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!

who's the boss?

I received this seemingly innocuous email this week:

Hello Whitney,

Please provide a tracking number for PO 666.
Currently the ETA on this PO is 4/10, which means it would had to have shipped on Tuesday to arrive in time.  We need to know the status of this order immediately.
Thank You,
Annoying Fulfillment Manager of Very Large Store

Why did this email put my teeth on edge? Potter types already know. The not-so-subtle pressure to get an order out according to a retailer's own fulfillment schedule.  And I say "their" fulfillment schedule because I never promise hard ship dates, and in this case the 4/10 arrival date is a figment of some body's imagination. I always keep fulfillment dates loose to give myself the space I need to create these wholesale orders.  When planning orders with wholesale clients, I always say, "about 3-5 weeks" or whatever the time frame is, the key word there being "about."  Also, please note the "-" which means there is a 14 day leeway.

This makes me difficult to work with, yes, and I like it that way.  It filters out the riff-raff.  Also, I have a secret weapon, and this is what it is:  I don't give a shit about getting wholesale customers, or keeping them.  It's a defense mechanism that keeps me from losing my mind with wholesale clients. Wholesale is a pain, and I only work with people who I really like and who I think respect what I do and how I do it.  The most important clients to me are my own retail customers, the people who come to me directly and pay my full retail price. They are the ones who give me 85% of my income, and who have helped me build my business into what it is today.  They are also the ones I will turn myself inside out for to get an order to them on time.

The most stressful periods of my work life have been because of difficult orders with difficult wholesale clients, and I developed PTSD-like symptoms because of my experiences with them.  So reading this email, as mild as it may seem to some of you, sets off a stress reaction that is out of proportion to the situation.  I woke up at 4 this morning, burning with resentment, remembering that this retailer has already been put on probation after they were being ridiculous about an order a few years ago.  I told them at that time I would not be filling their current order or any orders in the future, and they actually pleaded with me to re-consider and promised to straighten up, which they have until now.

These stores want to sell the best stuff they can get their hands on, and find people like me to work with so they can deliver a unique and special item to their customer, yet they can't wrap their heads around the fact that I'm not cranking out a widget in a factory. And this person is clearly under the illusion that they are my boss or something, and I'm going to respond to pressure, or rush their order, or somehow work faster.  I'm the boss. I respond negatively and even passive-aggressively to pressure, and I do not work any faster  than I am already.

Dear Annoying Fulfillment Manager,
The status on your order is the same as when I first responded to the order: it will take 3-4 weeks to make and ship immediately thereafter. At this time I expect your order to ship sometime next week.  I do not commit to hard ship dates, as you should be well aware of after working with me for 3 years. Please keep that in mind when making status inquiries in the future.
Thank you,
Whitney

cheap and easy never is

Here's some marketing advice for you, the artist who makes things to sell: dream up an item that is inexpensive and easy to make, then sit back and watch as the money rolls in.

The high-profit-margin-easy-to-make item is the holy grail of anyone who makes things, whether you do it for a living or for extra income.  But I have some sad news for you.  The successful items out there that hit the sweet spot of easy to make and inexpensive to produce typically comes from years of making stuff that is exactly the opposite. Working at cheap and easy as a marketing approach is a waste of time for artists. 

When I first started making a living off of my work back around 2000, I didn't have many pieces that were under $100.  My work was labor intensive and expensive.  So labor intensive and expensive that selling it wholesale was really not possible, though I tried to do it anyway, and quickly burned myself down to the ground try to re-create pieces that were really meant to be one-of-a-kinds.

Slowly, over a period of years, I worked on simplifying my approach to the pieces I made, both to fulfill wholesale goals and to scale back on my 60 hour week.  From design to production method, every item I made was scrutinized and modified to increase my efficiency.  Lots of pieces were dropped from my production line because there was no way to re-create them for a production market, which is about 80% of what I do.  And this brings me to the cupcake stand, which is one of my all-time bestselling items,  is easy to make, and under $50.

At the time I came up with it, around 2008, I was still wholesaling my cake stands, which were selling faster than I could make them.  This always sounds like a good problem to have, until you have it.  As a ceramic artist, it's very stressful.  To take some of the stress off, I had the stand part of the cake stand slipcast so I would only have to throw the plate instead of both the stand and the plate. The slip cast stand looks different from a wheel-thrown one because of the way the mold is made, the top is solid.  Somehow, it looked useful, but as what?

