vacation mode

I unloaded my last kiln a few days ago. There were some great successes and a couple of disappointments. A couple of people got emails that they will not get their piece before Christmas. I would usually be so strung out about that, absolutely crazed that someone did not get their piece of pottery by Jesus's birthday. This year I just sighed, drank a bottle of wine, and forgot about it. I had already cut a deal with god that if she let this piece come out of the kiln perfectly, I would be happy for a little while:
This is a piece that a new customer ordered about 8 weeks ago. I made two of these babies a few years back, one for myself and one for another client. They are obviously very labor intensive with a lot of small details that can go wrong. I was praying the whole time I glazed it-- the glazing alone took about 3 hours and you have to get in all of the nooks and crannies with a tiny brush. This is my bad boyfriend glaze: gorgeous and perfect when it behaves, abusive and bubbly when it's not. As you can probably tell from this image, we are all in love and happy right now.

And then Sara and I had a blow-out dinner at Wood Tavern. Her last day with me as my assistant was Wednesday, and now she's goin' to grad school. This was a gift she gave me:
I can't wait to start drinking the 20 proof sake I received from one of my loyal customers with this set. Man, I'm talking about drinking a lot on this post. Sara and I drank a lot too at Wood Tavern, as we both have a love for the red wine. I will really miss her. Everyone needs an assistant who kicks their ass as much as mine did, gives you that skeptical look as you are trying to bullshit your way through a problem, or totally ignores you as you are having a hissy fit with the tape gun. But she's going on to bigger and better challenges, and I'm excited for her.

And finally, I as tagged by two people recently. I'm kind of like an old man when it comes to tagging. I'm mentally shaking my fist and yelling, "Get off my lawn you taggers!" I'm sorry, people who tagged me, I promise I will do a tagging post while I'm on vacation. I know everyone is dying to know 7 random things about me. And with that, I"m out for now!

lessons from the land of panic

It's usually about this time of year that I start to wonder how the fuck I'm supposed to pull off this holiday thing. I will usually have a stack of orders that are half-done, open studios and shows to prepare for, emails and postcards to send out, studio appointments to keep with people, and stores screaming their heads off for more stuff. All of this activity is usually squeezed down into two or three weeks of frantic activity where I sleep little, eat even less, and make up for that by drinking endless cups of coffee all day and try to wind down at night with endless glasses of wine. I'm a wrung-out mess by the 24th and my husband is ready to have me locked up. Ho ho ho.

I get myself into this situation because I have a tendency to be a procrastinator when I have a lot of activity coming up. I put things off. I've noticed this about myself for years, and this tendency becomes especially troublesome when one is trying to run a successful business. I always manage to pull it off: the orders all ship on time, the studio gets cleaned up and made presentable for customers, the postcards go out, and no one gets disappointed. But it all comes at a cost to myself as I scramble.

I realize that I like to be pushed to the wall. No, I don't like it, I need it. The situation doesn't feel real until my heart is pounding with panic and my head is spinning. I love to make a long list of shit that needs to get done and then freak out as I see how much I have to do and how little time I have to do it. No one can jump into action the way I do.

I'm trying to change this, if for no other reason than I'm sick of having to spend extra money on rush shipping of supplies. This year I sat down in early November and made my list with a target date for each item. I was already running behind, I should have made this list in September, but it was better than waiting for the weekend after Thanksgiving as I usually like to do. I didn't make all of my target dates, but I came close. It helped to remind me that panic doesn't make things more real, it just things more difficult to deal with. I know a lot of artist types are procrastinators in the same way I am, and it's easy to get away with because we are artists, dammit, and we do things artistically. Sometimes chaotically. But I'm getting older, and I hope a bit smarter. I don't have energy to waste on freaking, I want to put it into my art. And I'm happy to report I haven't had a single meltdown this whole season. Now that is a Christmas miracle!

notes from a church of shopping

I'm not much of a shopper. I love to buy beautiful clothes, pick out the perfect gift for friends and family, and get nice things for my house, but I'm not someone who shops for the simple pleasure of shopping, or as therapy. I always shop on the fly: when I happen to be out, and I see something I want, I buy it. If I know exactly what I want and where to get it, I order it online. That's it. I can no more imagine a day at the mall than I can imagine stabbing my own self in the eye.

Last year the holiday shopping season took on a whole new life for me. My shop on Etsy put me out there in the bigger shopping world than I had previously been, and I was slammed. In my Etsy shop alone, I sold 48 separate items. That, combined with my Open Studio, and normal call and walk-in sales, made it an insanely busy month. While I really enjoyed it, I was left feeling sort of beached at the end of December: exhausted, picked-over, and unable to swim another stroke. I also considered for the first time that a business that depends on those end-of-the-year sales is not a sustainable business, that it was really important for me to build up my own business to a point where Holiday Sales was a nice bump, but I didn't have to depend on it.

And more: if we've learned anything in the past couple of months, we've learned that spending and buying is what our economy is totally dependent on. No matter what is happening in the world, in our economy, we are told to buy, and to shop by the people "in charge". It bothers me. It's like we are all children who can only find comfort in things. We can be distracted by our toys, and ignore what ails the planet, and the people on it. Isn't that what the word "retail therapy" means? I listened yesterday to a wonderful and dark essay by Andrei Codrescu that totally mirrored my feelings about the religion of shopping. And I don't think I'm overstating it by calling it a religion.

