Find Me at NCECA

I just found my name in the preliminary program at nceca.net:

Thursday March 17th
4:00pm - 4:30pm
2505 A/B (Level 2)
Process: That's a Stretch
By Lori Watts
If you've ever wondered how the guys at the pizza shop get the dough so thin, this demo is for you! Watts will throw the
pieces of a butterdish and then slap, flip, and swing them into oval shapes.

Come see me!

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.

Postcards, Business Cards, and Plane Tickets, Oh My!

Though it's still two months away, I have NCECA on my mind in a big way. I have a list of things that need to get done before then, from business cards to plane tickets. Seriously, it's been so long since I purchased a plane ticket that I don't know how anymore. I keep checking back on expedia and kayak.com and a few others, but it feels like this can't be the way people do it. As a side note, did you know that airfare sites will save your IP data and what dates you were looking for, and then charge you more for the specific dates you searched?? Seems like that ought to be illegal, a crime of general assholery. So, do your searches from your own computer, but when you are ready to buy your ticket, do it from someone else's, or from the public library.

In addition, to take full advantage of my brief turn on the stage, I need to have postcards made, with contact information. Postcards are just generally a good idea; I'll have business cards also, but postcards get taped up onto studio walls and stuck on people's refrigerators - they stick around longer, and keep your work visible.
The usual approach to postcards is to choose one good, representative piece, put that image on one side, and your contact info on the back. Regular readers of this blog know that I am almost constitutionally incapable of just doing things the tried-and-true way, without at least trying a different approach. Sometimes this works for me, as it did with my art fair display(or is. Or will. It's a work in progress.) Sometimes i learn that the conventional wisdom is conventional for a reason, and my novel idea falls flat. In any case, I am at it again: I like the way my work looks in grouping, so I decided to go with a collage, above or my postcard image. The collage also lets me put the business name (Fine Mess Pottery, in case you forgot :) )on the front, in a way that's more casual than the Black-Times-Roman, all-caps text along the bottom that you often see. Those always look like they should be engraved on a tomb, to me. My work is casual and fun and not at all funereal; why can't the design of the postcard reflect some of those qualities?

The back will have my name, the business name again, the website and email address and hmmm...I suppose I ought to put a phone number.

Thursday Inspiration: Kirsten Bassion

See lots more of Kirsten's fun pots here.

Goal Setting, January Too Oh! Won Six

Bisquing today. It's nice to hear the hiss of the burners again. Usually I don't fire in January, but this year I have an order waiting - nice - and it's not nearly so cold, also nice. While the kiln is firing, clay work is on hold, so now is a good time to clean, and to do a little goal setting.

2014 was the Year of Always Working. I can't say I loved the Year of Always Working, so 2015 was the year of rebalanced working, to concentrate on efforts that result in income. I am leery to change anything, since this approach has been effective, but I miss some of my old pursuits. I hardly blogged at all last year, for example. That is only partly a result of the rebalance; the other part is that I started to become aware that people read this blog - kind of a lot of people! And it made me self-conscious if I didn't have something new and fabulous to post. I didn't want to disappoint people with a lot blah-blah posts (like this one! :) ) but the tutorials are much more time consuming, so...anyway, short story long, I was overthinking it. Just going back to posting whatever I feel like, hopefully at least every week.

January is also when I assess accounts. I used to think any account is a good account, but that is sadly not true. A consignment account that does not send regular checks is not a good account, no matter how much I like the people, or the aesthetic of the store. That doesn't mean they can't become a good account, maybe with a different mix of work. Stores more than an hour or so away from me are tough to refresh, though, and there's no guarantee that the new work will do any better. In general it's better (for me) to do wholesale if the location is more than an hour away. I do make exceptions to this; sometimes I come to regret them.

It looks like one nearby consignment account will be converting to wholesale (yay) and I am asking another, far away, if they will go that route. I have a line on a consignment gallery only about a half hour from home, though they don't have a website or, apparently, email (whyyyyyyy?) and the number I have for them just rings and rings. I'd like to add one more wholesale account, perhaps out of state, for the spring season.

