simple design is not simple work

I got this email a while back:

I'm looking for a ceramic artist that might be able to make me some christmas gifts. I recently discovered *well-known potter's goddess ware* and I'm looking for something similar (I'd buy directly from her but they sell out sooo fast). I love how body-positive and woman-positive her pieces are and I love the simplicity of the design. Would you consider making a sketch of a couple pieces inspired by her work? I really like your work too, I'm pretty interested to see what you might come up with. Thanks for considering!

I immediately put this email in the trash so I would not be tempted to answer it, but then was thinking about it in the middle of the night. The way you think about all the things that are bothering you in the middle of the night. I pulled it out of the trash the next morning and tried to compose the perfect email. One that was devoid of snark and drained of hostility while declining the opportunity, and perhaps giving a little education on how this thing of ordering custom pieces from artists is supposed to work. 30 minutes went by before I realized there are no words in the English language that I can string together in the right order that would say what I needed to say without being snarky and hostile. Into the trash it went again. Thankfully, I have you people to rant to.

There are so many things wrong with this email. For starters, do I look like a fucking clay elf, sitting around my workshop, making sketches of work to see if I can tempt a customer to order something?  I will turn cartwheels and somersaults while I wait to see if you are interested in what I come up with! I immediately looked at the other artist's work of course, and literally the only thing we have in common is that we both make functional things out of clay. 

This is the thing, and the educational bit I was trying to get across, but couldn't: Every artist out there who has been able to work long enough to have a recognizable style has had to work for years to get there, refining their processes to get a consistent result that satisfies them.  This artist's "simplicity of design" has been achieved not because it is simple, it's that she is so skilled at what she does and makes it look simple.  Simple design is not simple work. 

I get that this person did not have bad intentions or wanted to insult me, which is why I did not unload on them... I'm unloading here. They are just supremely ignorant about how artists work and what moves us to make things. Or, more precisely, what moves me to make things. 

I love that moment when I am inspired by what other artists have made, it's like a light going on inside me. I live for that moment. It cannot be forced or manufactured. And when I try to force or manufacture it, I'm never happy with the result. It's not me, but a poor derivative of what someone else made way better than I did. I can't work like that, especially on purpose. Almost no artist can.

Lastly, if you are in love with what an artist makes but they are always selling out, then write to them directly and ask them to make something for you. This artist who makes the goddess ware has a contact page with an email address! Any artist who is trying to make a living recognizes that the people who hold up their hands and ask for your work are the people who really support and grow your business, and most are happy to oblige these people. Don't ask another artist to do it.

lack of gratitude

This is a gratitude tree in my neighborhood.
I found it on my walk two days ago.

I've been thinking about gratitude, and the lack of it I've been feeling lately. I'm catching myself having a lot of unpleasant thoughts with a whiny edge. Things like wondering why a person didn't write me back to place a possible order, instead of thinking about the person who did just place an order for the exact same thing. Or worrying about a super slow week on Etsy and thinking it's all over for me, I'm washed up, instead of thinking about the super fat order I got off my website. Or wanting to resist a deadline and feeling like it's impinging on my work, instead of thinking about how it's all a part of my work and how fortunate I am to have meaningful work at all.

I think these are are pretty normal thoughts and I don't expect to be a perfect person and not have them. But I'm just noticing how crappy it makes me feel when I whine to myself, or when my ego starts squawking that I deserve better, more, now. It's been worse lately since I am going through a transition with my work, I've made choices to not take on so many orders, and I'm uncomfortable with it since I have no idea where that's going to land me financially over the next few years. Or artistically. Or anything else.

The man who planted it told me it's
been there since the recession
started almost 5 years ago.

There's part of me that has complete faith that the changes I've made in my work and personal life are going to take me where I need and want to go, and that place will also bring me more peace and a deeper expression in my art. And there's another part of me that craves success in the form of wider recognition, steady accolades, and financial rewards. This part of me can be very ego-driven and is never satisfied with what I have. It takes my ego about 2 minutes to forget the good thing that just happened to me and start demanding more. It makes me feel tremendously ungrateful.

