the imaginary person whose favorite plate this would be. (We have favorite mugs; why not favorite plates?) It worked, I guess, because I sold the plates pretty quickly...but all to the same person, so I'm not sure it's an indicator.

Still, writing descriptions like little stories is more fun. Fun isn't everything but it's not nothing either.
If this little story makes you want this soap, you can get it here. 😊

Sweet Gypsy Rose

I'll be introducing a new soap at my open studio event for the Maine Pottery Tour: Sweet Gypsy Rose. I just took it out of the mold - so pleased with the color & design. Smells lovely, too - like roses, of course, but light, not cloying.

Smell it for yourself next weekend!

Okay, I'm off - lots to do. XO

Soap's Up!

Making soap is like making pots in a couple of ways. One, it feels like a marriage of science and art. And two, it involves a fair amount of patience.

With clay, the wait involves drying and firing. With soap the wait is all about the lye and fats doing their chemical dance, sapoinfying their little hearts out. Once the deed is done, there's no more lye; it's all been consumed in the process. That's why the wait is so crucial.

But now, dearhearts, the waiting is over! The soaps that I made is February are finally cured and ready for sale. Choose your favorite, and get 'em while they last.

After The Storm - click for more

Green Granite & Onyx - click for more

Peppermint Soap - click for more

During the Storm, After the Storm

During our most recent Snowpocalypse, I felt the sudden urge to make soap! Today was the big reveal:

I was a little worried due to a mishap that occurred in the making - I had gotten it all poured, with all the swirls and flourishes just how I wanted them, and then realized I'd forgotten to add the fragrance. There followed some frantic pouring and mixing (and spilling) and re-pouring, so I wasn't sure what to expect from the finished batch, but all in all I'm quite pleased. 

The scent is After the Storm, and I'm hard-pressed to describe it...it's very fresh and clean. If I say, it smells like a patch of violets in the air after a thunderstorm, I sound ridiculously corny but that's as close as I can get. 

Snow again here today (six inches, or what we call a "dusting" here in Maine) and then Snowmaggedon Sunday and Monday. Every time we have a major storm, it lands on a class day! This winter is getting expensive. I try to make up for it by getting into the studio and making pots every snow day but while that does represent income, payment is deferred until I finish and sell those pots. 

Anyway! This soap, After the Storm, needs time to cure. It will be available March 9th (right around the time the first crocus greens will be up!) and you can be sure I'mm share the link to purchase here. 

Mwah. 💋

Long Time No Soap

I've heard some people clean their homes, on a snow day. I take the opportunity to make an additional mess.

Soap mess before

I was thinking of firing today, but when it came time to candle I wasn't 100% sure that my Thursday class would be cancelled - which would mean I couldn't fire. Also, I was snug and warm in bed & didn't want to go out in the cold to turn the burners on. 😄

Instead, I dug out my tools and materials and made a batch of soap. It's been a year or so since I had the urge, and I had to concentrate a bit to remember the steps. Just when I had the swirls the way I wanted, the molded gold stars in place....I realized I hadn't added the scent. Nobody wants an unscented soap! Well - dogs do, But that's another recipe.

So, I scooped it all out of the mold, put it back in the crock, added the scent, divided it into two batches, added more colorant, started to make new swirls...and dumped a tub of it all over the

Soap mess after - and a Fine Mess it is, too

counter. I started scooping like mad to get it off the counter before it started to harden, because then cleaning it up would be a nightmare...and in the process smeared it on my arms under the rubber gloves. Lye burns don't suck as bad as you might think, but they don't feel good, either. 😕

I had enough to fill one mold, and half of another. This was fine as the second one was destined to become color inserts in future batches, anyway. The shade of purple is a bit redder than I had in mind; I hope I am remembering correctly that this colorant continues to develop as the lye reaction occurs. It maybe more in the violet range tomorrow morning.

The scent is After the Storm, which is meant to have lighter and darker purple swirls, with some gold mica streaks, but with all the pouring and re-pouring and mixing, who knows what is will be? It'll smell nice, that much I do know, because my whole house smells nice now. I'll have to wait until morning for the rest of my answers.

