this weekend

Things are really starting to wind down for me at the studio. Last firing is tonight, and I'm done! Okay, I may sneak in another before the end of the week, but no promises. I will be at the Renegade Fair this weekend. I have not done a big holiday show in several years, so I am both parts excited, (that's my masochistic side) and a little wary, but I plan on having fun no matter what. Some of my Pottery Posse will be there, so if nothing else we will get to be in the same building at the same time, which always makes me feel better. And if you want to stop by my booth, buy a little something, that will make me feel better too.

Speaking of feeling better, I just have to share with everyone how totally non-stressful this holiday has been for me. I've been so chill, I actually took some time off to go to the East Coast last weekend to celebrate a special birthday with a special friend. When I couldn't get out of Philadelphia because of weather Sunday night, I didn't even cry, I just checked myself into a hotel. Why am I so Zen-like and amazing, you ask? Because of my awesome new assistant who pretty much has saved my sanity this winter. Get one for yourself.

letting go, letting god

I ride my bike pretty much every where I go, so I look at a lot of bumper stickers on the back of cars. The other day I saw a sticker I've seen hundreds of times: Let go, let God. I felt a twinge of annoyance the way I do with platitudes involving god, and continued pedaling, quickly forgetting about it. Then, I found myself pondering the meaning of this saying the other night at 3 am. One would think I must love to be awake, thinking about stuff at 3 am, since I am often doing just that in the middle of the night. After years and years of training, I'm better at putting myself back to sleep within a few minutes. A warm bottle and my wubbie does me right.

But there are times when I can't go back to sleep, and it's usually because I'm obsessing about something, often related to my work. In this, I am no better than your typical high-strung corporate exec. For several nights in a row last week, I was completely absorbed all night long with these international packages I was shipping out. These boxes all had a lot of heavy, expensive items in them, and had already been packed them very carefully, but my subconscious was not satisfied. While I was sleeping, I was packing these boxes. Over an over: bubble wrap, styrofoam peanuts, corrugated cardboard. It was basically the opposite of a sex dream. While I was awake, I was re-thinking my packing strategy. In the end, I unpacked the boxes and re-packed them. During the day, not at 3 am. I'm not that crazy.

And a good thing too. Since these packages were international, they ship via US Post. This always makes me nervous, since the postal service does not feel the same obligations toward their customers the way FedEx or UPS does. Don't get me wrong, they suck too, but you can at least get your problem dealt with. Even if that means getting totally screwed in the end, they usually do it within 36 hours. I am not a customer of the US Post, I am a prisoner of the US Post, a belief I stated very loudly the other day when I was at my local office trying to pick up a package. You'd think they might hire two people to work the pickup window during the holiday instead of the usual one. But no. And that's another story anyway.

I nurture good relationships with all of my carriers-- UPS, FedEx, and even the Post. The people who pick up my shipments all know me, come into my studio, check out my work, and are nice humans to work with. My postal guy, who I really liked a lot, got fired last summer. I miss him. Since he's been gone, I've had a series of carriers whose charms are not as obvious. One carrier in particular is very bad, and unfortunately she's the one who shows up the most. I have to stay on top of her to pick up packages, she's always on her phone, and she's not friendly. I don't get unfriendly people; I can be a bitch with the best of them, but I don't move around in life with that attitude as my modus operandi. It's way more fun to be friendly, because it cheers people up, which in turn makes you a happier person. Mean people are just so boring. Even though this woman is pretty unpleasant, I'm still always kind and polite to her, and say "please" and "thank you", and always give her a smile.

Not that this gets me anywhere with her. She came by last week to pick up my re-packed international boxes -- 5 of them-- and I caught her throwing the last two into the back of her van like they were a sack of potatoes. I wasn't watching the first three she threw in. "Hey!" I yelled at her. I rarely yell, because it scares people and distracts from whatever point I want to make, but she was talking on her phone and I wanted her attention immediately. When she looked up at me I said, "Take it easy on those boxes, they're packed with pottery." I didn't say "please" "thank you", or smile. She says, "Okay" in kind of a nice way, which briefly made me think I intimidated her, and maybe now she'd start being a littler nicer. Then I realized she could afford to be nice since she was probably going to drive around the corner and see how well those boxes really were packed.

That night, at 3 am, I was awake and thinking about all the ways I could get back at the mail carrier. Unfortunately, there were none, except for psycho stuff, and I'm too lazy for that kind of thing. And then I started stressing about the pieces in the boxes, worried about them arriving broken. I soothed myself with the thought that all the pieces were double boxed and fine even if the boxes were tossed around. But my brain wouldn't accept soothing. That is when I started thinking about the letting go, letting god thing. Maybe that saying is not just an annoying phrase that is empty and meaningless. What a great thing it would be if I could let go of my struggles and worries, and accept whatever outcome is coming my way with equanimity. I'm thinking "letting god" just means "acceptance." I always pictured that saying as giving up, and then god would swoop in and deal with the mess, which is probably why I never really bought into this saying. But if I can picture it as gracefully giving up, letting go, and accepting reality without resisting, maybe I can start working this game a little better.

potter's seventh circle of hell: redux

I know this is totally cheating, but I'm so busy my brain cannot focus on a blog post, so I'm doing rerun of one of my favorite holiday posts from last around this time. I think it bears repeating!

