A little break...

Maybe you've noticed that I've been away awhile. I've been really busy working to develop a new body of work, and keepin up with my day job and wholesale commitments. Because of all this, I'm going to give this blog a little break. I'll pop in once a while to mention new pots or jewelry items in my shop, or upcoming sales. When I come back, it will be with what I hope is a beautiful and exciting new body of work!

I heart The Studio Potter

Can I just tell you how much I love The Studio Potter? I do, I love it so much. If you're a clay person and you don't get Studio Potter, you're really missing something great...

Studio Potter is a ceramic arts journal that comes out twice a year. I first started getting it a few years ago, and I have to admit, at first it was a bit over my head. It's chock full of intellectual articles, and completely free of advertising. It's unlike any other clay magazine. The major difference between Studio Potter and the other clay magazines for me is that I will read and re-read Studio Potter. I've read some issues twenty times I bet. Out of each issue, there will be a handful of articles that are so insightful and profound for me, I have to read them over and over to really absorb the ideas and content.

My favorite articles from the most recent issue are Eyes Wide Open by Kari Radasch, and Empty Promises: Accountability and the MFA degree by Raymon Elozua. Radasch's article is profound for me right now, because I am in the midst of a huge upheaval of my work. If you're familiar with my work through Etsy, you might have noticed a bit of a drought in the pottery section of the store. The truth is, I have lots of work hanging around the studio, but most of it's not quite finished, and it's different than what I've been making for the last few years so it hasn't hit the public stage yet. Leaving behind a body of work is scary, and Kari's article perfectly sums up everything that goes along with such a huge change.

Elozua's article grabbed me because I've been seriously entertaining the idea of applying for an MFA program in ceramics. Elozua's article shifted my grad school thinking away from, "Will they like my work? Will they accept me? Can I afford to do this? Can I afford not to do this?" to "What am I going to get out of grad school? Is this the only way? Is focused study with a couple of people better than study with many different people in different places?" His article really brought up a lot of new questions for me, and made me realize that I have to be as discerning in looking at schools and my future education opportunities as they would be of me. As Elouza put it, I would essentially be hiring the faculty of a particular school for three years, for a cost of anywhere from $30,000 to $60,000. I better make damn well sure that they jive with me and my goals!

So, to put it simply, Studio Potter is fantastic because it always makes me think. And it always gives me comfort and courage to hear about the trials and tribulations of a life in clay straight from the potter's mouth. Check out studiopotter.org to become a member or check them out on Facebook!

A (mini) Clay Conference

Here's a little photo I grabbed from my new friend Judi's blog:


This is Chris Gustin and me discussing my work and my future plans in clay. He was tremendously helpful and informative. If you ever have a chance to take one of his workshops, do it!

PS-Check out Judi's shop, you'll love it!

Anderson Ranch: Day Five

Well, I came home from Anderson Ranch yesterday. Friday was a bit of a bittersweet day. Everyone in my class was a little sad that the workshop was already over. We all learned so many new things, and assimilated a ton of new information in a short period of time.

We spent Friday morning practicing design strategies by using india ink on greenware and bisqueware. The idea was to practice what we've learned in a commitment-free way, since the ink will burn off in the bisque kiln. We started by painting line drawings of our pots on newsprint. We turned up some music and all settled in to the rhythm of drawing the same pot over and over, until a certain jesture developed in the image, and we became comfortable with using the brush and the ink. After that, we took the whole pot image and painted it directly on the pots. I tried to use the jesture of my lines, because my pots were too small to fit an entire image. This was a very freeing exercise for the whole class. Knowing that the decoration wasn't permanent really allowed us to experiment more freely.

After a final lunch together, we discussed an assignment Chris had given us earlier in the week. He gave us a handout with a list of questions about how we work in clay. There were technical questions about clay bodies and firing atmospheres, and then questions about scale, intended location of finished work, and time use and management, among other things. This workshop was called Architecture of the Pot, but I think it should be renamed "Throwing the Dart," because so many of the exercises were about throwing a wrench in the works of what you've been doing by selecting a design strategy at random (hence, throwing the dart) and seeing where it takes you in the progress of your work. As Chris said many times, "All of our choices in clay are arbitrary. Change one thing and you change your work."

While I'm glad to be home, I will miss the immersive, supportive atmosphere of this workshop. It was a terrific experience and I'm already thinking about going back next summer!

Anderson Ranch: Day Four

Wow, I can't believe my week at Anderson Ranch is almost over! It's gone so fast. I just have tomorrow and then I'm done.