My pal,  Rae Dunn, who is a genius in coming up with hot sellers, says to me, "You should put a bird right in the center."  I was intrigued by her idea, but I couldn't quite figure out what function that item would serve .  After some fooling around I put the bird on the edge, like my larger cake stands, and it occurs to me that this is a cupcake stand, the perfect item for a bakery that I make cake stands for.  I threw a few up on the etsy,  and they sell like hotcakes. They still do.

The lesson is that I just didn't come up with the cupcake stand randomly.  It took about 3 years to get from cake stand to cupcake stand.  The cupcake stand is a distillation of a bigger idea.  So if I were to re-write the marketing advice I started out with--dream up an item that is inexpensive and easy to make, then sit back and watch as the money rolls in-- it would look something like this:

Dream up a lot of items you love to make.  Take your time making them and learn how to make them perfectly.  Sell them for as much money as you possibly can.  As you work on your pieces, think about how you can simplify the best pieces you make.  Maybe, someday, you will come up with something that resonates and lots of people can afford.  Then, watch the money roll in!

ms. smith's neighborhood

I closed the Philly show a few days ago. I try to be a good neighbor at the trade shows. To my mind, that means pretty much minding my own business and staying out of other people’s booths. A polite yet distant friendliness is what I strive for. A long weekend or week can be made even longer by an overly-talkative or worse yet, a bitter and mopey neighbor.

At the Philly show, I did pretty well on neighbors. Tabbatha Henry was a bit down the aisle from me and established herself as the ideal neighbor. She came over to chat for brief periods, offered food, made wry comments on the buyers, and didn't complain.

I have had terrible neighbors before. Once, when I was still doing the New York Gift Show, I had a neighbor on the left is that was the worst kind of neighbor, and completely unaware that he was a bad neighbor and everyone on the aisle wanted him dead. He was a manic type who seemed gregarious and outgoing at first, but it was a thinly disguised act to mask a frantic show-off. He continually popped into my booth—and I do mean “pop” in the literal sense, his energy level verged on the frenzied—and attacked me with non-sequitors:

“I’m dying for a frozen yogurt! Aren’t you?” (I detest frozen yogurt and the whole idea of it).
“Oh my god you are so cute! Do you hate it when people tell you that?” (Um. No.)
“If you’ve got it, flaunt it!” (this actually sung to me in a show-tune fashion).
“I am so obsessed with Rome!” (a cable TV series I’ve never seen).
“I wish I were selling my pants! Everyone keeps asking me about them!” This on the first day, when he was wearing a pair of vintage houndstooth pants, very Yves Saint Laurent circa 1972. With a pink top and a pink tie.

Add to this picture a high voice that carried, a selling pitch that didn’t vary, a southern accent (fake?), frequent cell phone calls that included frenetic pacing back and forth in front of my booth, and you have someone who is amusing to write about, but torture to experience in real life. He also walked the aisle like he was participating in a fashion show and he was on the catwalk, complete with tiny little hips. I don't like to use the word "hate" because it's such a strong word and he was really not worthy of my hate. But I hated the little bitch. And I know he hated me too, though he addressed me as "my friend", as in "Well, my friend, you're having a good day!" Of course I was having a less than good day, but my friend didn't really care about that.

The trade shows are just tough places to be. You're stuck in a 10' x 10' space for about 8 hours a day, and you have to always ready to be friendly and chat up the customers. This last show was especially tough, as there were very few buyers who attended, and I found myself gazing off into space for long periods of time. It helps to be able to chat with the people around you, but you can find yourself chatting with people who are just taking your energy and attention. Which is why I tend to keep to myself.

Anyway dear readers, I just wanted to check in and let you know I survived the show, and I can't wait to get back into the studio and back to work!

making the mold

This weekend I jumped on my cruiser bicycle and pedaled over to Diana Fayt's San Francisco studio for a tutorial on making molds. Now, I have my man Hector at the factory who makes my molds and produces my bisqueware for wholesale, and he is my true ace in the hole when it comes to running my business. But the problem with producing at that level is the cost. When I decide on adding an item to my wholesale line, it's a big investment. Sometimes, that item may not end up selling so well, but I feel tethered to keep selling it because I dumped a bunch of dough into getting it produced. Or, I might have a great idea for an item, but if I feel it will only sell for a short time because it's trendy or seasonal, then I don't see the value in spending the money on getting production up and running on it. These two issues are things that make me feel a bit stale at times.