As someone who makes things and depends on people buying them so I can continue to make more, I know I'm in a tricky position here. If shopping is a religion, then there can be no doubt I run one of its chapels, and I love me a large congregation, tithing on a regular basis. So what am I saying? That we should all stop buying stuff right now? Of course not. You should buy stuff, and you should buy it from me. All I want for Christmas is some more thought about what we purchase, where we purchase, and why we purchase it. More reflection about these things will probably not do much to pull us out of recession anytime soon, but maybe it could be one, tiny little baby step to making a more sustainable economy for ourselves. And if that meant that I had to lose some sales this season, I'm okay with that, because I do feel as if I'm participating in a group psychosis this time of year. And I really prefer to be psychotic on my own. What do you all think?

more shameless self-promotion

Don't worry, I'm working up a good, thoughtful blog post. I don't forget about my blog even when I'm totally buried. For the moment, you will have to be satisfied with some self-promotion. An magazine profile, a cute little online interview where I get to babble about food, and a reminder to some to my open studio this weekend!

meditative mood

It has been relentlessly sunny and warm here in Northern California, except for today when we woke up to a nice fog bank and cool temperatures. Frankly, it was a relief. I live here for a reason: I love mild weather that does not challenge me. Some would say I'm soft, and I won't deny it. When you live in this temperate climate, you lose track of the seasons, what month it is, and sometimes, yourself. My theory is that Californians come by our reputation because: 1) the rest of the country is jealous; and 2) because your brain does get a bit lazy when you walk out into the same kind of day for years on end. Back when I was an anthropology student and exploring the origins of human behavior, one idea I was fascinated with is that inclement weather pushes evolution forward, because it forces one to innovate and invent in order to deal with the problem of changing seasons.

Last weekend was particularly spectacular and show-offy weather, perfect for visitors. In my ongoing quest to get out of the studio and interact more with the pottery world, I went to Trax gallery to attend a workshop with Linda Christianson, a renowned potter from Minnesota. Linda and I could not be more different as potters. She sat in front of the room on a treadle wheel (the kind of wheel you pump with your foot) and get it barely moving. She threw down a chunk of clay, raise the walls twice, and done. The process took about 2-3 minutes, and the thrown piece was chunky, even irregular with lots of action on the sides from her throwing rib. It was a very meditative and thoughtful process. I thought about my own method of throwing in production, where the wheel is going at about 100 mph and I'm throwing off piece after piece, totally smoothed out and perfect looking, like it just came off a lathe.

Linda also talked while she threw, and the topics ranged from the sound of the train whistles nearby, to how she prices her work. She wood fires her pots, so she builds up a big collection of work, fires it off, and then wants to sell it as quickly as possible so she can make more. Her work is pretty inexpensive for someone of her stature, with cups in the $30 range. I think it can be a little insulting to say that someones work is too inexpensive. It implies that they don't value their own work enough, or don't have the confidence to raise prices. I don't think either is the case for Linda. I thought she regarded making pottery as a practice, and a process of her life. The getting paid part of it is important, of course, but not the point exactly.

Speaking of points, I'm not sure I have one today. Maybe Linda got me into a meditative mood and that, combined with my soft California brain, is making it hard for me to wrap this up. I'm off to the studio now to make more pots, and hopefully sell them off as quickly as possible so I can make more.

the artist's life

Christa Assad is one of my favorite potters, and one of my favorite people as well. She is an amazing talent, garnering some well-deserved recognition lately, including a cover feature story in the latest American Craft magazine. Read the extended interview from the magazine article right here. I always appreciate Christa's intelligent, humorous, and articulate take on her life and work. You will too.

looking to the past, looking to the future

I had an interesting week. Last weekend I flew East to attend my 20 year high school reunion in Delaware. This is an event I would have never thought I would attend. I hated high school and I was not fond of most of my classmates, with the exception of my best friend, Missy. I was a shy and angry person, which combined into an overall surly kind of attitude. Missy was the opposite, probably one of the most popular and well-liked people in our class, and she kept me from complete social pariah status.

I think a lot of people don't want to go to high school reunions because they are afraid the event is going to be a re-enactment of high school, with better booze. What I found is that people were just interesting and interested. Few seemed to be there to prove anything about themselves. In a lot of ways it was just a no-bullshit event, so it was very unlike high school. I had a blast.

I flew home on Monday and was immediately swept up in the anticipation of the election on Tuesday. I loved the juxtaposition of these two events in my life, and they seemed totally related. I'm always surprised and gratified by the human capacity to change. The capacity to change and grow up into a thoughtful and decent human being, and our overall evolution as a society.

Sometimes when I look around, I think of this planet and all the people on it, and how we are all sharing this moment. We are all going through this life together for the first time, though it can feel like we are hopelessly mired in the past, and the future will just bring more of the same. Maybe we are mired in the past, but maybe we don't have to be. Maybe that's just a choice we make, because it's easier than being brave, having hope, creating change. I think we should all enjoy this moment of change together, really soak in how exciting it is, and never forget the work it took to create it. And then let's think about what we are going to do in the future to bring change to our own lives and to the rest of our world. It's a small request!