It's very annoying and emotionally draining to listen this voice and for a while I was smacking it around and telling it to shut the fuck up. Well, that never works, the voice just gets louder. I've been doing some reading on the study of gratitude, the tremendous benefits it brings to your life in the form of better health and more happiness.  The recommendation to feel more gratitude is to simply keep a gratitude journal, write a few things down every day that you are grateful for.

I couldn't believe I didn't notice it
until a couple of days ago.

I've done this before for a few days, and then I lose interest or focus. But since I am trying to detoxify myself from ingratitude, I took this as an opportunity to buy myself a new notebook and get serious about it, and I've been writing 5 things in the morning, in the afternoon, and again before I go to bed. I'm committing to doing this everyday for at least a month, and I'm hoping it has a positive long-term impact on my attitude.

I'm feeling gratitude right now that I have people who read my blog. I'd love it if you would help me with my gratitude work over the month by telling me what you are grateful for.

never starving

Since I am an artist, I hear the term "starving artist" more than the average person, and it creates a deep fission of annoyance in my heart and mind every time. It's the term itself, and the way people say it.

Sometimes it's said casually, which shows the speaker is not thinking about it, just taking the myth as an understood truth. Sometimes with an edge of derision of self-righteousness, as if the artist in question-- or maybe all artists-- asked for starvation by choosing art and will get what they deserve. Sometimes it's said with earnestness, and this is the worst, because it often comes from other artists who think they must suffer in order to be an artist. Or their current low economic status is correct and will never change.

Also, I deeply dislike what the term implies: that for anyone to choose to be an artist in this world of practical need and hard realities means you will go hungry, not be able to provide for yourself, and suffer deeply.

I have a client, a good, longtime one, who discussed with me how his daughter wants to be an artist but he has persistently tried to steer her into a profession where "she can make some money." When I suggested she could make money making her art, he waved me off.  No no, honey, people don't make real money doing what you do, is the message I got from the encounter. Never mind he's handed over hundreds, if not thousands of his dollars to me for my art.

Artists don't starve, they are too creative and smart for starvation. They figure out a way to survive before they starve.

I understand the starving artist myth is a metaphor, and I find it to be an supremely annihilating one. The metaphor implies that creativity is of the lowest value in our culture, unless it directly serves the culture in the form of generating money. Lots of it. And that people who choose to be artists are of similarly low value.

I think the metaphor persists because people understand there's truth in there, but it's backwards-- it's the culture that is actually starving for artists, dying for beauty, gasping for the meaning art brings to us. I believe there is a deep fear of articulating the truth of this because of the long hard look we would have to take at the way we live now, which debases and profits off the destruction of the most beautiful, valuable things we have.

I encounter people all the time who wanted to be an artist, but because of parental and or/cultural pressure, chose to go into a money-making or conventional profession.  And because their true calling has been denied and they are not creating for us, for the world, we all starve. What beautiful works have not been made, what deep truths have not been uncovered, what leaps of evolution have not been made because the people who would have brought that to us were coerced and intimidated into serving another calling?

For those of you thinking right now "real" artists will always yield to their calling, we haven't lost anything, I say bullshit.

I aim this post directly at teachers, parents, and other people who have any kind of authority over young people's lives. I want you to ask yourself how you respond when a young person says they want to be an artist when they grow up. Do you say, "Artists have really hard lives"? Do you say, "I hope you plan to learn something practical too so you have something to fall back on"? Do you say, "How do you plan on making money by being an artist"? Then I want you to recall what you wanted to be when you grew up, and try to feel how it would feel to hear those words when you stated your intention. I think that not many people who read my blog would say any of those things, but maybe you know someone who would, or has. Send this post to them.

I wonder what would happen if people let go of this myth. What if every child who stated they wanted to be an artist was met with "What kind of artist do you want to be?" What kind of new world could we create with that simple response?

get out of my booth.

It's Tuesday, and I'm finally recovered from my weekend selling at the Renegade Craft Fair.  Did I say selling? What I meant to say was showing, I was showing my work at the Renegade. It was, unfortunately, the most beautiful day of the year on Saturday. When you live in the Bay Area and you wake upon a Saturday morning and there is not a wisp,  not a trace of fog, you spend the day outside, not locked up in a giant box with a bunch of hipsters selling felted owl hats or meticulously crafted letterpress birthday cards that say, "I HATE you more every YEAR" or ceramic cupcake stands with a bird on it.  Put a bird on it, get it? Get it? I love that show, don't you?

