from here to there

I was thinking the other day about the painful and long process of getting from here to there. Here is where we are right now, and one is usually in the process of trying to get there. Where is there? There is where the idea has come to fruition: the art is made, the money is in the bank, and one is happy. I was actually having a dream about this the other night, and in the dream I was having the fully actualized experience of realizing there is actually here, right now. It was very intense, as dreams can be, and when I woke up I thought how I could be a happier person if I could keep this idea with me. The concept is always there, floating around me. But, I have a tendency to forget about it, and go on to being very upset that I'm not there yet. I know you do too.
Meanwhile, I'm still goofing around, not in the studio much and out of town a lot. So, posting is slow but back-to-school September is almost here, so don't give up on me yet.

yes, i'm brilliant

When I said I was taking a vacation, I meant it. I actually went away without taking my computer with me for four whole days. I did sneak my computer up to Lake Tahoe with me while we were visiting Josie, which made me feel slightly ridiculous. I only got teased a little bit.

First things first. Amy Rehnae nominated me for a Brilliant Blog Award. Thank you Amy! With these blog awards you are supposed to pass them on by nominating others, and in this case seven blogs. I guess as a blog writer I should also be a blog reader, but I'm not. I pop in and read my friend's blogs because that's how I keep up with some of them. Every once in a while I'll follow a link a friend sent and find something hilarious. And when Project Runway is on and I'm waiting for the water to boil for my endless cups of coffee, I'll read these guys. I know I probably will not be sent to Blog Internment Camp for not following the rules of this award, but I definitely want to acknowledge it, because I really love writing this blog, and it makes me very happy to know people actually read it.

Back to my vacation now...

the problem with pretty

There's this issue I've been struggling with for a while now in my work. Basically, making beautiful, pretty things in clay is one of the easiest things in the world for me. If I really opened the taps, there would be no end to it. There is no end to it. And one of the reasons why I put myself in the ranks of tortured artist is because I actually don't value pretty things all that much.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a girly-girl who looooves beautiful things in the world. I need cute shoes, lip gloss, and pretty dresses to function properly on this planet. But when it comes to making my own work, pretty ain't worth much. It's too easy, and I don't value my work unless it's hard-- it must challenge me on some level. I'm like that with a lot of things in my life- I'm notorious with learning lessons the hard way, which was really wore down my poor mom when I was growing up. When I first started with my work, it was all hard, but I've been working at it long enough now where the only hard part is dealing with bad firings. And annoying wholesale customers.

I've been thinking about this for a while, trying to come to some sort of settlement on the issue. Sometimes I go with full acceptance: I am blessed with this ability to make beautiful things, and I should simply receive this gift and make beautiful things. But I can't fool myself; I feel as though I'm not seeing the real gift right in front of me, but I don't know what it is. I'm blind. Then, I received an email two days ago from one of my friends, who I will call EL-ZIE. I dread Elzie's emails sometimes because I know she loves me and my work, but she also sees right through my bullshit:

Your work is so much tamer than you are. You are a wild woman. Push past the pretty girl. Please, put some of the bad words in. The intellectual and biting humor part of you that comes through in your writing. Art is all code for who we really are, presented in a way that we are ready to expose to others. I think that you have laid the ground work, and I can say that I am ready for more of you.

I immediately closed this email and tried to act like I hadn't read it, but of course thought about it all day. I can't pretend that this is all there is to my work, as easy and lovely as that would be. If I'm going to continue to call myself an artist, I have to let go of the pretty as my driving force... but how? And am I making this too hard too, this process of evolution, or is struggling so much a part of my DNA that I have no choice but to do it this way? And did I just manage to say "I, me, mine" 15 times in one paragraph?

People, I'm going on vacation now. I obviously need it!

we'll let the pictures do the talking

Where have I been? I have been locked up in the studio, preparing for my favorite retail show of the year, the Palo Alto Clay and Glass Festival. You know how I complain about my wholesale shows? Well, the Palo Alto Festival is, like, the opposite side of the spectrum. I've been doing this show for 10 years, and I have a solid fan base there of people who wait all year to see me, check out my new stuff, and then buy it all. Plus, I get to see all of my pottery and glass pals, and Saturday night we have a huge party and get loaded. Hey, it's fun! AAAAANNNDD one of my partners in crime from Japan last summer, Nick, is driving in to be my booth slave during the show. These are all pots that have come out of the kiln in the past 2 days, and this a lot of this collection is about my new obsession, bell jars. I have one more load coming out tomorrow, I hope to have time to shoot them and post later. Palo Alto is one of the places where I debut new work and ideas, so let's just let the pictures do the talking. :