As I can never have too much inventory, one area I can improve on is winter production. It's easy to dial back in the winter months, because there's no pressure, but before I know it spring is here, and I am scrambling to get work fired for stores. This winter I will complete one firing cycle every...six weeks? That seems reasonable, one in about a week and then next in March, then at the beginning of May. That will have me going into summer with plenty of work for my established accounts, and for responding to opportunities as they arise.

Now: art fairs. Should I do one? Should I do more than one? I need to decide this week if I am applying for the Portland Fine Craft Show in August. This will be the second year of this show, and while I heard mixed things from artists last year, I think it has the potential to be great. But then I remember I don't have a truck, and Portland is an hour away...it would be a pretty big headache to do it, involving bringing the display and bins of pots down in multiple trips over the course of a week when I go down to teach my classes. When I was younger I would have said Hang the hassle! Full speed ahead! But I did lots of dumb things when I was young, so maybe that shouldn't be my standard.

Probably I should just apply, and then decide, if accepted.

A Roll and a Roll

After the installation of the storm door, which has been on the to-do list for ten years, I finally finished a wallpaper frieze in the guest room that I planned at least nine years ago. Like a lot of postponed projects, it was not difficult to do - it was getting started that was hard. That and, until recently, I didn't have $40 laying around to buy wallpaper. But hey, two items crossed off the long-term to do list! I'm on a roll.

Speaking of rolls, it took three full rolls of wallpaper to completed the project, and then I had to buy a fourth one and use only about three feet of it. But - silver lining, y'all - the wallpaper is flocked with a low relief pattern, so the leftover roll makes a nice clay texture tool (at least until it disintegrates from repeated dampness.)

It works best on a horizontal surface, So, I roll my slab first (remembering to roll in several different directions, and flip it over frequently while rolling, to evenly and thoroughly compress my slab.) Then I lay the wallpaper strip on the slab, and roll the pin over it. The relief is pretty shallow, so I need to roll firmly.

Then peel the wallpaper up....

Then cut the slab to size, and use it to build a cylinder.

The relief is quite shallow, as I said, so I might want to use some iron oxide to make it pop a bit if I am planning to use glaze on that area.

I've used the same 16" length of wallpaper to make 3 or 4 cylinders now, with no noticeable deterioration, so it looks like it will last a good long time. Lowe's sells these frieze rolls in many different patterns, about $10 a roll.

They make good wall decor, too.

Dream it, Plan it, Bless it with Sweat

As someone once said, a goal without a plan is just a wish. Further to that, a plan not followed by work is nothing at all; might as well be mouse farts. I am a fine goal-setter, and an even better planner, but sometimes I fall down when it comes to doing the work. So this is my motto for 2016:

Dream it, plan it, bless it with sweat.

It might seem corny to have a motto, but I have sometimes found that it serves as a touchstone for when you come to a decision point. My personal favorite, one that I come back to again and again, is: how hard can it be? It reminds me that I am good at figuring stuff out on the fly, and encourages me to start projects even if I don't know exactly what I am doing. Which is a good thing, because if I waited until I knew what I was doing I'd never start anything.

So there it is, all my New Year's resolutions in a nutshell: dream it, plan it, bless it with sweat.

Also, eat more fruit.

One More New Thing in The New Year

I really, really need a new laptop, preferably before but possibly shortly after I put my fist through this one. I really can't complain - which doesn't stop me, not at all - because this machine was several years old when I bought it in 2011. (Hint: It's an IBM, not a Lenovo.) All of the software is maxed out; it can't take anything newer. The browsers make me pull my hair with waiting. And now I can't upload files to my website anymore, or type the letter "f" without both hands. The letter A is a little hinky, too.
The good news is, I have proceeds from holiday sales (which, of course, I would have preferred to spend on something else!) The bad news is, I haven't a clue what sort of laptop to buy. I see there are lots in my range, and even below; but how do I know they aren't crap?

So, putting it to all of you: I have $300(ish) to spend, though I'd rather spend less: what kind of laptop should I get? What kind do you use?

