distractions, distractions

The single most distracting thing that keeps me from getting work done, beside my own reflection in the mirror, is the internet. I've been paying more attention lately to the amount of time I spend on the web each day, and I'm not shocked, but deeply bothered at how the minutes slip away and turn into big chunks of time. I spend a certain amount of time each day taking care of essential computer tasks, which include : uploading new listings to etsy, communicating with my customers, and printing out ship tags and invoices. Those are the essentials. Then there are the little add-ons: reading blog comments, writing blog posts, monitoring traffic on my web and etsy site, updating my website, and then twittering about everything I just did.

But it doesn't stop there. While I'm uploading etsy listings, I'm sneaking over to the front page to see what fantastic stuff is on there. If I see something cool, I'm off into someone's shop, rooting around in the goods. Twitter has started sucking me off onto all kinds of websites and blogs. Every Wednesday I must read the new horoscopes and Savage Love. And the emails and communications with customers, potential customers, stores, etc, is absolutely endless. If I added up all the time I spend on the web and compared it to the amount of time I spend actually making stuff in the studio, I think I would see I'm losing a day a week just to the interwebs, and a large portion of that to non-essential tasks.

And I don't even LIKE working on the computer very much. It stresses out my neck and makes me feel all starey-eyed.

I'm going to start instituting some severe discipline on myself. I only have a couple of ideas to keep myself on track: Make a list of what HAS to get done on the computer, give myself a time frame to do it in, and don't stop ticking down the list until it's done. No gallivanting off into cute little shops or reading blogs. But I need some more ideas, and I know everyone reading this is guilty of the same type of behavior. So I'm going to do my part in keeping you distracted from what you actually should be doing right now and ask what YOU do to keep yourself on track.

the double-edged sword of etsy

I had another upsetting incident this week with someone copying my work. I was tooling around on etsy late one night when on the front page I spotted a set of nesting lotus bowls, carved in the exact same shape the way I carve mine. Not only was the design the same, it was photographed in the same way I photograph mine, which is a close-up half shot. I've been developing this style of photographing some of my work in the past 8 months, and I really love the look of it for some items, especially the lotus bowls.

The fact that the bowls were photographed in the same way really blew me away . With that, there was no question that someone was making a deliberate attempt to imitate my work. Not only imitate me, but selling the imitation on the same site as I sell mine, at a much much lower price. A quick look at their shop showed that the lotus bowls were an anomaly, clearly not fitting in with the body of work that was in their shop already. But they had sold several sets, all photographed in the same way.

I had to figure out how to cope with this situation. I didn't think of this person as a threat to my business. They are just making pottery as a hobby, and to acknowledge them at all might make me look crazy. But, I was so pissed I could not sleep. My husband, who happens to be the more levelheaded of the two of us, took one look and said I should have Escobar, my aptly named lawyer, send a cease and desist. I thought that was overkill, but fired off a late-night letter to the lawyer anyway, which enabled me to sleep. The next day I sent the maker of these bowls a strongly worded email detailing exactly how I thought she was copying me, how much I did not like it, and insisted she take the listings down immediately. Which she did.

It brought front and center--again-- the double-edged sword of etsy. At my studio, the retail money that flows in from etsy keeps the wheels greased. Ain't nothin squeakin' there. I ship out every week to new customers from all over the world, and have made incredible press and wholesale connections. But there is no free lunch, right? Etsy has become well known for the copycats it inspires, not only in ceramics but in other categories, jewelry probably being the most problematic. But I see the copying in the ceramic category every day, and it frankly makes me sick. Thankfully, I see very little that gets my radar up around my own work. Part of the problem with etsy is that many of the artists and makers are not professional, and they may not have an artistic sense of integrity that comes from years of making your own things. They may just like making stuff, and when they see something they like on etsy, have no problem trying to make the same thing. And then selling it.

I've made the commitment to myself that I will not tolerate people copying my work, whether it's from a big company or an etsy seller. Anyone who attempts to copy my work, and then try to pass it off as their own, is going to get the email I sent this other person. And then they will hear from Escobar. The response I received back from this person was very humble, and I think they weren't at all considering the implications of what they were doing when they posted the bowls. But that's no excuse. And I think all the artists on etsy, and otherwise, need to stop being so fucking mellow or limiting their complaining to their friends when they have their designs infringed upon. Defend yourself. I'm happy to supply a copy of the letter I sent to this person to anyone who wants it via email. I think it's a highly effective letter with no threats, implied or otherwise. But if I received it from an artist, I would probably throw up immediately from anxiety. And I have no problem with that.

what a potter wants

Today, Saturday, I was at our sale over at Fourth and Clay with my clay gals. It was the end of the afternoon and we were cash happy after a pretty successful first day of selling off our seconds. We were kind of hanging out, chatting, and drinking wine. A familiar and comforting scene.
I said, "Is it okay if I come in later tomorrow? I want to get some work done in my studio in the morning before I head over."

Christa was like, "Oh yeah, come in whenever."

Rae pipes up and says, "Yeah, like we don't want to be working in our studios tomorrow." The sale is held at Christa, Rae, and Josie's studio and definitely takes over their whole work space.

I said, (a tad defensively) "Well, I'm off for three days of vacation next week! I need to work!" Rae just rolls her eyes.