Today, we took a field trip to Harvey/Meadows Gallery in Aspen. If you've seen the Artstream traveling art gallery at NCECA, then you've seen the precursor to this gallery. Owned and operated by ceramic artists Sam Harvey and Alleghany Meadows, this gallery features a wide range of contemporary sculptural and functional ceramic art, including some work by my teacher, Chris Gustin. Alleghany and Sam were so lovely to host us there. They talked extensively about their gallery's role in educating the public about ceramic art, as well as giving them the opportunity to purchase it. So many people have no idea what an amazing medium ceramics is, because it's dwarfed in the art world by painting and sculpture. But once people learn a bit about it and buy a piece or two, they're often hooked for life!

The main gallery space was full of amazing large pieces by Betty Woodman, Virginia Scotchie, Bobby Silverman, and numerous other fantastic artists. But my primary interest lay in the tiny backroom storage space. It was full of functional pottery, by every big name in the field right now. Andrew Martin, Julia Galloway, Christa Assad, Josh DeWeese, Lisa Orr, and many, many more, all there in one little room. As I looked through the cluttered shelves, I felt an awe and a reverence, as though I was inside the Notre Dame cathedral or viewing the Sistine Chapel ceiling. My love of pots is enormous at times!

I walked away today with a Sam Clarkson tumbler called "Speed of Life" and a Julia Galloway sugar and creamer set. I looked through tons of wonderful pots, but when I handled these pieces, I immediately fell in love. Especially when I discovered that the pillowy lid of the Galloway creamer has a tiny clay bead tucked inside, making it a little rattle! I love those little surprises in pots. And the Sam Clarkson tumbler was so lovely in the hand, I couldn't put it down. Sorry the photos aren't better, it's a bit dark here in my condo.

Tomorrow, I wrap up my workshop with an individual discussion with Chris about my work, and a group review of all the pieces we made this week. It's been an incredible experience, and I feel so lucky to have been here!

Anderson Ranch: Day Three

So, I just got home from Paul Soldner's house. That's right, THE Paul Soldner, father of American Raku, first student of Peter Voulkos, and creator of numerous hilarious pottery equipment print ads. Soldner founded Anderson Ranch in 1968 and has a home in nearby Aspen. He and his daughter Stephanie host open houses in the summer about every other week, and all of the students at Anderson Ranch are invited. I got to sit at the dining room table with Soldner for a few moments, and when I left I felt like I'd just met Madonna. It's electrifying just to be in the physical presence of a man so important to American ceramics. By the way, this image is of a poster that was hanging in his studio. I'm sorry it's a bit blurry. The tagline reads, "Entertainment for Potters." Don't you just love it?

Today was a busy day in the studio. With the open house tonight, we all buckled down and worked, worked, worked. I didn't even have any time to take any photos of the new work created today. Our only bisque kilns get loaded early tomorrow morning, so everything had to get transferred to the drying room, which is a wood shed of sorts loaded with heat lamps and fans. It's kept at about 95 degrees and a night in that room will sure dry out any pot! It's like a little pottery sauna.

I feel like I've made some tremendous progress in these three short days. Aside from the fact that I miss my husband, pets, and my own bed, I really don't want to go home! This is such a truly fabulous opportunity to drop out of daily life for a short period of time and really surround yourself with great teachers and fellow artists. I may just come here every summer!

Anderson Ranch: Day Two

Anderson Ranch is truly a fabulous place. After lunch today, I was sitting on a porch swing outside the studio, just feeling incredibly lucky and fortunate to be here. A beautiful campus, incredible teachers, happily focused students, good food, gorgeous weather. It's awesome.

Yesterday, we made some pots that incorporated two circles, either in shape (think foot or rim) or volume. After that, we were to choose one pot and draw the contour or profile line of that pot. This is much harder than it sounds! What you don't realize at first is that you're drawing what you WANT the pot to look like, not what it actually looks like. It took me seven sheets of large newsprint, full of contours, to actually draw what was there. After that, we were to pick a couple of contours that looked good to us and throw some pots with those contours. That's what we have on the right here. The original form is the bottle on the left, and the bottles on the right were thrown to the chosen contour lines.

Today, we were to add a third circle to our pots, again as shape or volume. Here are the drawings I did before I sat down at the wheel. I'm realizing that it's much easier to work out these visual design issues on paper than on the wheel. I love this sheet of drawings. It may find a place on the wall in my studio at home.