I've been considering this problem for a while, and the recession makes this issue even more front and center for me. If I don't want to get outflanked by this economy, I have to sharpen my reflexes and be quick to respond to what is happening. Big, cumbersome money investments into new designs and pieces feels like exactly the wrong thing to do at this moment, but sitting around and making the best of what I have seems slow and plodding. I've been obsessed for the past 3 or 4 months with the idea of making my own molds for items and slip casting them myself. That way I can test out new designs, see how they sell, and if they do great, then I can have Hector take over. If they don't, I'm not all tied down to it because the only thing I've invested is some time. Time is money, of course, but I'm finding that right now I have a little bit more of it because of the overall slowdown in business. And I'm convinced that having some mold making skills will push my work to a new and different level.

Diana knows how to make molds, so she very kindly invited me to her studio to give me a lesson. We spent all afternoon, and a bottle of wine, working on a mold for a new item that I'm in love with right now, but there is no way I can produce each one solely by hand. It makes my neck hurt just thinking about it. I found that mold making really appeals to me. You have to plan ahead, think about how it's all going to come together, and be precise. And the other great thing is that knowing I'm working on acquiring this new skill stimulates other ideas in my brain for items I can make. I used to make such labor-intensive work, which I pretty much gave up on because the effort became overwhelming. But now I can think more about making that one crazy, labor-intensive piece, and then just make my mold for it. I just can't wait to cast the first one!

another rule of wholesale

Right now things are so hopping at the studio, one of my two kilns are always firing. I'm so glad my power bill is on auto-pay so I don't have to see how much energy I'm using. Can I just say that any ceramicist who says they are "green" is full of shit? Okay, got that off my chest. Back to the subject at hand. Things are hopping not only because I have a lot of wholesale orders, but I overbooked my orders and so we are behind. Not too bad, but still lagging.

For years with wholesale, I would pretty much wing it: I would take whatever orders came and try to space them out so I didn't get too bunched up. But when I hit Philadelphia the last time I decided to get a system. I sat down and tried to figure out how much pottery I could pump out in a week. I figured I could do $2000 a week, and I booked the time accordingly. I printed out a little calendar, and every time I took an order I would put the total on that week. When the total reached $2000-- more or less-- I would move on to the next week. Great system, if you know your limits, which I clearly do not. As it turns out, I overestimated just a teeny, tiny bit. I'm seeing the result right now. Late orders.

I try as hard as I can to intimidate my wholesale buyers so they won't bother me with pesky questions like, "where is my order?" and I have caller ID to screen out those calls. But still, it's kind of a drag to be late. Mostly because I have a strong desire to be organized and efficient, and when orders are running late I feel twinges of failure and guilt.

If you want to tackle the beast that is wholesale, you must be organized and realistic about how much you can create in a given amount of time. Us artistic types always think we can do more than is humanly possible; that's just a given. Know that this is true for you also, and when you consider what you can make in a week, cut it in half. Just do it! Because when you think about all the extra stuff that comes up, not to mention the days when you simply can't make anything, cutting your expectations in half is a kindness to yourself, and to those pesky wholesale buyers.

more rules of wholesale

A question I get a lot concerns the cost of the wholesale trade shows. The cost is unbelievable. New York Gift usually ran about $4,000 (and that with couch surfing and cooking at home), Philadelphia a bit less. The ACRE show I almost did at the end of this month was significantly less, but still a new and therefore unproven show, so even the relatively low cost can be money down the drain if they can't get the buyers in. ACC is in between ACRE and Philly, but sales can be very rough at those shows. When you figure in the cost of the trade shows with the profit margins on your wholesale items, it can leave a girl asking, "don't you mean profit loss margin?" Sometimes I think I could make more money in Vegas playing blackjack. Drunk.