Yesterday In Bed I Lay

Yesterday I was stuck in bed with either a cold or the flu - I can never tell the difference. I'd have been kicking myself for declining the free flu shot because I hate shots, but I was too wrung out. It was the kind of illness where you feel fine until you try to get up, and then you are weak as a kitten.

It was probably better that I stayed in bed anyway. I don't have anything urgent on my to-do list, and because I stayed down I am feeling much better today. And - as the self-employed among my readership will recognize - even when I am too sick to work, I get some work done.

Yesterday I crossed off a task that has been on my list for a while, and create my new Etsy shop, Sweet Life Bath and Body. Check it out, if you are into that sort of thing.

Serenit-Tea Now!

Serenit-Tea Soap

I remember when January was a sleepy time for me... what happened to that? Well, I guess it's better as a business person to trade your slow times for business, or busy-ness. I've got a firing coming up (which was supposed to happen tomorrow, but yeahno), plane tickets to purchase, classes to teach, the pottery tour to prepare for, mug season with CMCA coming up, and - drum roll please - I'm launching an Etsy store for soap on February 1. Oh, wait, I already announced that! Anyway, I am photographing the soaps for that.

The one above is called Sereni-Tea, and has a lovely relaxing scent of bamboo and white tea, with some floral notes. It's a very light scent, which doesn't cling. It's on the curing rack now, and should be ready to use by the store's grand opening.

Off to do some glazing! If you are in the blizzard affected areas, be safe! Stay home & make stuff.

A Little Indulgence to get through the Winter

One nice thing about making soap is that I don't have to go outside to do it, unlike loading the kiln. I meant to have these posted before Valentine's Day, but, well, indulgence takes many forms.

Heavenly Soap: Fresh, Musky, and Floral
http://www.finemesspottery.com/HeavenlySoap.html

Mochaccino Soap: Is there a better combination than coffee and chocolate?
http://www.finemesspottery.com/MochaccinoSoap.html

Smells like freshly laundered sheets drying in the sunshine
http://www.finemesspottery.com/FreshLaundry.html

Flawed Halos

Like clay, my efforts at soap making sometimes produce surprises. While I love me a good learning experience*, I prefer one that results in a usable product.

I recently unmolded two batches of soap. When I first sliced them into bars, they looked pretty much as I expected. Over the next few weeks, though, I observed a change occurring around the tulip-red inserts: a pinkish halo was growing! Look:

Energize

Cherry Moon

The red colorant was bleeding into the soap around it! It is, of course, a colorant specifically for soap, and I've used it before. Maybe it was in a higher concentration? Maybe I put it in earlier or later in the process? Hmmm.

Like a lot of clay surprises, this one does not affect the function of the soap at all. The colorant does not come off on your hands, for example, or color the lather. The halos are even kind of pretty...it's just that I would have liked to have chosen to put them there.

Next time I will try a red colorant from a different supplier. 

Ah, well. Won't stop me selling them. They are ready now, and I should have the listing up well before Valentine's Day.

Speaking of selling, I am rebuilding the sales page of my website. Still using the paypal buttons; I didn't feel like trying to figure out a new system tonight. I am going with larger photos this time. There's exactly one pot on the page right now, and it is this one:

$48 - click here to purchase.

Well, one is better than none, right? I'm off to watch a couple of episodes of Firefly.

*NOT REALLY

Drive-by Soaping

Buttercream soap! Unfortunately it won't be ready to use until December 21.

I am squeezing in a couple of hours of studio work this morning before I have to work my day at the Holiday Pottery Shop, located in Hallowell this year. I am bisquing tomorrow and hoping - most likely in vain - that the ware I finish this morning will be dry in time. Can't put off the bisque, because the glaze firing has to happen December 8 in order to be ready for Portland Pottery's Holiday Show, my last event of the season. After that I'll be restocking the online Pottery Shop - it was just getting too picked over and needed refreshing, but all the ware I have right now is committed elsewhere.

After a day sick in bed yesterday still feeling a little rocky but up and about. Hope you all had a fabulous holiday!

PLATE is Live!

PLATE: A Celebration is live online at MudFire! So excited to be a part of this show. If you scroll to the bottom of the page you see the works that have already sold. None of mine yet, but I'm just pleased as punch that wares are selling from this show. And it only opened yesterday!