The next goal was to throw some pots from these drawings. Here are mine. I never make bottles, so I'm pretty happy with how these turned out. I think they make a groovy little collection. I'm fortunate that we're working with a sandy stoneware body, because I had to push this clay around a lot to get these forms!

I'm beginning to see how this "design" process can be a fabulous tool in a potter's visual toolbox. It's important to learn from our teachers what questions to ask ourselves, and to learn exercises to help us move forward in our work. Most of us make good progress in classes or workshops, when someone else is asking the questions; the thing to take away from them is HOW to make progress when your work gets stagnant. I think these design exercises, combined with the "What grabs you?" exercise from earlier this summer, could support an artist for a lifetime.

Anderson Ranch: Day One

Man, I am behind on the blogging. I've been working hard on a dinnerware order for my dear friend Alanna, and have been holed up in the studio working away. I was trying hard to finish it before I left for my workshop with Chris Gustin at Anderson Ranch.

So here it is, Day One at Anderson Ranch! My workshop is called Architecture of the Pot, and it's focused on the underlying design of pots (or architecture). Chris spoke today about how you can have great ideas and context for your pots, but without using good design, those ideas won't be expressed as well as they could be. Chris called design "the dirty little secret of art." It gets de-emphasized in school, regulated to freshman level design courses full of exercises that seem to make no sense. But design is the language by which objects speak to us. We approach all objects in relation to all objects we've experienced before them. Good design (which incidentally, is found everywhere throughout nature) makes one's pots speak on their own.

We spent a lot of time today looking at slides of historical and contemporary pots, pointing out their design strategies, such as division (into halves, thirds, fourths, and so on), framing, movement, scale, etc. After that, we headed into the studio to start throwing and then analyzing our pots. I'll explain a little more in the next few posts, I'm not far enough into this workshop to quite know where I'm going yet!

The Anderson Ranch campus is just beautiful. It's truly a lively, vibrant artists' community, full of excited, energetic students. I'm looking forward to a great week!

Triumph over teapots

I'm back! I haven't been on the computer much in the last two weeks. Every summer, Arapahoe Community College offers a two-week "bootcamp" ceramics class in between the spring and summer semesters. This year's class was on teapots, and since I had never made a teapot in 10 years of pot-making (I know, shameful), I decided to sign up. So, I've been holed up in the studio, feverishly working on teapots.

The class was great, but it was fast-paced. Adding to the challenge was the fact that I sliced halfway through my left thumb two days before the class started. I was cooking dinner, chopping stuff with my chef's knife, and next thing I knew, I had a really deep cut through my thumb. I figured they'd stitch it up at the ER, but they actually glued it back together with a skin adhesive called Dermabond. It worked great, but you can't get the glue wet! So I got to throw my teapots with a latex glove on my left hand, taped around the wrist to keep the water out. It was difficult to throw with the glove because I couldn't get a sense of how thick the walls were, and everything wound up too thick. I also had trouble pulling handles and attaching spouts, because I couldn't hold anything with my left thumb. There were a few really frustrating moments in there!

Despite the fast pace and the clumsy left hand, I got through the class with ten full teapots made. Here's a few of my last ones, which I feel were the best. The real test will be how well they pour once they're done!

What grabs you? (part III)

Another thing that grabs me visually is traditional Japanese design and art. I think this is rooted in the childhood memories I have of dressing up in a kimono that my grandfather purchased while stationed in Japan after World War II. I'm sure that by traditional standards, it probably wasn't a great kimono, but I thought it was so beautiful. In the fourth grade, my class did a unit on Japan and I still remember almost everything I learned. I was fascinated by the language, the culture, and especially the visual flavor of the buildings, textiles, and papers we were looking at. I still make paper cranes out of gum wrappers.

As an adult, I've become fascinated with the visual appearance of geisha and their elaborate kimono. I recently read a wonderful book called A Geisha's Journey about a young modern-day Japanese teenager who elects to become an apprentice geisha (maiko) in Kyoto. It's an absolutely stunning book, full of beautiful full-color images of the elegant maiko Komomo in all her colorful finery.

The complexity and color of kimono is starting to work its way into my ceramic work, which is a profoundly new direction for me. My work has always been elegant and much of it has been colorful, but in a stripped-down and minimal fashion. As my skills have increased, I have grown more interested in complexity and detail, and those things are starting to show up in my work. It will be a while before any of these complex pots make it onto the public stage of the Internet, but they're on the studio shelves as we speak, slowly coming into existence.