I seriously question whether trade shows are the way to go anymore, considering the access retailers have to artists through online venues like etsy, trunkt, wholesalecrafts.com (to name just a few), and the endless "design" blogs. The only question is how do you access retailers if you want to wholesale but aren't ready to gamble baby's college education fund away yet?

Second rule of wholesale: You must invest into marketing your wholesale items if you expect to take wholesale orders. As artists, marketing can be a word we want to pull away from. But marketing can be fun and there are so many ways to approach it that you don't have to turn it into a dreaded chore. But marketing means time, and it means money. And what does marketing mean in this context? Here is my short list of must-have and must-do for artists marketing wholesale:

1) A clear and concise one-sheet with prices and terms.

2) A catalog with images of your work. Don't flip out when I say "catalog" and get all scared you can't afford it. A catalog can be a simple color sheet with thumbnails of your work-- that's what I have, and you can get 250 printed up at PS print for just over $200, and that number lasts me almost a full year, even giving them out to some of my retail customers. A friend of mine prints up her catalog on 4x6 color postcards, with 8 images per card. That way she can add cards as her line expands without having to print up a brand-new thing every season. Very clever. Don't put your prices on there because then you can't use it for retail customers OR raise your prices while you still have that sheet. And you always want to be able to raise your prices!

3) Create a place online where retailers can access your work and see images. A blog, etsy, and a website are becoming mandatory for people selling their art. I don't think you need all three, but you do need at least one. Make sure these things advertise the fact that you wholesale. For those who simply cannot handle navigating a website yet, I highly recommend using etsy as a launch pad and using their community forums to ask other artists how they are handling website stuff.

4) Wholesale begets more wholesale. Go out and get that first wholesale account, and there is no better place than somewhere in your hometown. Find the perfect store for your work, one that carries handmade work (there is a huge difference between stores that carry imports or factory made work and one that carries American handmade), and pitch them. Retailers need you just as badly as you need them-- they can't stay open if they can't find cool stuff to sell, and they probably don't know you exist! Show them who you are.

5) Read those design blogs and research the stores they cover. I will often send out catalogs to stores I think should carry my work-- or I used to anyway, before I got totally sick of wholesaling. That brought in a few accounts and cost me hardly anything.

There is always the option of hiring a rep too, but if you are considering that you should already be well into the wholesale game. A rep takes 15%, so you need to be able to produce a lot in a short amount of time to make up for their take. Speaking of making a lot in a short amount of time, I'm off to the studio now!

the rules of wholesale: part 1

Many ceramic artists face the dilemma or whether or not to wholesale. In some ways, it seems that getting your goods into a store is the goal. It's exposure, it's validation. When I did my first ACC wholesale show in Baltimore back in 2001, I couldn't imagine anything more exciting than having a store carry my work. But I didn't have a clue what I was getting myself into. My work back then was incredibly labor intensive and unique. I knew how to throw in a production schedule, but the finishing work was impossible to fit into a production mode without losing my mind from the repetition. But I didn't know this yet. I went to the show, was happy to come home with $5,000 worth of orders, and promptly burned myself down to a tiny little crisp in the following months as I filled the orders. I quickly realized my precious pots, priced to move, weren't going to begin to compensate me for the amount of time I was putting into creating them, nor would they cover my costs at the loony bin where my husband was threatening to send me.

First rule of wholesale: never wholesale anything you can't reproduce quickly and consistently. If you love making your labored artworks, believe me: the joy will be sapped right out of it when you are forced to make them over and over again at the rate of about $3 an hour. Consistency is also very important. If you are making work in a production mode, your studio will get overwhelmed with seconds if you cannot make a consistent product. I'm sorry to call your artwork a product, but if you are wholesaling, that's what it is.

So, where do you start with the fast and the easy when your work is neither? My hang up for a long time is that I did not want to work with molds or any other kind of reproduction method. I thought it zapped the magic out of my work. And there is some truth to that idea; the hand infuses an energy into your work that simply cannot be replicated by anything other than a human. At the same time, your idea also contains magic, and challenging your brain to figure out how to get that idea onto 200 pots in one week-- as opposed to 6 months-- also creates its own magic.