So, what else is new? My ongoing flirtation with burnout continues, and it's still working, sort of. I am teaching a raku workshop today, and glazing with the hope of firing the soda kiln on Wednesday. I need to send wares to Belfast, Rockland, Portland, and Rochester, NY.

Plans for this year's Holiday Pottery Shop are chugging along: we have a location! We will be at 184 Water Street in Hallowell. The shop will open early this year; the plan is to have the doors open by November 14th.

Also looking forward to Portland Pottery's First Friday event, which will feature works by faculty and staff. That's November 7th from 5-8.

And in between clay work, I'm still making soap. Because the bars need to cure for a few weeks before they are ready to use, I need to be making now so they will be ready for December. Here's a peek at the curing rack: the green soaps in the center - Mango Sage - and the white & blue ones to the right - Cool Coconut - will be ready by Cyber Monday.

 Keep on keepin' on.

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Yesterday was a busy day! In the morning I sorted, priced, and delivered pots for Quench, a new store in Belfast, Maine. The owner, jeweler Jennifer Lisa, got in touch with me last month. We met in December, during the Holiday Pottery Shop open house and were a Mutual Admiration Society from the start. Jennifer makes some amazing things. Belfast is a cute little town on the coast, nice for a day trip. Lots of unusual shops (my 2nd favorite is City Drawers!), restaurants, and pubs.
Afternoon and evening were my regular classes.

Today I unmolded my most recent soap! The scent is warm vanilla sugar, simple but one of my favorites. Like glaze, soap doesn't always do what you expect; in this case I had placed some sugar pearls on the top, which just got absorbed into the bar. They will still serve a function - sugar in soap helps make a nice lather. I had also expected the gold mica line to be more pronounced, but overall I have no complaints. Soap has to cure for a few weeks so this won't be usable until late September.
Today is also glazing, for my upcoming firing - either Friday (my birthday!) or Saturday.
And just before bed I hope to finish up another website, this one for my friend Diane Harwood of Mudgirl Pottery. I'll post the link when it's finished. 

And tomorrow? tomorrow will be household stuff: bill paying, grocery shopping, vacuuming, stuff like that. Also ordering signs for Maine Craft Weekend! That's not until October but preparations start now. Then meeting some friends for lunch before teaching my Thursday night class.

I'm pushing hard to get work out for my new accounts, and also doing website work, so time for blogging has been a bit limited! It's a good kind of busy, though, so no complaints here. Okay, one complaint: no time to work out! I might squeeze in a long walk after lunch tomorrow, just to get the blood flowing.

Soap Reveal - Tahitian Beach

In many ways, the soaping process reminds me of clay work: the chemistry, the waiting, the big reveal. In one way, soaping reminds me of fiber art, which I spent some time in, in college. Back then I was always finding or making little bits of things - beads, buttons, dyed fabric - and saving them to use in some future project. I find that I do that with soap, too: each batch makes more soap than will fit in the mold, so I use the extra to pour into candy molds - like these little seashells - or tube molds for inserts, or just bricks of color. Then I get a design idea, and go through my saved-up materials to see what would make a nice grace note.

I find I always want a grace note, in this case the scattered shells, and the gold mica shimmer. That is what makes the bars special, sets them apart at a glance from a perfectly-serviceable bar you can get in the grocery store. (Most of those aren't actually soap; they are detergent, but for most people that's a big ol' whatever.) The chemistry is important, too - the soap needs to feel amazing, lather generously, smell delightful. Those are all function. People never get to experience that part, unless they look at the soap and think, want.

Like clay, a boring piece can serve the function just as well as a special one. The grace notes are what make using it a great experience.

These are on the curing rack, and will be available mid-September.

Two Things

Firstly, my first paid website is live! Check it out here: bevwainer.com

That was fun! Bev is more or less what I expected my clients to be: an artist who is not particularly techie, and doesn't particularly wish to be, but needs a web presence. I can see how web building will be a good compliment to clay work. They are so different. When I don't feel up to the one, the other seems inviting.

And then there's soap! I made a loaf of soap today. I usually think of soapmaking as a winter thing, but I had been getting requests, so pulled out all the ingredients and gear. I made one loaf that I feel confident will turn out well - Tahitian Beach:

Blue and green swirls, white and gold froth, and those are little soap-cast seashells gracing the top! Unmolding tomorrow to see what the bars look like.