What grabs you? (part II)

Continuing the discussion of what "grabs" me in this world, I have to bring up plants and flowers. Now, this is something that grabs a lot of artists, as evidenced by the amount of botanically-inspired artwork out there.

I think what I notice the most about plants is their colors. I can't get enough of the brilliant, saturated colors of flowers in bloom, and the soothing green of trees and open fields. I've never been as interested in the specific shapes and forms of plants, although the shape and proportion of a lovely tree or orchid blossom will catch my eye from time to time.

No, what I love the most about plants is their very vitality, the fact that they are growing, moving, changing, and filling the world with their color and life. I think this is why I've never been a winter person. The monochromatic grays and browns of the winter landscape leave me feeling weary. The brilliant, shining colors of summer are energizing and uplifting, and I think that's why I've always been attracted to them in my work.

What grabs you?

I have been entertaining the idea of applying to graduate school next year. I'm going to spend the summer working with my teacher Kathy at ACC in order to try to advance my work as much as possible over the next six months. I don't know if my work will be ready at that point for the competitive world of MFA spots, but I'm going to give it a shot.

One of my first summer assignments from Kathy was to answer the question, "What grabs you?" Specifically, what catches your eye or heart in this world? What interests you that you want to share with the world through your artwork? This is precisely the question I've been trying to answer for years, but I've been coming up a little empty-handed. I've never felt a clear understanding of my sources of inspiration. So I just sat down with my sketchbook and started a list. I figured I'd share of few of the things that grab me over a few blog posts.

Numero Uno on my list is old houses. I LOVE old houses, and other buildings for that matter, with a passion and fervor other people reserve for soccer teams. I know I've gone on about this before, but old houses are probably my greatest visual love in this world. They may even top pots (gasp!).

Old buildings of any sort are great, but there's something about houses in particular that grabs me. Pretty much any American house built until 1940 is amazing to me. Maybe it's that they're each different, despite the fact that you could buy kit houses in the 1920s. Maybe it's that they each have a level of detail that you just don't see in residential architecture anymore. Maybe it's because they tend to be located on tree-line streets (also a great love of mine). Maybe it's because being inside one feels like living inside a piece of art.


At any rate, I have a serious crush on this house right now. I love to search through Realtor.com for beautiful old houses for sale. This one is in St. Petersburg, Florida and I am in love with it something fierce. It's drop dead gorgeous, inside and out, and I can't stop thinking about it. I want to buy this house despite the fact that I don't live in Florida and already have one mortgage payment to make! It's got a little guest cottage out back that would make a great studio. My perfect world would be made up of houses like this.


That being said, I don't know exactly how to translate this love into my pots. I've never made a ceramic house, but I don't think I would like to just literally translate the gorgeousness of an old house into a ceramic replica. Maybe I need to think about making the kinds of pots that would live in this kind of house, that would enhance it's interior landscape. Maybe I can capture the level of detail and color in this house that is attractive to me. Maybe answering this question will be my next assignment....

Mother's Day is May 10th!

Hi everyone! I've been away from the studio for a few days because my husband had surgery last week. He's doing well, although he needs a lot of help right now. I wanted to pop in to remind you that Mother's Day is coming up and I've got lots of great gifts in my store. Order by May 2nd to guarantee arrival!

I haven't thrown it at the wall quite yet...

I got some focused shots today of my light-colored pots! I talked about the situation with an old dear friend of mine who happens to be a high school photography teacher, and she agreed that for some reason, the camera isn't able to distinguish the light-colored pots from the background. So I tried changing the shutter speed and some other settings but still wasn't getting anywhere, although I learned about the camera in the process.

Then I happened upon a decidedly low-tech solution. I held a chopstick directly in front of the pot, focused the camera by depressing the shutter button halfway, and then removed the chopstick and took the photo. Voila! Perfect focus.


Check out the improvement in the final images:

Now the question is, do I want to have to do this little chopstick trick every time the camera can't focus on a pot? It's quick and easy, but it seems like when you spend a good chunk of cash on something, it should work without having to resort to this. On the other hand, it's only certain pots that cause trouble, and the camera's super fast, and the photos look great, and it's working fabulously for my close-up jewelry shots. I guess I have a decision to make. At least for now I finally got some new photos for the store!

Photo Woes

So, I was all excited yesterday because I finally bought a new digital camera. Mine died at the beginning of February, and I've been hemming and hawing over what kind to buy. So I finally went out yesterday, armed with my research, to test drive a few in person and settled on a Canon PowerShot SX10is, which is an EVF or "bridge" camera, meaning it's sort of halfway between a point-and-shoot and a digital SLR camera.