Hello, am I not the cutest goddamn thing? (That's the bell jar above talking)

california burning

I thought I would share this apocalyptic and gloomy picture from last week, when the air was so thick with smoke we Northern California citizens were advised to stay inside. No problem. Some gear in my brain finally got some oil and I have been so inspired and fearless with the clay that I really have no interest in doing anything else but being at the studio, getting ready for my big retail show of the year, the Palo Alto Clay and Glass Festival. I am so excited about some new designs and work I've been making, here is a sneak peek, pre-fire:

an addendum to customer service

I was reminded by my good friend Bronwyn that there are times you have to tell the customer to go fuck themselves, in fact you have no choice but to tell them to go fuck themselves, and I have been known to do just this. There are limits, and no matter how good you are, there are people who are going to step over the line and you can either tell them to piss off, or get trampled on by them.

The story that comes to mind happened when I was still sending orders directly to people's homes with an invoice so they could send me a check after delivery. In this particular instance, I sent a vase, I waited about 10 days, no check. I called the customer's home to give them a "friendly" reminder. The customer called me back and left a breezy message on my voicemail. "Oh," the woman said, "we are going to send it back to you, it's not exactly what we were looking for after all". Mind you, this was a custom-made vase in the $300 range, and I don't make anything for people to test-drive.

Realistically, I would work with someone to resolve this situation, because I don't want to force someone to buy something of mine that they don't like. But this woman's cavalier attitude was so out of line, and during this time I was still struggling to make ends meet, so her failure to pay me for my work was painful. But I could tell from her attitude that I wasn't going to be able to squeeze a dime out of her. I called up her voicemail and left her a long and scathing message, starting with, "I'm sure you buy a ton of stuff you don't care about and return to the store, but I am not POTTERY BARN!" That was a customer I definitely lost, and I was happy to let her go.

customer service

I've been trying to write a post about customer service for about a week now, and my writing is going all over the place. There is a lot to cover. People who know me well and know my snappy and smart alecky self are probably choking on their coffee as they read that WHITNEY is writing about customer service. She's kidding-- right? I'm a bit battle hardened from years of retail shows, and I love entertaining my friends with stories about the most annoying people on earth who wander into my booth, and the way I keep them in line.

But the truth is, I love my customers, and I love wooing potential customers. My customers are intelligent people with exquisite taste, and they are the ones who assist me in my quest to avoid working for the man. That's not to say they can't be a total pain in my ass sometimes, but I love them even as they cause me pain. I'm all Buddah-nature about it. I really believe in the handmade credo of connecting with the customer; that is what the customer is looking for when they buy something handmade from an artist, and I'm all about giving it to them.

I'm going to try and keep this post in line by simply outlining a few ways that I give excellent customer service, and how any artist can give their customer great service too:

• Every customer gets a handwritten note from me, thanking them for their purchase. I love getting these notes from other artists, and very disappointed when I don't. If you don't value your customer enough to even thank them, they will never come back.
  
• I always tell customers the truth, even when it would be more convenient to lie, and I never make excuses. I'm an adult, and the customer is not my mommy. No matter how I screw things up, I stay honest about it, and I take responsibility, even if it is someone else's fault.
  
• I always try to figure out a way to say "yes" to a customer's request, even if I have to re-formulate their outrageous request into something I can actually say "yes" too.
  
• A certain amount of loss is a part of doing business. If something is broken during shipping, I replace it immediately. I've also replaced items stolen during shipping, and I don't worry for a second that the customer is trying to rip me off.
  
• I always assume that the customer has good intentions and will behave with honor. In my 12 years of business, I've never had a bounced check or a declined credit card not be made good on by a customer. For years, before I did business online, I would send out pieces to customers along with a bill, and they would send me a check. People thought I was crazy, but I always got paid.
  
• I'm not a big stickler about policies. I think having a bunch of stubborn policies indicates an adversarial approach to the customer, which in turn attracts those troublesome customers who love to push the limit on policies.
  
• I always speak -- or write-- to the customer respectfully, even if they are really pissing me off. No matter how important it seems to answer the customer immediately, if I'm upset, I sleep on it, 'cause I'm kind of a hothead. I can't tell you how many situations I've saved with this tactic.
  

And that's it!