more, better, faster

Potters are generally people who like to get things done. When you're on the wheel, you can whip off cup after cup, bowl after bowl in a matter of minutes. When you get good at making pottery, it's easy to be productive, and we like to be productive. To be a successful potter, it's all about production, which comes down to this: more, better, faster.

When I first started creating the new body of work I'm into now, it forced me to slow down because I didn't know what I was doing. The technique and approach meant that making one piece could take a half day or more, which short-circuited my production-oriented mind. But I did what I always do, what all potters do, which is problem solve and figure out better ways of doing things so I could move faster through the process and make more work. This is all well and good, since getting bogged down in a slow, labor intensive and repetitve process is torture. Unless you like that kind of thing. And if you do, you are likely not a potter.

I've come up with two different collections that I can make relatively easily and don't have a lot of things that can go wrong, which makes it ideal for wholesale. I haven't done a push for wholesale accounts in years, because I've managed to sell my work on my own without having to mark it down to wholesale prices. But sales are still slow, so I feel like I need to get more work out there through wholesale.

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know I do not like wholesale. I have to come up with a price that's low enough for retailers to be able to double the price and still be able to sell the piece, which just puts any maker into kind of a bad spot. Because then I have to sell the piece for that same price, I can't undercut my retailers. It's a very uncomfortable balancing act. And I wonder is it's even worth it-- it's not like the retailers are banging the door down anyway. Would it be better to just give a lower price to my own customers and forget wholesale completely, once and for all? I would rather have one good customer of my own over any single wholesale account any day.

But then the question is, how much can you lower your price before you start undermining the value of your own work? I think having a lot of wholesale accounts can erode a pottery business' finances because you're doing all of the work for half the pay, but there is the fact that they are marketing your work at a certain price point, creating an expectation of what your work will cost. Does that balance out the cost to the business?

A lot of questions today, and not a lot of answers. I'd love to know what you think. Go ahead, tell me what to do!

managing details

I got an email the other day asking how I schedule my work week, break down my days between home, studio time, bookwork, social media, administration, and everything else in my life. This is a question I get all the time, and I always skim over it because it's a really long answer, and it's not an easy answer. I promised this person I would write a blog post about it so I can give my answer once and for all, which I did, and the post is so long that you may find yourself skimming over my answer.

So I'm breaking it down into parts and fleshing it out in detail, which I hope will help some of you who are struggling with scheduling your days around your creative business.  I will publish all the parts over the next couple of weeks and tag it with "questions answered" so you can easily read through all the posts. This part is my basic philosophy of how I approach my work every day.

The main problem with running your own business is getting overwhelmed with the details. The details are relentless and constant, and someone who is trying to be diligent will attempt to address every detail with a daily to-do list that never gets done. And it doesn't get done because trust me, too much stuff gets put on that list to begin with. There is only so much time in a day to cope with the details that shore up your business, and there is absolutely no way to do everything that needs to be done every day. There just isn't. So if you are feeling like a failure because you don't get your list ticked through every day, stop it. You're not failing, you just have too much stuff on there.

A business is like a ship, and the ship will sail even if it's not perfectly tuned up. It just needs to float, it must be able to move through the water, it must avoid hidden icebergs and shoals, and it must be regularly maintained so it doesn't sink. Yes, we want it to have pretty sails and scrubbed decks and a fresh coat of paint and a completely sober captain, but we can't do all of that every day. Keep that in mind as you write up your daily to-do.

I keep things manageable by systematically addressing the details every work day. Almost 100% of this is on the computer, so I get it out of the way first thing in the morning. I allow at least an hour and up to 4 hours for this part, and it will fluctuate depending on what's on the agenda. It will usually be in the 1-2 hour range, and the longer days happen when I need to deal with more deep maintenance items like marketing.

You've heard that prioritizing is important. The best way for me to mess up my day is to treat everything equally and just dive in willy-nilly. You. Must. Prioritize. It comes down to defining what is urgent, what is important, and what can be held over for another day. Knowing how to prioritize is a skill that is learned by practicing, it doesn't come naturally to most of us, and we usually have to put ourselves in a pickle any number of times before we figure it out. Every time you have a complete breakdown because you got overwhelmed is another tick on your learning curve.

The way I prioritize is before I turn on the computer, I make my list. It doesn't have to be in order. I can put a number by items to order them, or star the them to alert me to their importance.

The things that are the hardest and are nagging me the most are usually the most important, and I deal with those things first, such as a communicating with  an unhappy customer or printing out tags for items that will ship that day. Next I deal with details that come up every day, like social media postings and answering email. Then I look at irregular details that pop up like ordering supplies, updating my website, writing my newsletter, or paying bills. The goal is to avoid having to bail water out of my ship, which would be things like poor communication, missing deadlines, or making mistakes because I let things get away from me and I am now in a hurry.