I got the thing home and started taking photos, of my pets, my husband, things around the house. And the photos looked great. Then I took it down to my studio, where I had some new pots to photograph. Here's the first studio shot:


Pretty nice huh? Not too shabby at all. Here's the next shot:




Great! No problems whatsoever. Here's the next one:



What the..?! And thus a good day spiraled into a bad afternoon.

I absolutely could NOT get the camera to focus on this pot. Hadn't changed any settings or anything at all. I tried repeatedly, but I could not get a focused shot of this pot or the green celadon one shown in the first photo.

So then I started changing every single setting, poring over the manual, trying to figure out what was going on. I got so frustrated that I had to leave the studio, or I thought I might throw the camera at the wall. Why would a brand-new, highly advanced, expensive Canon camera not be able to take the same shots that my crappy old Canon point-and-shoot took just fine?!

I think for some reason, the camera can't find the light-colored pots to focus on, like maybe it can't distinguish them from the background. I don't know what I'm going to do here. I think there must be some way to make it work, short of returning the camera and trying a different model, which will get expensive quickly, given the 15% restocking fee charged everywhere on camera returns. If you have any ideas or advice, please leave me some comments! Here's a shot of my photo setup, in case you were wondering how I've got things set up. I need help!

NCECA Recap

Well, I'm back from my weekend at NCECA in sunny Phoenix. Yesterday was my 29th birthday, and the trip was a gift to myself to celebrate the start of my last year in my twenties.

This was my first NCECA and I had no idea what to expect. Because the conference is kind of expensive, I just purchased a day pass to go on Thursday. I had the opportunity to watch some demonstrations, go to a few panel discussions, and explore the annual cup show and sale and the K-12 exhibition (which was very cool).

So the conference was pretty cool, but the real fun started when I ventured out of the convention center. A number of concurrent exhibitions are held alongside NCECA, so I had the opportunity to look at a lot of people's work in one weekend. My favorite discoveries were the Artstream Nomadic Gallery show (where I snapped up a beautiful Jen Allen mug), and the "La Mesa" show put on by Santa Fe Clay, which featured 150 place settings by 150 different artists. After the other hands-off, pots-on-pedestals exhibits, it was such a joy to be able to handle and examine the work of so many talented artists. Here's a few you might recognize:

This is Lisa Orr's place setting. Lisa Orr produces work that is sort of the direct opposite of the aesthetic of my work, but I just love her vibrancy and the depth of her surfaces. More is more indeed.


Here's Bonnie Seeman, senior lecturer at the University of Miami, and the creator of some amazingly intricate and detailed work. Do you see the tiny bugs all over the cups?


And here's Christa Assad's place setting. I love the fresh feel of her work and the bright and somewhat unusual colors.


All in all, I had a fabulous time. Next year's NCECA is in Philadephia, which is a great, great town. Maybe I'll just have to attend that one too...

NCECA

I'm flying off to Phoenix tomorrow to attend the NCECA conference. I'm so excited! NCECA is like the clay arts Mecca, and I've never been. I'll tell you all about the trip when I get back!

A refusal to learn

Do you have a lesson in your life that you are repeatedly trying to learn? I do. The lesson that I need to learn over and over again is that I cannot glaze a kiln's worth of pots and do a bunch of glaze testing in one day. Ever since I installed my own kiln, I have been struggling to learn this.

It normally takes me about four weeks to make enough work to fill up my kiln for a bisque, because I only work about 10 to 15 hours a week in my studio. I then try to glaze all those pieces in one or two days. And every single time, this sounds like more than enough time, but nearly every time, I'm struggling to get it done. And I'm usually under some kind of deadline for custom orders or class assignments, so I can't just push the schedule back and glaze another day.

I don't know why I do this over and over. I did it again just this week. I have a surface treatment assignment due on Monday, so I plan to fire a glaze kiln Friday night into Saturday morning. I should have probably fired a bisque around March 13th in order to give myself plenty of time to glaze and mix some new glaze tests, but as usual, I didn't. I ran the bisque last Friday, and now have just one day to glaze everything. Why do I do this to myself?!

Positivity

I signed into Etsy this morning, and saw I had a new feedback comment. I clicked the link and here's what I saw:

"This seller was amazing! The earrings I bought for my girlfriend were high quality, and Michelle shipped them fast. I would definitely order from this seller again."