I also made one smaller loaf as an experiment. We'll see that one tomorrow, too, but I am less optimistic there.

Soaping Shopping

Though I am notoriously cheap, I love when i have a legit reason to buy stuff. Not just any old stuff - tires are a drag. So is Windex, flea treatment, and heating oil. What's not a drag: soaping supplies!

Just ordered fragrances and sweet almond oil for my next batches. In the past soaping has been a winter thing for me, but I am getting requests, so am happy to make more. I got three fragrances:

Stormy Nights

Cucumber Splash

Mango Sage Tea

...all from Nature's Garden.

Two of these are new to me - the Stormy Nights fragrance I have used once before. It was one of my favorite soaps ever, a clean ozone-y scent with a hint of violets. I used a purple colorant and a thin gold mica line. The other two just sounded like the kinds of fresh-fresh scents that I enjoy.

Someday I may start buying essential oils and less-complex fragrances, so I can create my own scents. Right now I am more interested in the chemistry of saponification itself, and in making silky, moisturizing lather with big bubbles, and a hard, long-lasting bar of soap.

Soap takes a while to cure, so it may be September before the batches made from these scents are available.

Haven't forgotten clay! Working on butter dishes, cat urns, and plates right now. Next firing will probably be August 13th, unloading the 16th.

Pottery Tour Already?

Well, it is March, however little it may feel like spring. Just back from a great meeting of the Central Maine Clay Artists. Usually I hate meetings - one of my downfalls in office environments - but these are fun, like hanging out with friends. I always come out of them energized. We elected a new president, too! Congratulations, Martha - that's what you get for missing a meeting!

Today we talked about two projects, Mug Season and the Maine Pottery Tour. Mug Season is an April fundraiser jointly put on by The Central Maine Clay Artists and local coffee shops: buy a handmade mug, get your coffee free. Half of the proceeds go to the artists, the other to local arts programs. We chose which shops to work with (there are always more wanting to participate than we can cover) and decided who would be contact person for each. I've got the Downtown Diner, here in Augusta.

Then we went on to discuss the Pottery Tour, happening hard on the heels. The tour is moved back this year to the first weekend in May, because I was hearing a lot of feedback that Mother's Day weekend was not working for a lot of people. I still kinda like Mother's Day Weekend, because it's easy to remember and it seems like a good activity to do with one's Mom, but hey, I'm not a little tin god; if most people prefer an earlier date, well, let's try it.(Here's the Facebook link for that one, also, if you're so inclined.) So many good ideas out of this meeting! Unified-look signage, postcards, joint promotion!

The last two years, I have invited guest artists, but will be skipping that this year. I find I can be sanguine about bad weather or low sales if it's just me - shit happens, right? - but I am a big ol' ball of angst if I feel like I am letting someone else down by allowing it to rain. That, and I expect to have a mega ton of stuff, much of it clearance. Seems wrong to ask someone to compete with clearance prices. Oh, and will likely be having household company that weekend too.

In other news, I sliced my Lemon Berry Soap loaf this morning! Here's what the big reveal revealed:

Six weeks to cure before it's ready to roll. (Or slide. Bubble. Whatever.)

Nothing Left To Do But...

...make soap! My greenware shelves are full and I am waiting on the last pots - some jars that will serve as cat urns, for an order - to dry enough for the bisque. I ain't going out into the glaze kitchen in the single digit weather, I promise you that, so any buckets that are low are just gonna have to wait.What better time to get some saponification going?

This loaf has a raspberry lemonade scent. The blue band will hopefully be a translucent star in the finished bars. There are also some pale blue cubes buried under the pink and lemon layers. Tomorrow morning is the big reveal!

Speaking of soap, I spent some time last night designing some labels from an Avery template. You know you can get a pre-made template for any shape of label Avery sells at Avery.com, right?  I've been using Avery 22808, a round, brown kraft label to identify my soaps. The names were hand written, which I'm sure is all very charmingly homemade, but I think people trust products more if they carry some of the polish of commercial goods. Slicker packaging seems to be a way to make people more comfortable with a handmade product, because it mimics the way commercial goods are presented. Oh, this person can't be a clown, or in any way half-assed! Just look at those tidy labels!