ETA: Luckily I was able to repair my two funky keys, so I can stop spelling funky with a "ph." (Not to mention "phuck this shit."And I found a work-around for uploading files: Filezilla! How did I not know about this? Anyway, crisis averted, so I can spend my $300 on what I had originally planned: a dishwasher!

Make Anything

When I was an undergrad, I frequently used to run into this problem: when I really should be studying for my art history test, I really wanted to be reading my anthropology homework. Neither one was a waste of time, but one - the one with the imminent exam - was clearly the better use of my time. Caught between should and would, I sometimes ended up doing neither.

I can get that way in the studio, too. This week, for example, I really should be throwing small things, if I want to stick to my firing plan. But I really want to make vases. Nothing small seems inspiring right now.

I know I make better pots if I make what I feel like, and given my recurring issue - not enough inventory - making anything is better than making nothing. So, vases it is, even if I have to put off the firing in order to give them time to dry. The two above are thrown and altered. I find more and more that I know exactly how I will glaze them while I am building or even while I am throwing; these will have vertical stripes to one side of the slip-dot line.

So much for my schedule! Or maybe I just need to tweak the plan.

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.

One Hope, One Plan, One Crazy Idea

In the New Year, I hope I can get back to blogging more again.

In the New Year, I plan to make a schedule for my firing cycles, to even out my inventory, so I am not caught with no pots when opportunities arise.

And the crazy idea? Well...

Remember this guy?  Hans Chew, a college student at the School of Arts Singapore, customized a vending machine to dispense handmade ceramics as a kind of performance art pondering the commoditization of art. ("Can we really put a monetary value to art?" the article asks. Answer: Yes. For good or ill, we do it every day, because that's our job.)

Seriously, though, Chew seems like a thoughtful kid, and when I first read about him last spring I admired his cleverness and wit. And then forgot all about him.

Until yesterday, when I was talking with my friend and fellow potter, Mary Kay Spencer of The Potter's House. MK is also my temporary business partner for a few weeks each year, when we, along with the other members of Central Maine Clay Artists, open a pop-up pottery store in whatever vacant store front we can find. The store is doing well this year, and as always we start to imagine keeping it open year round, and as always we run into the pesky problem of staffing. If only we could open a self-serve store! Or, I know, a vending machine! For mugs and other small items. We were joking, but it made me remember Hans Chew. I also thought of the Cupcake ATMs that have been so successful for Sprinkles. Maybe, I thought, out of a joke comes a good idea.

Maybe not, too: it's a little crazy. There's a lot I still don't know. I do know you can get vending machines with big-ish compartments, that rotate to sliding doors instead of dropping the products. I know there are a couple for sale on Ebay right now for $700-800.

I was thinking of it as a summer thing - I can think of an outdoor location where it would be perfect. But it weighs, like, 800 pounds, so moving it would be a world of hassle and expense.

I don't know...I'll bring it up to the group, but maybe there are just too many obstacles. But that's the way of it with ideas; you gotta have bad ones - and sometimes chase them down blind alleys - to have good ones.

If this happens, I promise you will hear it here first.

So Hot Right Now

Extra, extra, read all about it! Handmade ceramics are all the rage, it says so right here in the New York Times! Right up there with artisanal chocolates and, I dunno, handcrafted gin, I guess. Here's my favorite part:

Julie Carlson, editor in chief of the design website Remodelista, has chronicled the rise... “It’s hard to keep track of them,” she added of new ceramists. “In the beginning, it seemed like there were just a few, but now there are more than we can cover, and more than we can invite to our markets.”

When??? When, in the history of the world, were there ever "just a few" potters?  If you are editor-in-chief of a home design magazine, it seems pretty odd that studio potters would seem like a new thing to you. GET OUT OF NEW YORK FOR A FEW MINUTES. There are all sorts of people out here. Actually probably have always been tons of potters in New York, too.

But it's churlish to complain, given the lovely moment of attention we are enjoying. Let's go see if we can turn it into coffee and heating oil and maybe a dishwasher! Ooo, and you know who else is so hot right now? Hansel, from Zoolander! We're in good company.