Feedback comments like this mean so much to me. Given the relative anonymity of the Internet, it's very easy to forget that you're still dealing with real people. When someone takes the time to tell me that they enjoyed our brief interaction, my heart gives a little leap. I try hard to make each transaction a nice experience, and I love knowing that this is being noticed. I've been fortunate in that I've had very few bad transactions on Etsy. The vast majority of my customers have been fabulous, and for that, I'm so grateful. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

A weekend with a master

It's Monday morning and I'm recovering from a two-day weekend workshop with the legendary ceramic artist Don Reitz. I love these weekend workshops at ACC, I've attended four or five now and they're always wonderful. Very often, I come away from them with ideas for new pots, and loads of information on tools and techniques. There's nothing like getting to sit and watch the way these brilliant artists work.

The Don Reitz workshop was a little different than all the others though. I didn't leave yesterday afternoon with a sketchbook full of new ideas and techniques to try. In fact, I didn't take hardly any notes at all. Instead, I was swept up in Don's immeasurable enthusiasm and passion for clay, and for its incredible qualities. Don and I make very different pots, and he's got forty years of pot-making on me, but I saw in him that passion that I feel in my heart for clay and the creative process.

My teacher Kathy specifically wanted me to attend this workshop so that I would be exposed to Don's confident mark-making abilities, his tendency to attack the clay surface with gusto and fervor. Using a variety of tools and his own bare hands, Don carved up his thrown sections, making slashes, crosses, indentations, tearing edges, and so on. I have been wanting to shake up the direction of my work, but I've found that I'm often scared of ruining an otherwise good pot with what I think will be bad marks or alterations. As a result, I make the same pots again and again, and they're not bad, but eventually I lose a bit of that passionate creative flame that drives an artist in the first place. Nothing kills the creative spirit like boredom, I guess.

Don is in his eighties, and he had not been to Colorado for a workshop since 1987, so it's unlikely that I will ever have the opportunity to be in his presence again. I'm so glad that I had the chance to spend a weekend with him, even as just a spectator, sitting in a plastic chair with fifty or so other clay fiends. I take away from this weekend my new mantra, Don's voice in my head saying what he said over and over as he feverishly played in the clay and tried whatever came to mind, "It's ok though. It'll all work out."

Testing...testing...

My camera is on its last legs, so I haven't really been able to do any posts about what I'm working on in the studio these days. Mostly, I've been doing my required assignments for my ceramics IV class and making a lot of test tiles for an upcoming surface treatment assignment. Here are some really crappy photos from my cell phone of my newest test tile-making method:

First, I roll out of slab of clay and cut it to be 10 inches long and 4 inches wide. Then I texture half of it with a bisque stamp (mine is a sort of pebbly pattern). To get that angled test tile shape, I then drape the long clay slab over the flap of a cardboard clay box, adjusting the flap inside the box to get the right angle.


After the slab has stiffened up a bit, I cut it into 2" tiles with a wire knife, and then use a hole cutter to put a hole in the corner of each tile. I also score a line into the inside bend of the tile, to make it easier to break off the unglazed base of the test tile after firing.


This leaves me with little square test tiles that can be hung up on nails or tied together into sets. I use a weird self-created shorthand to record the glaze information on the base of the test tile before firing using an underglaze marker, and then write the information again in Sharpie on the back of the finished tile. Once some of these are out of the kiln, I'll post a photo of a finished one. Hopefully all of my testing will yield some cool new colors and surfaces!

Getting Analytical

You Etsy sellers out there might have noticed recently that Etsy has made it easy to set up Google Analytics for your Etsy store. Analytics lets you track how many visitors come to your store every day, and how they got there. It's listed under the "Shop Setup" section of your Etsy store.

I've been using Analytics since about January 11th and it's been very interesting to see where visitors are coming from and how many people visit every day. Here are some of my observations so far:

-Being on the Etsy front page rocks! Of course, we all knew this already, but the data given through Analytics really supports that. My store averages between 40 and 70 individual visits on any given day, but on a day when I have an item on the front page, the visits shoot up to nearly 500! Even if no one buys anything on a front page day, they very often will mark my shop as a favorite and then come back to it at a later point.

-Relisting and renewing on Etsy really does drive your visibility. When I was on vacation in mid-January, I used a public library computer to relist a few times during the week, down from my normal 6 to 10 times a day. During that time, I averaged about 20 visits a day. The second week I was gone, I didn't have access to a computer, so I put my shop in Vacation Mode and only averaged about 8 visits a day. Once I got home and go back to my regular amount of renewing, my visits shot back up to the normal range. I guess you really do have to spend money to make money! I budget about $2.00 a day to renewing listings and do almost no other advertising.