Obviously the thing that can really trip you up here is the distraction of the internet. My personal weakness is Instagram, cat videos,  and the many newsletters I subscribe to. I have no magic here, it takes a will of steel to resist the pull of the rabbit hole. If you managed to get through that last sentence without clicking a single link, you have the potential for a will of steel. If you clicked, you're just like the rest of us. I tend to give myself a little goof-off time before I get started on the computer, and then reward myself with a little more goof-off time at the end. 

The key is consistency, which is such a nice word and so easy to say, but it is so hard to be consistent, especially when it is only yourself to hold you accountable for your actions. And many artists types are not necessarily consistent by nature, that is what makes us artistic... right? My next post will be about developing consistency through daily routine and how you can create a workable and fun routine for yourself that will help you run your creative business. Meanwhile, if you have questions about this post, please feel free to comment below and I will answer.

what it takes

I'm going to graduate from college next year have been making pottery since I was in high school. I really love it and it is my passion. I read your post about quitting your day job and it made me think about whether or not I should try to make pottery my living. I think I am talented and I can work hard, but I'm not sure I can be successful. Do you think I should pursue my dream or should I do something more practical and keep pottery on the side? I'm sending you some pictures of my work, do you think I have what it takes?

I get this email or some variation on it a few times a year. I assume people contact me with this question because they want permission to pursue their dream, which to my mind is fundamentally at odds with having what it takes to pursue the dream. Never ask anyone, especially a stranger, if you should pursue your dream. You can ask for support, solicit advice, you can even listen to opinions, but never ask anyone for permission.

Running a pottery studio-- or any kind of art studio-- and selling work is an entrepreneurial endeavor. And this is what it takes: have some talent, work really hard, and hustle.

A lot of artists don't want to hear this because they don't want to hustle, they want to make art.

When I quit the last remnants of my day job back in 2000, I hustled by doing every single show and street fair I could while getting the name and address of every person that bought something from me so I could invite them to the next show.  That helped me build my name and a small local following. It wasn't easy because I am an introvert and it took 2 days to recover from these shows, but I knew I needed to hustle and I was willing to do it.

The hustle has changed a bit these days. The time I used to spend at shows I now spend in front of my computer, analyzing traffic and tweaking my various websites, managing sites that sell my work, posting my work to Etsy, twitter, instagram, facebook, and now (god help me) pinterest. I'm very new at pinterest so I'm reading articles about using it effectively, and I read lots of articles and even books about marketing and branding generally. I also write this blog, and a monthly newsletter, and spend days photographing my work. That's just the marketing side. The business side involves tracking all my expenses and income and analyzing what is going on there, paying all my bills, ordering supplies on a regular basis, and about 10 other things that are too boring write down here. You get the point; a Business 101 class won't kill you either.

Some people think this kind of activity is beneath an artist, and great art should sell itself somehow, or that an artist's only job should be to make work. Sorry, but only art stars get to do that. I am not an art star and the chances of any one of us becoming an art star are minuscule. Art school kids, listen up: the chances of you becoming an art star are infinitesimally tiny no matter how much you are paying for that art degree.

We have been handed a thousand mostly free tools to get ourselves and our work out into the world in the past 15 years. If artists can't see what an amazing gift this is, how more than ever we are being called to use our creativity in all of these areas that used to be left to the experts to manage for us, then I really have no words of encouragement.

The truth is, many artists don't want to put themselves out there because they fear judgement and failure. To that I say: both are absolutely going to happen. Get used to it. It will build your character and resilience, and maybe even your sense of humor.

Now get out there and hustle.

old blog posts, new thoughts

I received a new comment from another potter on an old blog post the other day that brought up some thoughts I wanted to share it with you all:

I'm still trying to figure out my message. My (blog) posts have a tendency to be all over the place. Some about pottery, some about my daily health struggles, and some just because! Do you really think that it is beneficial to narrow the point/audience of a blog, or will the "wide net" approach I've got going on work?

When I first started this blog just over 7 years ago, I knew I wanted to share my world with people, but I struggled with distilling my world into interesting blog posts.  My biggest mistake initially was thinking I had to maintain a professional facade for the sake of potential customers. Like my blog is a fancy store or I'm going to sell you an appliance or something.  I wrote about a dozen polite, very restrained, heavily edited posts that I hoped gave the impression that I was a serious artist with deep thoughts. By the way, only click on those links if you are feeling suicidal and think being bored to death might be a painless way to go (it's not).

Then, I had a terrible weekend at a bad retail show and I let loose in a blog post how I felt about it. I was completely honest about my anger, discomfort, and disappointment when I have to stand around like an idiot all weekend and people don't buy my work, or even talk to me.