Ha ha ha. Get out of my booth.

typical exit lines (click)

At the show, I was refining some of my theories regarding the nature of human behavior in a retail environment and, since I had time, taking notes. My theory says that 80% of show attendees are there only to look at all of the cute stuff,  get ideas for stuff they want to make themselves, find the very cheapest deal available, or take pictures. It's the other 20% I'm trying to suss out, and there are lots of clues.

There are the people who look for a bit and then ask for a card or if you have a studio. These are mostly the "inspire me" people who have no intention of dropping a dime, but they don't know how to get out of your booth gracefully, so they use that line as a way to make you think they will buy later.  Look, it's okay to just walk out of a booth and just say, "Thank you!" You don't have to pretend, I can see right through you when you give me that apologetic smile, and you are just making me pretend along with you, which annoys me after a while. Just. Get. Out. And you're welcome.

Worse than that are people who look around and then ask you what cone you fire to. This is code for, "I too am potter, therefore I can appreciate your hard work, but I am not buying, because I can go home and make this myself." No, you can't. But by all means, try.

When people walk in and start handling work, it's usually a good sign, but only when they combine it with some eye contact and/or conversation.  They are telling me they are willing to engage with me, they want to buy, they just need a little push in the form of a reason to buy, which I am happy to supply.  This, for me, is a fun interaction. You are allowed to stay in my booth.


It's the people who avoid eye contact and start handling work only to check on price who are hopeless cases. I know that most people want to spend $18 on just about anything made out of ceramic, and they cannot make sense of my prices. $44 for that? Holy shit, a bowl for $140? Are you serious, you want all that money for something that holds a cake? I can spend all afternoon reading the minds of people scrunching up their faces at the little white sticker on the bottom of everything. And you know what? That's why I put the sicker on the bottom of everything, so you have to pick it up to find out, and maybe that way you will learn something about pottery, and why it costs more than $18.  In the meantime, please run faster as you exit my booth.

I've already written about the people who wander around shows taking pictures without asking. When I see someone with no shopping bags in their hands and a giant camera around their neck, I know what is about to happen, and it's not a sale.  People with cameras at shows come in as the most clueless bunch I have ever encountered while selling. All take, no give with these people. Get out!

 Then, there are the customers I've come to know as "heavy petters."  For example, a sweet-looking young lady (SLYL) walks into my booth:
SLYL: "Oh my god, I love your work, I'm always looking at it on Etsy. It's so beautiful..."
BAJA (bitter and jaded artist, that's me): "Isn't it so much better to see it in real life?"
SLYL: "Totally... I have almost all of your work in my favorites."
BAJA: "Which is your very favorite?"
SLYL: "All of them..." (wistfully strokes a cupcake stand with a faraway look in her eye) "It's so beautiful... so perfect... I just love all of your colors... "
BAJA: "Picking out the glaze colors is my favorite part."
SLYL: "It's so unique...I just love it... you are sooooo talented...well... thank you!" (abruptly turns on heel and exits booth.)

An interaction like that I call "fake foreplay." A customer comes in, supposedly all hot and bothered for my work, fully engages me with heavy petting in the form of compliments, feels me up by touching a bunch of pieces, and just when I think we are about to get down, leaves. High and dry. Wait! Come back!  Here, take a card, take a picture, my studio is always open! I thought you loved me...

brief from vallauris

I've been in Vallauris for about 10 days now, and I've been finding my rhythm and establishing a pace. I'm the type of person that tries to integrate as much as I can into my surroundings.  It's like adjusting my personal frequency, so I can tune in more acutely to what is going on around me. But still, I never feel more American than I do when visiting a foreign country. 

This is the thing about travel: the everyday things you do at home can be fraught with cultural misunderstanding and confusion when you are doing stuff in a place where you don't speak the language. I think that's why a lot of people don't like to travel. It can be exhausting.

My fellow residents and I rented a car to explore the Avignon region, and renting a car meant an encounter with a foreign gas station. A gas pump is a gas pump is a gas pump, but it's the small differences that can throw you for a loop.  I did some research ahead of time so I would know the French name of the type of gas we needed to purchase (diesel=gazole) and a general idea of what to expect, but still, the loops came fast and hard.   