To answer the question for myself I created my Seed & Pod line alongside my more intense Flower line. It was simple to throw, easy to finish. And I loved giving myself something else to work on that reflected a different style. When I jumped back into serious wholesale again in 2006, I only took my Seed & Pod line. Simple, easy. In time the orders jumped over what I could realistically make by hand, and that's where Hector came in. Hector makes molds from all of my the work I want to wholesale. Over the past two years I've even been able to add my best-selling items from the Flower line and have them molded to expand my line and keep it interesting.

So if you are thinking about wholesale, you really have to answer "yes" to these two questions of efficiency and consistency. If you're saying "yeeeees", kind of slowly, or "most of the time", or "I don't mind working 60 hours a week!" then you are not ready for wholesale on a large scale yet. And by large scale I mean 50% or more of your income.

How you get to efficiency and consistency is up to you. I say listen to everyone, and listen to no one. The way I do it works for me, but it's not the answer. I've cobbled together my solution over the years by following only what I am comfortable with. I look at some people's work who want to wholesale and I think, "You make a mold of that bowl, a decal of that design, and you are good to go". But that person may not like decals. Or molds. They may need to come up with a new design that echoes the original idea so they don't feel they have to sacrifice some aspect of originality. Or they may just have to totally burn themselves out to realize molds and decals ain't so bad.

I am going to continue to write on this subject of wholesale, so if there is a particular aspect that you would like to have addressed, please email me or post a comment.

resolved

Remember back in January when I said I thought making resolutions in the deepest depths of winter was ridiculous, and it should be saved for the first day of spring when one may actually feel motivated to make some changes? Well guess what people? The Vernal Equinox is upon us in two days!

I have several resolutions. The first one is to start posting ceramic websites and blogs of people beside my immediate circle of friends. I've been very non-reciprocal in that area. I recently put a site meter on my blog to monitor how many people actually read this thing, and was surprised to learn how many beautiful fantastic awesome people have me bookmarked, and how many people come to me through other blogs websites. I found some very cool artists whose work I'd never seen before, and I thought I knew everybody. Well, apparently I do not, and god knows what else I'm missing. So if you are a ceramic person, please put your blog and/or website in my comments or email them to me and I will post it.

Second resolution is to start working my retail angle a lot harder. Last week I was all bunged up because I was considering doing the Las Vegas wholesale craft show (a relatively new show on the wholesale circuit) with Rae Dunn and a couple of other people. In the end, we couldn't pull it together and I found I was relieved. Why? Because I hate frickin' wholesale. I've started shipping my spring orders and these collections I send off are so beautiful. I mean really, it makes a momma proud. But I'm sending these babies off for less than half of what I could sell it for out of my studio or on Etsy. And that kinda hurts. Could I sell it all off myself for retail is the question.

Someone asked me a few weeks ago about how I developed my wholesale. I've been thinking a lot about that question because I want to answer it in an intelligent way that is helpful to people. I'm not going to do that right now other than to say I never wanted to do wholesale, but the retail shows were drying up in the sales department and I needed to do something to keep things going, hence the New York Gift show and Philadelphia Rosen. But if you read those posts you know I never come back all happy and stoked, I come back feeling depressed and used.

So my resolution now is to take that dough I was going to pour into Las Vegas and pour it into my marketing instead. I just uploaded a new website-- check it out-- and I'm going to take out some online ads and push etsy as hard as I can. Now the question is, what is your spring resolution?

big brother don't lie

One of my oldest friends in California is JT. I moved in next door to him in Santa Cruz when I was 18 and renting my first apartment. We became fast friends because we had a mutual love for beer, the beach, and bbq pork burritos. JT is one of the few people who I know for sure reads every blog posting I write, and complains when I haven't posted. I went to go visit him last weekend in Santa Cruz and he told me my blog has lately been "really boring!"

JT is like the older brother I wish I had but never did, so when he says something like that he could be messing with my head-- because that's what big brothers like to do-- or he could be telling me the truth. I quickly scanned some recent posts and I admit there is a lot of whining and feeling a bit sorry for myself. I think it's fascinating stuff, but it's possible others are not as entertained. I started to write a post the other day titled, "Collapsing under the weight of 1,000 fucked-up cake plates", but decided to stop myself from continuing the theme after talking to JT. It's possible that even I am getting bored with whining.