-The vast majority of my store's traffic (about 65%) comes from within Etsy itself. The next big category is Google, followed by craftcult.com and twitter.com, which are two sites I know absolutely nothing about. I need to look into this and see why I'm getting traffic from these two places. I think knowing where people are visiting from really helps you figure out where and how to advertise online. My blog is #20 on the list, and my website is #11.

If you have an Etsy store and you haven't set up Analytics yet, I highly recommend it. It's really pretty easy and very eye-opening!

Rings Are Back!

Just a quick note to let you know that rings are back in the shop! My rings have been a hot seller since I debuted them last year, and it's been hard to keep them in stock. I still don't have all the styles in all the colors, but there are some available in the Rings section of my Etsy store, including this pretty cobalt blue one.

To create each ring, I first cut and shape porcelain clay into an oval or round shape, and then glaze each one with my signature reactive glazes. After the porcelain pieces are fired in the kiln, they get epoxied onto adjustable, silver-plated ring bands that have a pretty hammered texture.

Bridesmaid/Attendant Gifts

Last night, I was packing up an order of eight matching pendants for a bride-to-be who contacted me through Etsy. I do several bridesmaid/attendant gift orders like this every wedding season, so it has occurred to me that maybe I should offer a special wedding package deal.

So here it is: if you buy six or more jewelry items from my shop (matching or assorted), you'll get free shipping! Each item will arrive packaged in a pretty jewelry box, ready to give to the lovely ladies who are supporting you through your wedding.

Note: Each item in my Etsy store is listed as having a quantity of one item, but in reality, I usually have several of each item shown. If you need more than I have in stock, I'm happy to glaze some up for you and run them through the kiln. Sometimes it can take 6 to 8 weeks to make enough work to run the kiln, so try to let me know ahead of time!

Wisdom

In my Ceramics IV class yesterday at ACC, we had the opportunity to watch an incredible video on the topic of wisdom. The DVD came with the stunning Wisdom: 50 Unique and Original Portraits by Andrew Zuckerman.

Here's the description from Amazon:
"Inspired by the idea that wisdom is the greatest gift one generation can give to another, award-winning photographer and filmmaker Andrew Zuckerman interviewed, photographed and filmed 50 of the world’s great writers, actors, artists, designers, politicians, musicians and religious and business leaders of our time. He posed seven questions to each of his subjects—all over 65 years of age—and their candid responses offer uniquely inspirational and often surprising insights."

I found this movie to be really thought-provoking and personally touching and inspirational. I found myself jotting down quote after quote, such as Bernice Johnson Reagon's "You just have to go for broke." You can watch a portion of the movie on wisdombook.org.

Sales Milestone!

Thanks to a late-January sales blast in my Etsy shop, I've now surpassed 400 sales! I love turning any milestone in my sales numbers. I know 400 sales isn't huge on Etsy, where some people have sold thousands of items, but for me, each one is still a huge accomplishment. It's such a dream come true to be able to make stuff and sell it, and every single sale on Etsy fills me up with joy. Thanks to all of my customers out there, you mean the world to me!

Back to Real Life

I'm back! I've actually been back since Saturday, but it's taken me a while to get back into the groove of things. Our fun-in-the-sun vacation turned out to be more of a fun-in-the-cold-and-gray vacation, thanks to a freak streak of cold weather in Florida, but we still had a good time!

While I was in St. Petersburg, Florida, I had the opportunity to check out a bit of the local clay scene. I started off by visiting the St. Petersburg Clay Company, located in the old Seaboard Train Station, built in 1926. This facility is home to about 60 artists. They're unique in that they offer various levels of membership and studio rentals. They have a massive kiln yard that includes gas and raku kilns, as well as an anagama kiln. Throughout the facility, you can view the work of almost everyone, all the way from the artists-in-residence to the some of the original SPCC founders. If you're in St. Pete and into clay, you definitely want to schedule of a tour of this place!

I also got to visit the lovely Craftsman House Gallery, which is housed in a renovated 1918 Craftsman bungalow. I wandered for what seemed like hours through the sunny gallery space, and was delighted to find that the gallery carried work by such pottery greats as Tom and Elaine Coleman and Natalie Blake. I came away with a stunning Tom Coleman bowl, which looks a bit like the one here. Craftsman House owner Stephanie Schorr gave me a tour of the pottery studio, located in the adjacent renovated carriage house, and her kiln building. Craftsman House also has a wonderful cafe where you can get coffee drinks and a great little meal. I had the olive tapenade platter and the mango iced tea and it was fantastic! I can see why this place does such a huge local lunch rush!