A quick perusal around some of my favorite pottery blogs confirmed what I suspected: few are writing, including myself. If I know ceramic types—and I do-- I suspect everyone is holed up in their studios, and going through something like this:

1)“I don’t have enough work, I don’t have enough work!” (repeat 500 times a day)
2)“I need to make more work, I need to make more work!” (Repeat in head at least once every 60 seconds and yell this phrase at spouse/significant other at least once a day, especially when they try to get you to relax.)
3) Feverishly make work while repeating above mantras, first one, then the other.
4) Have repeated breakdowns and self-loathing sessions as work you so feverishly made cracks, sticks to the kiln shelf, or just kind of sucks.
5) Repeat.

I’ll call this the potter’s Seventh Circle of Hell. I know it well. I’ve slept by the Lake of Fire for weeks on end trying to keep ahead of Christmas orders. I’ve been fielding a few panicked phone calls from my potter friends as they feel the flames licking at their little heels. I’m really a good person to call when a potter is ready to jump because I have been there so many times, I can talk anybody off the ledge.

I’m going to give a tiny little lecture here that I’ve given to more than one artist this season: Hire some goddamn help. If you can’t sleep at night as you consider all you have to make the next day, you need some help. If your stomach or spine is burning as you contemplate your order sheet, you need some help. If you are at the studio, missing dinner, ignoring your boyfriend’s cell phone calls, you need some help. Don’t tell me that you can’t afford it. A half-decent assistant pays for themselves. Don’t tell me you don’t have time to train somebody. You’ll get all that time back and then some when you send that assistant on their own. Don’t tell me you are a lone wolf who creates alone. Hire someone who doesn’t talk too much. There are so many people out there dying to work for you, in your dusty little studio. Go and find them!

the cost

I have been following the saga fellow ceramic artist Heather Knight has been enduring with a nightmare customer. Nightmare customers usually do us the favor of throwing out red flags that they are a total pain in the ass, but they often come bearing lots of money too, so we ignore the red flags. Reading her latest post, it made me think about how we, as artists working to fill orders for customers, are affected by money, and how it influences our decision making process.

I have already been contemplating this question. Right now, I have an international customer who received a cake stand from me that they are not 100% happy with. Normally, it would not be a big deal to make a new one to replace it, but the international shipping cost on this baby is almost a 1/3 of the value, which changes up the dynamic a bit. But should it? Fortunately, my customer is not being a nightmare, and is open to my suggestions on how they may learn to appreciate the quirks of this particular cake stand. I thought the cake stand was perfect, and it's hard for me to imagine a harder critic than my own self, but I guess that is another issue. I've been thinking about this problem, and wondering what is the right thing to do here. How much money should I be willing to lose to make a customer happy? Should the specific amount make a difference? Should my international customers get screwed because I don't want to spend another $40 from my own pocket shipping out to them?

Within this last year, I made the decision for myself that I was no longer going to allow myself to get stressed out by orders. (Yes, I fail at this all the time, but I keep practicing.) Whatever amount of money I was getting for an order was not worth my body getting stressed out and the negative affects it leaves behind. I gave myself permission to simply return the money to any customer when an order wasn't working out, and not feel bad or even more stressed out if I chose to do so. Knowing that I can and I will do this really helps me deal with problem orders and the stress they bring. Also, to run a successful business, I believe that you have to lose money sometimes. One cannot get maximum return in everything one does, that is not realistic. Attempting to stay in the positive column all the time is simply going to lead to more stress. Losing money sometimes is actually just spending money, and we all know you have to spend money to keep a business running.

Breaking it down like this really helps me in making the right decisions: for myself, for my business, and for my customers. And now that I've reiterated my beliefs & practices about money and dealing with orders & customers to myself, it is clear to me that I know what I need to do with my international customer, if they decide they cannot fall in love with my perhaps slightly imperfect cake stand.

training day

My new assistant, Ruth, started this week. Her first day was Tuesday, and I walked into the studio that morning feeling short-tempered and slightly angry. I had insomnia the night before, and if I'm missing more than an hour of sleep, I'm emotionally unbalanced. Unfortunately, I miss a lot of sleep in general because I have hard time staying asleep. Though I now recognize when I'm feeling snappy and weepy for no reason, it's because I'm short on sleep, and I need to be very patient with myself and the people around me. It doesn't mean my life is totally doomed, which is how I usually feel when I'm tired.

I've been really excited to have Ruth start, so I was disappointed in myself that her on first day I was not at my best. Then, I realized that as excited as I am to finally have a new and experienced person in the studio, it is still stressful. Training is a huge investment of time and resources, no matter how well-trained the person already is.