Today was the first day in a long time-- I'm talking months-- that I got to make some stuff that was not directly related to my wholesale business. The plan that's been in the works for a while is that Sara will deal with wholesale and I will make Art capital A. And receive visitors into my kingdom while eating bon-bons and getting a shoulder massage. And also, getting fanned with palm fronds by the palace slaves-- I mean interns.

So today I fooled around with my porcelain and here is some of what I made:
I threw away most of what came out today, but at least it wasn't boring!

back to reality

Have I mentioned lately how hard it is to be me? These trade shows can be really taxing. One of the things I find most difficult is coming home, back to reality. Not that I don't want to be home-- I do. But I have found over the past several years that when I come back after my trips, my groove is way off. I suppose it's normal, but knowing that I fall into the category of normal doesn't make it any easier. Part of the problem is that I extend these business trips back east because I have a lot of friends I want to catch up with, along with some important family members. So I can be gone for two to three weeks, which is just a long time to be away. And frankly, while these trade shows are worth it for my business, I have yet to have a super-successful wholesale show where I feel elated afterwards. You know when you have a really awesome show and you feel all the love from your clients and you can't wait to get back to the studio and make some new stuff? Well, a middling show like the one I just had in Philly generates, like, the opposite reaction in me.

I'm not looking for sympathy, but I do want to whine a bit. I can't help but question sometimes if I'm doing what I should be doing in my life. Maybe I need to completely ditch wholesale or maybe I need to invest more money into it; maybe I need to put all of my energy into creating a new line or maybe I just need to get pregnant and make sculpture. I must be totally warped to think that sounds easier right now. I did ask my husband recently if he would support me for a year if I closed my studio and wrote a novel. His answer was "yes", as long as I did all the cooking and cleaning. That sounded really great for about five minutes until I started thinking about the torture I go through as a writer. A year? Try two or three, darlin' . I mean, that's a real hell right there. Pottery hell is a goddamn picnic in fantasyland compared to writer's hell. But I have that ticket in my back pocket if I ever need it. And today it's burning a tiny little whole in my pants.

exhale...

Yesterday was the close of the Philadelphia Rosen show, and with the help of my best friend from high school, Melissa, we shut that baby down and escaped in exactly an hour after close and bolted to the nearest bar where we could get fancy girl drinks and food. And catch up. I only have the privilege of seeing Missy about once a year, if that.

So I know you all are dying for a report on the show. I'll start by saying I have no regrets, but it was a bit disappointing. I took enough orders to make it worth it and met some people who could become amazing clients, but I was hoping for more. I guess I always am.

And it was just a long haul. My first task upon flying to JFK was to get my booth tables and displays out of storage from my friend's place in New Jersey, where they have been sitting since I last did the New York Gift shows, and transport them to Philadelphia. Renting a car one-way was unbelievably expensive, so I figured out a way to take the train with all my stuff. I want you to picture this for a moment: Short girl (me) pushing along a large baby blue hard luggage case (nicknamed "the vending machine" by my husband) stuffed to the gills with clothing, shoes, and pottery; also dragging a luggage rack strapped with 2 six-foot folding tables and wood display boxes, track lighting, a very delicate set of posters rolled up in a cardboard tube, and finally an extremely heavy computer bag slung over my shoulders, rolling through the train terminal. I looked absolutely ridiculous. I looked like a Sherpa, except Sherpas are way cooler. A red cap helped escort me and my baggage to check-in, and as we were walking along he gave me a sidelong glance and asked, “Are these all display units?” “Yup,” I said. “Your boss should be shot for sending you out with all of this stuff” he said. I gave him my biggest smile, “You’re looking right at her”.

Linda, of Little Flower Designs, was on hand at the 30th Street Station in Philly to transport me and my stuff to the Penn Convention Center nearby. We arrived at my booth where the rest of my pottery was already waiting, having been freighted through with Exhibitor Services the previous week. We set up the curtains, tables, and displays, then cracked open my bins to start unloading my pots. I noticed right away something was broken, and I was like, "Hmmm... darn". Coincidentally, or maybe not, it was the infamous leaf platter, and the thought ran through my head that maybe that piece is cursed. As I started going through the bin, I saw that actually a few things were broken. And then Linda said, "Um, there is some broken stuff in here, too". My heart started dropping as we unloaded more, and the extent of the damage became clear: None of my four dogwood cake stands had survived, along with many items that had been chipped, squashed, and completely pulverized. And when I say pulverized, I mean some of the shards were powder. In the end I lost fully two bins of work. I spent thousands of dollars to be at this wholesale show, and I didn't have some of my best samples.