After St. Petersburg, we headed to Orlando for a few days of fun at Disney World. This is my third Disney World trip in five years, I love it there so much! My first trip was for a friend's wedding, and I have to say, I was skeptical as to why two adults would want to get married in a place that's obviously for kids. Then I got there, and saw Donald Duck for the first time, and promptly fell under the Disney World spell. I've never had more fun anywhere in my life! The food, the rides, the beautiful gardens and hotels...I could go on and on. If you've never been, you must go at least once in your life. You won't regret it!

So, now I'm home and trying to switch over from vacation mode. I'm firing a glaze kiln next weekend, so look for some new work in the store soon!

In a sunshine state of mind...

This is my last blog post for a couple of weeks! My dear husband and I are heading to Florida for a fun-in-the-sun vacation, complete with a side trip to Disney World. My mom will be running my Etsy store while I'm gone, but only jewelry items will be available. Pottery, chopstick gift sets, and international shipping options will return on January 26th!

Money Matters

I've been away from my blog for so long! I took a few days off from the computer around Christmas, but this long absence is due to the fact that I threw out my back a little over a week ago. It's getting slowly getting better, but it's been very uncomfortable to sit at the computer for any length of time. Or to do anything else, for that matter! I've never thrown out my back before; I had no idea it was so debilitating.

Since I'm not up to anything in the studio, I spent the morning doing the bookkeeping for my pottery business. I'm proud to say that I made a profit in 2008! I've never actually made a profit in my business before, I've only sort of broke even. I took my profit and divided it by a rough estimate of the number of hours I worked at my business this year. I discovered that I earned $4.00 an hour making and selling pottery and jewelry this year! Hoots toots!

Of course, I would like to make more than $4.00 an hour making pottery. And I'm beginning to understand how to do that, finally. I'm discovering that it takes careful tracking of information of all sorts. I track what I spend on my business, in various spreadsheets for material, marketing, and overhead costs. I also track my sales monthly and annually to see which sales venues are producing the most income. I got my spreadsheets from an excellent art/craft business book called Making a Living in Crafts. I highly recommend checking it out if you're new to running a small craft business or you just never feel like you know what you're doing when it comes to the money side of your business.

I used to worry endlessly about how I would ever make enough money to continue to be able to make pottery. I wondered how in the world anyone ever supported themselves with their art! Now, I just try to do better than last year. I used to think there was some sort of magical plan or system that I just had not discovered that was the Answer. Now, I realize that pretty much everyone does the same thing. They do research, they try things, and then they keep what works and they pitch what doesn't. It's really that simple.

Going into 2009, I'm looking carefully at my spreadsheets, trying to determine where I can cut costs in order to be more profitable in the coming year. I see that my shipping costs and shipping supplies categories are where I spend a lot of money. Maybe I can search around for lower costs on bubble mailers and shipping labels and the like. I also see that my advertising section is pretty hefty, probably due to all those Etsy showcase spots and co-op ads I bought into early in 2008. I was just signing up for things willy-nilly, because I had no idea what worked for me. Now I know a little more. Etsy co-op ads, such as those in Bust or Craft magazines, have done nothing for me. Main Showcase spots are usually worth the money, but Category Showcase spots are not. I dropped Constant Contact's e-mail marketing services in favor of Vertical Response, because Constant Contact costs $15 a month whereas Vertical Response is pay-as-you-go and normally costs me about $4 to send an e-newsletter to my entire mailing list. It's amazing how little things like this add up to big money at the end of a year.

I know a lot of people don't like to talk about money, and some think it's crass to do so, but I don't agree. How will anyone learn about money if no one talks about it? I would love to see more money talk in artists' blogs, because I'd love to learn what they've learned without having to go through it myself. Why do we insist on reinventing the wheel? Let's just all share what we've learned so we can all do better.

On that note, I hope 2009 will be a happy and prosperous year for all of you. I know that our economy is feeling pretty shaky right now, so it's more important than ever to learn what we can about money. If your personal finances need help, check out a little gem of a book called All Your Worth. I read this book two years ago and it changed my financial life forever. If you've resolved to get your money act together in 2009, start with this book. You won't regret it! Happy New Year!