First of all, there were about 12 pumps and 4 islands, but only one way to approach, one line.  No organization, no first come first served, just one line that quickly devolved into chaos as you snaked your way closer to the pumps. It was slow going. You had to wait. This immediately made me anxious, especially when we were expertly bumped in line by someone driving a Citroen, almost certainly a native who could smell our tentativeness.

I closely watched everybody fill up, looking at what they were doing and how they were handling the whole gas pump interaction.  When it was our turn, I was armed with observational knowledge and ready for battle.  After we figured out how to open the gas door (something my husband, Andrew, would know by simple osmosis but I have to read the owner's manual to figure out.) I pulled out the hose, stuck it in the tank, and pulled the gas trigger.  Nothing.  I looked at the little window that tells you the amount of gas you are pumping and how much it's costing, and noticed the last person's transaction was still there. Was there a button I needed to push? A lever I needed to pull?  I ran my hands over the pump like a blind person. Nothing. I looked around at other people. Everyone was pumping gas, and seemed to be avoiding my eyes. I pulled the gas trigger a few more times.  James, one of my fellow residents and on the gas mission with me,  commented that the person who was in front of us before had seemed to be standing around for a minute, so maybe we just needed to wait. 

James, by the way, was unfazed by all of this.  He was intrigued by the level of female beauty that was circling around us in this little gas station, and temporarily distracted.  I was readying myself for a major confrontation with the gas pump or worse, ask for help, when the window suddenly zeroed out, and the gas started pumping.

The price increased at an alarming rate.  I don't know if you have ever purchased fuel by the liter, but it's a small unit of measure, and the price quickly went from zero to 50 euro for less than a half tank of gas. Again, expected, but still rather shocking to experience in real life.

Not only was there a single line to get to the gas pump, there was a single line of cars to get to the lady to pay for the gas. "Oh my god," I moaned, as I again watched the chaos of little euro cars leaving the pumps and jockeying for position in the pay line, "how can people live like this?  Why doesn't somebody do something about this? How many people get punched at 8 in the morning at the gas station? You have to block out your whole morning just to go get gas!" God, I felt so American, but if there is one thing we have down that the French do not, it's convenience.

"Hmmmmm..." James said, as he waved a pretty lady into the line, ahead of us.

My studio work is going very slowly, because I have frankly been spending way more time checking the temperature of the Mediterranean Sea with my entire body, comparing cheeses, seeing where the best farmer's market is in this region, and running daily tests to see how much French wine I can drink before I get a hangover. As it turns out, a whole lot.

one last rant for the year

I think I just passed the Christmas hump.  Yesterday, Nikki and I shipped out 30 boxes of work to customers, literally all over the world. I think that was the biggest shipment of stuff I've ever done in one day.  It was very satisfying, and I was home by 5:30.  I immediately headed for the fridge, and drank down a beer, realizing as I was gulping that I never got around to eating lunch.  I'm the type of girl who doesn't mind beer on an empty stomach, so I kept drinking.

Then, I sat down at my computer, and I see I've got my "weekly Yelp updates" in the inbox.  A long time ago, someone yelped me after visiting my studio, and yes, yelped is a word.  It's an adverb.  It was a very nice review, but it encouraged a few other yelpers to yelp me too.  Again, always nice reviews, but there is something about getting yelped that makes me slightly uncomfortable.  Generally, I don't know who these people are, and it makes me feel weird that I'm having what I think is an innocuous interaction with someone, while they are mentally evaluating me so they can go home and review me.  Yeah, I know they are reviewing my work, but make no mistake, my work is me, so I end up feeling strangely exposed and defenseless.

So, Yelp emails me once a week with updates and stuff, and I always delete it because I don't care about Yelp.  But last night, for reasons I wish I could take back, I click on it, and I realize my 5-star rating is now 4 1/2stars.  How did that happen?  Notice, I just said I don't care about Yelp, but now I'm all bothered about my star rating.  There are not many places in the world where I am publicly rated with 5 stars, and frankly, if I have 5 stars somewhere, I want to keep it that way.  So, half drunk and now curious-- bad combo, we all know this-- I go and check out my yelp reviews, and sure enough, some... person gave me a 3-star rating:

"Adorable stuff. Unique and really nice muted colors.  But really.  $70 for a single cupcake stand?  I could buy a year's worth of cupcakes for that price."