Or, as Mr. Business Guy used to say, "Presentation: it's HUGE." This is applicable to pottery as well.

I got some cellophane bags, to replace the tissue and white paper as packaging. They aren't quite what I want, but I don't like those little sleeves (the soap shrinks, and then its pants fall down!), or the fancy papers that hide the soap. I am unwilling to add 50¢ or more to the price of each bar for those cunning boxes with the cut outs, so cello bags will do for now. I also got a label maker ($6 on Ebay!), so I can print up the name of each soap, and put it in the center of the circle. And also because I've always wanted a label maker.

It occurs to me that I really should make another label for the back with the ingredients. I haven't, in part because I make such small batches that I couldn't afford to wholesale them, so anyone who gets a soap is dealing directly with me. But again, it seems more professional, and people do have preferences about animal products or other materials.

Fine Mess Pottery and SOAPworks!*

The long-awaited day is here! Long-awaited by me, anyway. Finally, the first batches of soap I feel are good enough to sell is finished curing and ready to go. They are:

Cocoa Loco

Click here to purchase!

and

Citrus Circus

Click here to purchase!

Soaping will obviously never replace ceramics in my heart, but I like a lot of the same things about it: the meeting of science and creativity; the utility, so satisfying; and the unveiling: the moment, and the anticipation of the moment, when you see what your hard work has wrought. Soap is sort of "clay lite:" it takes hours instead of weeks to fill a mold, and I get to see the result the next day. But it gives me a fix of satisfaction during the coldest of winter, when I'm building up greenware, but holding off on firing until it's just a hair more comfortable outside.

Speaking of which. My greenware racks are rapidly filling. I can clean the studio and be a little more efficient with my space, but will have to fire a bisque in the next couple of weeks, and a glaze shortly after that.

In the meantime, get messy. Then get clean!

*The headline was supposed to look like this:Fine Mess Pottery and ClaySOAPworks! But blogger didn't care for the strikethru, or the italics. : /

Three Days in the Studio

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

I did not get a whole hell of a lot done in the studio yesterday. Sometimes a whole day just gets swallowed by minutia: grocery shopping, scooping the litterboxes, checking the oil, calling my mother, making a pot of soup. These are all important and valuable accomplishments, but so mundane they sort of leave me with that where-did-the-day-go? feeling.

I did unmold and slice a new loaf of soap, called Stormy Night; taught my evening class; and wrote a blog post for Wicked Cozy.  I had forgotten how hard it is to gain readers! I see some of you have given me a leg up, G+ing the new blog for me. Thanks for that. The new post will publish on Monday.

I think to have fewer of these "lost days," I need to get back in the habit of to-do lists to keep me on track. I always seem to overdo the lists and put like fifteen items on them, which I then inevitably fail to accomplish. So, trying to keep it in the realm of the doable:

• Finish leatherhard ware
• Clean studio! It's getting to that point where it's hard to work because of all the stuff just laying around, in the way. 
• Throw mugs to get a jump on this year's Mug Season 
• Go to the gym. This is not my favorite thing, but it's part of the holy trinity of self-care - sleep, nutrition, and exercise - that keep me out of that dark place where my mind sometimes falls. (I'm good today, though. Think things are on the upswing.)
• Make at least one follow up call to the emails I sent to stores last week.  Man how I hate to do those calls! But emails alone are almost never enough. I get myself to do it by promising myself I only have to do one. Sometimes after the first one it's easier, and I continue. But no pressure!
• Put together a Thursday Inspiration post.  If you squint your eyes a little, any day can be Thursday.

And tomorrow:

• Sort pots into Best, Pretty Good, and Bargain bins. I am starting to get a crazy-lot of pots in that last category. Nothing wrong with them, just that they are demos, so don't fit with my body of work, or the color didn't make me happy, or I'm just tired of looking at them. This year's Maine Pottery Tour is going to include a giant clearance table. 
• Put handles on those Mug Season Mugs. 
• Go the the gym, again.  That pesky chore just will not stay done.
• I hope to have a couple of hours of unfettered studio time to just make whatever comes to mind. This is my reward for getting the rest of my list done!