I have shipped a lot of work to a lot of shows, and this had never happened to me before. It took every ounce of of me to decide right at that moment that what was done, was done. The pots were broken and there was no way to get them back. I had to live with it with full acceptance. I called Exhibitor Services and we had a discussion about the damage to my pottery, and then Linda and I finished setting up, putting aside the pots that could be repaired with glue, and she drove me out to where I was staying with a friend's mother. The next day I brought back what I managed to fix, bought a bunch of flowers to artfully disguise the cracks and chips, and in the end I don't think my sales were impacted at all by the loss of some of my samples. I will post some pictures of the booth when I get home in five more days.

I wanted to share this experience with you because I think that it is important to recognize that we choose how to react to situations of adversity. I think most people would have freaked out in this situation and that would have been a perfectly normal and understandable reaction. But, freaking out drains my energy and puts me in a negative space of helplessness and rage, and I think that's true for most people. I fail at this practice of acceptance all the time, but I also have successes. My husband, Andrew, is a fabulous role model for this behavior and I have learned so much from him in the past 14 years. I think it's important for me to role model this for other people whenever possible because anybody can learn how to deal with hardship in a mode of acceptance. Now these are broken pots, right? Not an organ transplant or a broken back, so I don't want anyone to think I'm up on a high horse and babbling about how we must accept what is. I have a very wonderful life and I must say that broken pots are among the worst things that happen to me in an average week, but I know that this is not true for many people. I hope I can help people with the everyday injustices and bullshit... that's all.

what's next

My poor neglected blog. I don't want anyone to think I've given up on blogging-- far from it-- but there is so much happening right now I'm having a difficult time figuring out what to write about. I don't want to be tedious or boring about the cascade of details I'm having to cope with at the moment.

Basically, I'm getting ready for the Buyer's Market of America trade show in Philadelphia. This is the show I was wavering about going to last fall, but after speaking with the director of the show I realized I've simply invested too much money in my wholesale business in the past two years to just drop it. I've been working to adjust my attitude about... everything. Meditation and yoga have been helping me to cope with my usual demons of fear, anxiety, and sleeplessness.

The biggest obstacle I'm facing at the moment is new items for wholesale. I made the pledge to myself to only wholesale items that have been made into molds. That way I can avoid being chained to my wheel throwing batches of 100 pods, 100 vases, etc etc. Did I ever tell the story about the first time I went to the New York Gift show, took all my orders, went home and threw everything on the wheel? I had blood blisters on the tips of my fingers from throwing so much. I'm willing to suffer for my art as much as the next artist but I draw the line at literally putting my blood into the work.

Getting back to new items: I want to add my poppy bowl, poppy plate, and three sizes of cake plates. Those cake plates... I feel like that's all I've been throwing for the past 6 months. The poppy bowl, everyone just loves them but I don't really make them anymore. And the poppy plate is another crowd favorite, but for the past two years I can't make one without it cracking. This used to never be a problem, I made them for years, but I had to stop making them because they never come out anymore.

Talking to Hector about the cost of making these molds was a little scary. A well-made mold is so dang expensive. I could possibly train Sara to throw some of it, i.e. the cake stands, but then I'd have to buy another wheel... I could just commit one day a week to making wholesale items... but I know that's not what I want to do with my time... Trying to balance everything is difficult. I'm optimistic about the growth of my business but I also have to be realistic about how much debt I want to carry. It's hard to feel successful when all your profits go straight to the bank! But I'm grateful to be wrestling with my business rather than dreading getting up and going to work for someone else tomorrow morning

strategies & plans

I brush all the glazes onto my work, and that’s part of how I get such beautiful and smooth finishes. Most of my glazes take 5 coats. It’s a tedious and time-consuming job, and nobody in their right mind does it that way. I’ve been doing it for 15 years. When I hired Sara I knew she would question my brushing method, and after a few months, she did. She doesn’t like to mess around with stupid stuff. It’s actually a relief to have someone pushing you to do things differently sometimes. I really hate the way I glaze but I’m too lazy and stubborn to try a different way. We mixed up enough glaze to fill 5 gallon buckets, and Sara started testing. To my relief it hasn’t been a big deal so far. Most of the glazes have taken to it pretty well and it cuts our glaze time in half if not more.