                           

Oh, snark!  I am immediately engulfed in a mix of emotions, none of which resemble the happiness and contented feeling of accomplishment I was just basking in.  Apparently, it's okay to spend $70 on a year's worth of cupcakes, but not on a piece of handmade pottery which will last for many years.   I wish someone had sent me that memo when I decided to dedicate my career to making pottery.

Adding to my indignation is the fact my star rating was knocked down by someone who calls my work "stuff."  And doesn't know the difference between a cake stand and a cupcake stand, a hanging offense in my teeny-tiny bubble of a world.  Because I assure you, my cupcake stands are not $70.  My cake stands start at $70.  And if my cupcake stands were $70, they would be totally more rocking and  amazing than they already are, and worth every fucking penny.

Speaking of worth every fucking penny, I will be shilling my "stuff" at the Holiday Renegade this weekend.  I have no idea where my booth is because I've been to busy to open that email, but I will be there.  And if you come up to me and say, "You're worth every fucking penny" I will give you a 10% discount on cupcake stands.  And if you are too shy to say "fuck" you can say "damn" or "freaking" or even "pretty."

what I really wanted to say

You have a message From randomblogger on Etsy.

---
Subject: Blog Review

Hi! I am a stay at home mom and I have a blog that I frequently update at called RandomBlog. My blog has over 800 followers and a Google page rank of 3. I do a feature on my blog called the “Etsy Shops I Love”. I just found your shop, and I was wondering if you would be interested in sending me one of your adorable products, and then I will post pictures and a review of it on my blog. I can also do a giveaway of your work! I'm sure you would get some new business from it!! Please let me know if you are interested and what information you would need from me.
Thank you!!!

RandomBlogger

I get these emails on a semi-regular basis. I don't know why, but they are mostly from women who have blogs dedicated to raising children in aesthetically pleasing environments. Somebody, tell me why this is. And don't tell me it's because these are former corporate sharks who gave it up to be a stay at home mom, and now they're broke and want free cupcake stands.

Mostly, I ignore these emails, because it seems to me a transparent trolling for free stuff. Bloggers who have opinions that actually matter-- and by that I mean bloggers who can write about someone and that someone will immediately be slammed by overwhelming business-- not only never ask for free product, they will usually not accept it if you offer it up. I know of one exception, and I would love to write about this person, but since he did not try to hit me up for free pottery but a good friend of mine, I have to hold back.

This last email I received was particularly annoying to me, which is no big deal since I get annoyed very easily. And all the time. Perhaps, I should do more yoga, or stop drinking so much coffee. If I have a minute I want to burn, I will take a quick peek at the blog just to see what I'm dealing with. This particular Randomblogger gathers followers by offering giveaways to people who become a follower and post a comment. I guess the majority of followers are people who want free stuff. Not my demographic. Most posts had zero comments. Not surprising, because the posts were in depth discourse about family trips, baby milestones, and free-ranging opinions regarding the pluses and minuses of stuff that I don't care about. Which is fine, bloggers are free to write about whatever they want, but don't use your blog with a google pageRank of 3-- which is not very good-- as a quid pro quo.

This email itched at me. I think it's unethical to ask for free stuff that you will then write a "review" on. It's intrinsically biased, and I would not be very happy at all if I discovered a blogger I liked to read for opinion and recommendations were going around asking for free product from the people they were giving glowing reviews to. I really wanted to nail this person with a scathing email, but then I realized I was losing my mind again over something stupid. But I had to say something. I managed to write back a non-scathing email that I saved for all future trollings:

Dear RandomBlogger,

Thank you for your email. As a policy, I never give away my artwork in exchange for a review, a blog write-up, or as a giveaway. Bloggers write about my work all the time because they want to spread the word to their readers and support what I do for a living. I have found that giving away my work does not generate meaningful business. Thank you for thinking of me and good luck with your blog.

Whitney

I did not hear back, thanking me for my subtle slap in the face. And my blog has a pageRank of 4.