Moral of the story: ceramic artists only want to do one thing. Make pots. Fuck vacations, or whatever they're called.

seconds on fourth

Yes, I did just have a seconds sale less than a month ago at my own studio, and I've been unloading a ton of stuff of my etsy site too. But seconds are one of those things that I have a major talent for making, and it's a good thing I know some other fabulous potters who have a stash of seconds they've been squirreling away for our second annual Seconds on Fourth Sale. This is a sale hosted by the Fourth and Clay gals: Rae Dunn, Josie Jurczenia, and Christa Assad. Who was recently featured on the cover of Craft Magazine. The lovely Sara Paloma and amazing Sharon Virtue will also be there. And me too, of course. Click here for all the details!

insane beauty

Yup, that's me. (an ad for Philadelphia Craft Market that's ben making it to some print magazines. Click to read the little blurb)

look familiar?

I was in San Luis Obispo this weekend with my sister, Brena. We were wandering around a gift store when she sucked in her breath. She had spotted this:


No, it's not mine. It's some cheap crap from China created by the Grasslands Divison of Amscan, a company I could only find after doing an image search of the item I found in this gift store. I like mine much better:

Of course, their version was $7.95, while mine is $140. And theirs is a miniature version, about 4" and 5" high. Check out the similarity in photography. This is theirs:
and mine:

Or maybe I'm just totally paranoid.

Naaaahhhhh.

The first time I made this piece was about 5 years ago. I threw this vase shape: bulbous on the bottom, with a flared, tall opening. And then the piece sat around. I didn't really know what to do with it and I wasn't coming up with a good design for this shape. I had an idea that the flared part should represent a flower opening, but my initial designs were not working for me. This was when I was developing the whole seed and pod line, and I was having a lot of fun playing around with my razor blade and re-shaping the openings of pots. Rather than trash this piece, I decided to do a version of the pomegranate with it, and 20 minutes later I had my first Sprout, as I like to call this vase. And I loved it. I think it is sophisticated, sculptural piece, that functions beautifully as both a vase and a work of art. That's the history of the piece, because like with almost all of my pieces, there is a story behind the design.

The incident this weekend led me back to a note I received about a week ago from another Etsy seller (edited for clarity, and to protect the possibly innocent):

Whoa, I thought your work was on the front page of Etsy, but I guess it was someone else. It seems this potter has been adapting a few styles from you, and possibly me. What do you think, as an artist and a potter? Does this ruffle your feathers at all? I really don't know what to think.

This note has nothing to do with the sprout piece, but another piece of mine that is extremely popular, and is such a classic design that I do not feel I have any copyright protection over it, I just have my own take on it. So I shrugged off the alert. But let me say this in bold type: I do not feel that way about most of my work. This is where the rubber really meets the road: getting ripped off sucks. My feathers get ruffled, and yeah, I get pissed. This is not the first time I've seen a cheap replica of my work coming out of China, and I always get this sick feeling in my stomach. It's a combination of anger, helplessness, and the creepy feeling of being stalked by people who specialize in ripping off intellectual property.

But I've learned to be realistic-- people who don't trust their own design instincts or are too lazy to develop them are out there, they work for big companies that are easy to name, and they are trolling my work and the work of others for "inspiration" as I write this right now. They are copycats, and copycats are just as disdained in the grown-up world as they are in first grade. I will continue to make great work, and copycats will continue to rip me off, and others. Rae Dunn, to name one person who is so relentlessly ripped off she started manufacturing a line in China so she could rip herself off before the copycats could. And people still copy her.

There is emulation, and learning from the work of others. That's one thing. Students may be forgiven for their trespasses on the road to developing their own style. I may see echoes of my work in the work of others, but my work contains echoes too. That is the nature of art-- there is hardly anything that has not been done before. But the line is there. Just like Justice Stewart said in a Supreme Court ruling about obscenity in 1964, pornography may be hard to define, but he knows it when he sees it. And while some may try to blur that line as they "subconsciously" appropriate your work, as an artist you know when the line has been crossed. We all know when we've been totally ripped off. And right now, I feel a little bit shredded.

For another discussion about ceramic artists getting the shaft in the world of design, read this old post.

nesting

It was kind of an amazing day. I've been alone at the studio all week; one assistant has family in town, the other has been sick. I'm so rarely alone in the studio anymore that when it happens, I really dig it. I blast the music and get into my own personal groove, no interruptions.

Today I sat down to work on a project that has been in the works-- in my head-- for at least two years. A set of nesting bowls in the 12-15 range, working up to 20-22. I want them to be part of my new lichen collection, a collection of this ultra-thin porcelain work I've been babying along the last year. I threw this set in stoneware just to check the weight and size on everything before committing it to porcelain. God, I love throwing so much, I really really do. Everything else in my life hit the back burner today as I hummed along happily on my wheel:

The biggest bowl was so damn satisfying. I could stick my whole head in there, if I wanted to. You can barely see the smallest bowl here, which looked like this when I was throwing it:

Then I beat it out of the studio at 4 sharp to head over to San Francisco and deliver some work to a customer and then sally on over to Rena Bransten gallery to see one of my assistant's, Marci Washington, solo painting show. Whoa. I've seen Marci's work online, but seeing it in person was very powerful and impressive. Her work is extremely creepy, but it really speaks to me, and her statement about her work is very intelligent and thoughtful. The painting below was one of my favorites.
It's called Escape Into the Woods-Purging the Black Infection. I don't know if I would want it hanging in my bedroom, but I really liked it, especially in the context of the entire show. Please take a tour of it right here!