Meanwhile I’ve been pondering what’s next. Vanessa from Miette came in today to order a ton of stuff for their stores and within an hour of her departure I was buzzing away on the wheel, working on her order. I was thinking about the Philadelphia Rosen show, a wholesale show in Philadelphia which I applied and was accepted to. It will be a better fit for me than New York because everything has to be handmade in the States and it caters to more of a gallery crowd. But… I don’t really want to go. I’m not that crazy about marketing myself to wholesale buyers. It’s only been the last couple of years that I started doing primarily wholesale, and I don’t love it. I’ve gotten by for years without it, but I also did more retail shows to support myself. Well, I’ve dropped almost all of my retail shows because they suck so much, so something has to replace that. This Christmas season will be the first ever where I haven’t scheduled a show.

I’m totally on the fence, an irritating place to be. On one hand, I feel I should go, get myself out there in the world, connect with certain buyers and the magazine editors and writers who go to those things. And keep the money coming in if nothing else. On the other hand when I think of all the $350 orders for funky little galleries and gift shops that I'll have to fill – places that will never order again—I get bored just thinking about it. I kind of want to steer myself away from things that bore me. Stress and anger usually follow boredom very quickly in my life. Unfortunately nobody can really tell me what I should do. I keep looking at the unsigned Rosen contract and wonder if that’s a little red flag I see waving there at me.

what is an artist?

Back in California, home again. It was so cold the day I left New York City that my plane sat on the runway for almost an hour as they tried to defrost the water tank. In the end, we were told we could flush the toilets, but there wasn't enough water for everyone to wash their hands and we should use the soap that you don't need water for. OR they could cancel the flight. A minor riot started at that suggestion and everyone agreed that washing hands with water was not necessary. Six hours later, in Oakland, Drew drove me home from the airport with the windows rolled down at 10 pm. The flowers on the plum trees in our neighborhood are starting to bud, an event I look forward to every February. As much I love and adore New York City, three weeks is clearly too long to be away from the Bay Area.

As I unpack my bags, check on the studio, organize my orders, I've been asking myself some serious questions about the direction my career has taken in the last year. It's been a year since I started doing the Gift show, I've shown up three times, and I wonder if I belong there. While it's been an exciting challenge to be in a world marketplace and compete on that level, I don't feel like it's much of a creative challenge. It doesn't make me a better artist, and for the first time at this last show, I didn't feel like an artist. I took more orders on the first day than I did the whole week at the August show, and instead of feeling excited and happy, I just felt sort of doomed. I definitely noticed how crappy I felt because usually when I sell a lot of my work, I want to drink a bunch of wine, have a great dinner with friends, and I can't wait to get back to the studio and make new work. But all I felt was an overwhelming sense of dread.

I think the bottom line is that when I'm at the Gift show, I'm representing this line of product that is made under the label of "Whitney Smith Pottery". Most people passing by or stopping in my booth don't identify me as "Whitney Smith" or understand that what they are looking at is something I make with my hands. My pottery is nothing more than merchandise-- albeit beautiful merch, but nothing more than that. I don't have to let that bother me. In fact I can just laugh my way all the way to the bank. Problem is, I started making pottery so I would have an outlet to create something that would please me, and always challenge me to do better and be the most amazing artist I could possibly be.

So then the next question is, can I do both? I look back at the last year and I have to say that so far the answer is "no". 2006 was one of the most difficult years for me since I started working as a potter full-time in 2000, mostly because I've been under constant pressure to fill orders, and had very little time to explore and create new work. My sketch books are packed with unfulfilled ideas, dreams, and inspiration, and that does not make me feel happy or fulfilled as an artist. When I think of canceling my New York show in August, all I feel is an incredible sense of relief. No disappointment or regret.

The ideas I'm putting out there in this posting is an ongoing discussion that I have with all of my artist friends, balancing the money with the art. I would like it if every single person who is reading this post would take a minute to make a comment on what they think about what I've written.