That post was a lot of fun to write, and I was so scared to publish it because I was afraid of what people would think of me, complaining like that.  But I did publish it, and it was the first time I had more than one or two comments. I made the great discovery that people pay branding companies lots of money to manufacture for them: authenticity creates connection.

Authenticity is scary. Knowing who you are deeply enough to show your authentic self is work in itself, and you also have to accept that some people are not going to like you and what you have to say. And you know what? Fuck them. Not in a personal way, people aren't bad for not liking you. In a general way, fuck the people who are not into your world. The people who love your world can't wait to see what you do next, and they are the people who matter.

The question about narrowing the point/audience of a blog vs. wide net is not what needs to be considered, that's approaching it from the back end. The front end approach is  honing your point of view through writing and sharing. If you don't know what your point of view is, keep writing until you figure it out.

the re-education of whitney smith

Now that my studio re-model is done, I have been easing myself back into the studio. I have not done any serious ceramic work since the beginning of the year as I have dealt with my burnout issues. I spent at least 3 days trying to figure out what I should work on first. That was fun, arguing with myself about where to begin. Finally, realizing my inclination to make things hard so I feel like an effort is worthwhile, I decided to start with the easiest thing, which was an order for a cake stand.

I'm treating myself like someone who has been injured and has to be handled very delicately, and I'm watching every thought, every move to check for signs of burnout, boredom, disgust, and despair. As those things come up, and they do, I have to pause, and check myself:

• Am I trying to move fast when I need to move slow? (Years of production has made me hurry all the time.)
• Am I giving my process a chance to work out the problems of this piece? (Sometimes my lack of patience makes me give up quickly when I  think something isn't working.)
• Am I following my impulse with the direction I want to follow with the piece or am I trying to force an outcome? (This is all about trusting my instincts as an artist.)
• Am I deciding how this piece will be accepted or not accepted in the world before I've even had a chance to finish it? (I compare this to parents who have decided what their children are going to be when they grow up.)
• Am I staying present with what I'm working on, or am I drifting off into thoughts about the past, the future, or just not paying attention at all? (Hello bad habits.)

Asking myself these questions helps me adjust my pace, attitude, and internal dialogue. It takes discipline and patience to stay on top of myself like this, like trying to teach a child. An angry, drunken child. It's the re-education of Whitney Smith. I have this little sign on my studio wall, courtesy of rae dunn, which are serving as my current watchwords:

dirty valentine money

Sometimes I wonder if just because I can sell something, if that means it's worth making.  I ran smack  into this recently as I pondered Valentine's Day.  Every year I think about scraping off some of that Valentine market, because it's a huge market.   Did you know that Valentine's Day is one of the major retail holidays, a billion dollar industry?  And I'm not talking 1 or 2 billion, I mean billions and billions. I want some of that action, but my head is usually still spinning from the Christmas holiday, and by the time I remember Valentine's Day, it's already February. Too late.

And I've been okay with missing out, because I'm conflicted about Valentine's Day.  I love the sentiment of Valentine's Day, but it's nothing but a vehicle for selling stuff.  The  idea of taking a moment to recognize the  love in our lives has been buried under a mountain of bad chocolate, half-dead roses, and stuffed bears made out of non-flammable nylon.  How do you make nylon non-flammable? I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure the process has killed a few rivers in China.  That's not Valentine's Day fault, I'm just saying, there are things that should always be able to burn no matter what.

Of course, you can easily say the same thing about Christmas, and I have no compunctions whatsoever about participating in the Christmas sell-a-thon.  So, this year I went ahead and put a bright red heart on a white bird cupcake stand, called it the "lovebird cupcake stand" and put it out there.   I've been feeling totally dirty about it, and I keep asking myself "Why?"  I almost did it as an exercise to see how it would play out, to see if it was worth getting a little dirty for some extra money.

Before I deliver the punch line, here's my little story about my Valentine's Day disillusionment. When I was in my early 20's, my boyfriend at the time brought me a Valentine gift that was totally forced because I made a big deal out of being recognized as the love of his life on this particular day.  The year before, when we were a fresh couple, his Valentine's Day gift was unexpected and spontaneous, showing a real sensitivity and thoughtfulness.   Now, our relationship was on the rocks so this was the perfect way for me to act out and manipulate him into trying to live up to the year before.

Once the deed was done, I felt bad because the gift was merely a symbol of how shitty things were between us. And I realized that had totally bought into the marketing message of Valentine's Day, which is "Show me you love me, buy me something."  From that day on, I may have thrown a few handmade cards around here and there, but I've never really participated in Valentine's Day again.  It just cuts way too close to the heart, and I ain't letting no marketing man get that close to me.

The question I started with was, "If I can sell something, does that mean it's worth making?"  The simple straightforward answer is it depends on how much you want the money.  This Valentine's Day, I wanted the money.  That nasty, dirty, pink and red money.