Training assistants and having other people handle my work has been a huge learning experience. With my first few assistants, I learned how to trust people to handle my work without standing two inches away from them. That was a very long learning curve. With Sara, I learned to trust someone to go beyond my own comfort level and to be better than I am at certain things. With the assistant I fired earlier this year, I learned the importance of trusting your instinct about people's abilities and personality, and to not think you can train them into being a different person. With my other current assistant, Hanna, I'm learning the benefits of steady feedback and consistent management. With the exception of the fired person, I've learned from all the people that have worked from me that they will almost always exceed my expectations, that their ability to learn is boundless. But that requires a lot of my time and attention, it doesn't happen by itself.

Despite the fact I was not my usual perky and delightful self with Ruth on her first day, she totally rolled with me, which bodes well for her. I slept way better that night. By her second day, she was already handling many things without my complete supervision, which totally exceeded my expectations.

hiring the help

I had a new intern start yesterday, a high school student obsessed with clay. Next week, I have another person starting as an assistant who I've been wooing since the summertime. She's coming from another studio so she has experience, a quality that is difficult to find. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but it seems that the under staffing problem I've been having since the beginning of the year since losing Sara to grad school may be coming to an end. And not a moment too soon.

You've may have heard me talk before about the importance of having help in the studio when you are always under the gun meeting orders. I've had people helping me in the studio since about 2004, and my life is better and more sane because of it. Some people, who shall go unnamed, and who really really need the help, have yet to take this step. There are several reasons for this: 1) some artists don't want to take the time away from their work to train new assistants. 2) some artists don't want other people messing with their work and changing its character, or worse, damaging it. 3) some artists think they can't afford the help. 4) some artists just don't want other bodies in the studio, making noise while they breathe, and changing up the dynamic.

I get all of these reasons. A lot if these fears can be overcome by finding the right person to work for you in the first place. I have always been extremely lucky in having really talented people work for me, individuals who can fit into my flow smoothly and pick up the work quickly. Each assistant I've hired has been better than the last. This year I had my first exception. I made a really bad hire. All of my instincts told me this person would not be a good fit, and I hired them anyway because the first person I hired totally flaked, and I was desperate. My studio can actually no longer function without extra hands, and the flaker put me right up against my deadlines, so I went ahead and hired someone who promptly drove me crazy. Not only because they simply could not handle the fast pace of a production environment and do the work in the way I wanted it done, but because of personal habits, like walking really really slowly. And dragging their feet while they did it. After about 8 weeks, I fired them. And vowed to never again hire anyone I had doubts about.

Finding the right person is more difficult than any of the reasons for not hiring someone in the first place. Unfortunately, suddenly putting the word out that you are hiring does not usually bring a flock of qualified applicants. My technique over the years has been to keep my eye out for people constantly, even if I'm currently all set. All of my friends know I hire help, so sometimes people will send me their nieces or random people they meet in workshops. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, but staying open to the possibilities of new hires keeps a fairly steady flow. And I can't wait for my new person to start!

tokyo or bust

This morning at 10 am, a freight truck came to my studio and took the Japan order. The driver was a young eastern European gentleman who obviously thought I was insane as I took pictures of the pallet and slapped a bunch of "fragile" stickers on the wrap. He was gone 10 minutes later. I went back into my studio and cried. My studio felt very empty with this crazy, colorful order gone, leaving a big, empty space. My babies were going to Tokyo! Then I got over it about 15 seconds later when I remembered that I already got paid. I could go to Tokyo.

The order left about 10 days earlier than I planned. Almost 2 weeks ago, I was working with the clients to get the order down to Los Angeles where it would be put into a container and literally shipped to Japan. It quickly became apparent the logistics were not working out in my favor. The order needed to get finished and shipped out now to meet the ship's sail date. There was really no time to panic or get upset. I just did it. And, I was kind of glad. I had a good, strong, consistent pace going for almost 5 weeks. I was ready to sprint and cross the finish line.

I'd like everyone to take note that I have not been writing about about crazy emotional meltdowns or a growing shard pile. That's because there is nothing to say in that department. I had a few semi-sleepless nights, especially right around when I took a vacation 3 weeks ago. Thank god I didn't know about the ship date then, because I would have never gone; or, I would have gone and been a basket case the whole time. And I lost very few pieces. I fired 132 pieces, and out of that, I smashed about 4 of them. None of them cake stands either, and there were 28 cake stands in this order. I had a few that didn't make the cut, but are still totally sell-able. Right here, as a matter-o-fact.

I'm not sure why everything came out so good, but here are some theories. One, I took this order right after taking a month away from the studio. So I was kinda relaxed and ready. Two, I was very aware of keeping a good attitude, which you may or may not know, I have problems with sometimes. Especially when "good" stuff happens. Three, I was very careful. This order took some extra time because of all the layered colors that I usually don't put together, and I gave it all my full attention and never took short cuts. What can I say, it paid off. Here are the lessons, all nice, for those of us who need it simple:

• take a break from work to make better work.
• be aware of your attitude and work on adjusting it when necessary.
• take your time.
  

And P.S.: here is a photo album of more pieces and the pack-up. It's on my facebook fan page, so while you're there, you may as well become a fan.