The Results

We followed the plan and we succeeded! It was a mildly successful weekend. Not nearly what Mother's Day brought us, but those that came bought pottery and left me know how much they loved what I do. It's a really nice feeling to get that feedback. Thanks to everyone to came!

I'm back at it now making more mugs. Celtic Fling is coming up at the PA Ren Fairegrounds and I want to be sure I have some of everything to offer!

The Plan

After a stressful day of feeling conflicted and worried about our situation, here is the plan for action:

Since I have a weekend free, lots of pottery, lots of traffic AND the weather looks good, We're going to have a weekend sale.

As an added bonus, Morgan cut the lawn yesterday, so things are looking pretty good out there. The tent will go up later today, the signs will go out tonight and we'll set up the tables. It'll be great!

In the meantime I've just finished my morning blog-read..I follow about 50 potters blogs. Most of the time it's very inspiring to see what my fellow potters are up to. Sometimes I see new forms or finishes that inspire me, sometimes I see a marketing idea that inspires me. Sometimes I see the struggles. Most of them are pretty good about not putting too much of that in. This one potter, and I know I have mentioned him before is living a fairly idyllic life. I want my life to be as balanced as his seems to be. His name is Joe Bennion and he is living in Spring City, UT. I've been following his work off and on for about 10 years. I found his--> blog today <--to be particularly inspiring since he was talking about the balance between work and play.

Now onto production. Last night Rowan and I discussed the idea we hatched about a year ago to move into more kitchen and food oriented items for our sales at home and perhaps some of the galleries. Items like Berry Bowls and Butter Keepers, tumblers have become part of what we do, now we're going to add garlic bakers, garlic jars, brie bakers, and maybe chicken bakers to the list. She wasn't so keen on the chicken bakers, but I read about them fairly often so I'm going to make a few and see how it goes. If I ate chicken, I'd want to try one out. I also have a request for some Chip N Dips..so what the heck..I'll do a few of those too. Don't get me wrong..I am NEVER going to be a straight production potter, I pay attention to too many details for that. I feel like I've finally thrown off the aesthetic of the one of a kind, every detail perfect, and thought about, meditated on and finally executed piece which is promptly admired and locked behind glass, to one where the piece is designed, thought about, executed well, looks beautiful and most importantly is put into everyday use by a customer. I want to make pieces that touch people in their daily lives. Pieces for touching, using and enriching daily life.

This is my plan and goal.

That said, it's time to get busy and make some pieces.

Assessing and Reassessing MONEY

Mreow! phasers set to stun!

How many times have you heard the quote" an unexamined life isn't worth living"? It's attributed to Plato, though I first came across it in a biography of Thomas Jefferson. I take it to heart. One thing I constantly do is assess and reassess my life. Am I happy? If so, why? If not, why?

Lately I find myself generally happy..a condition I can describe best as neutral-positive. I'm not ambivalent (neutral), I'm not sparkly happy positive either, it's somewhere in between, but every once in a while I hit the neutral-negative to NEGATIVE zone and that causes me to reassess. Today I slipped from neutral-positive to neutral-negative and before I crash I wanted to do a little introspection and figure out just what's going on.

Usually it's some kind of conflict that makes me the most unhappy. Like when my wife and I have a fundamental disagreement, or there is some kind of stress that affects me and one of the businesses I am involved with. The behavior of a coworker or a a looming overdue task. The biggest one of all is always about money. Money issues can make my mood crash like nothing else.

The question is why? I am told that many successful people have been monetary failures several times. I have been on the verge several times, but I can go from feeling like the King of Potters to someone not worthy,a complete failure! All over a few unexpected bills.

So realistically am I a complete failure? Heck no! I have a booming business even in this recession. I've sold more pottery and had higher sales than every before. I am very pleased with the quality and quantity of work I am producing this year.

Of course my expenses are higher too. I have a mortgage and a car payment and cable and high speed internet, an electric bill that supports 2 kilns,a student loan payment, a gas bill for the stove and outdoor kiln, insurance for the vehicles as well as a small accident policy. 2 teenagers, one who is JUST now finding a job (YAY Morgan, gotta pay your share of that insurance). And it all adds up.AND I never had all that before...*sigh* do we need that cable?

I think one of the problems is we have less shows than in the past. We dropped a few from the schedule that were not performing really well and that has left monetary gaps where there was a dribble of income before but freed us up from having to split stock and rush to be in 2 and sometimes 3 places at once for not much return, but it affected cash flow. And flow is the problem. when I look at the numbers 1/2 of my income comes between July and October which is essentially 1/4 of the year. NOT good!

SO now I have to figure out how to boost the dead zones to keep it all going. The home based studio sales have been good. We added a few local SCA events which have helped. In fact I was totally blown away by how successful these small shows have been, but we're still falling a little short and I am getting really exasperated. I complained to Ro the other day, "How can I have sold ($BIG$) in pottery this month and still be broke? Which is of course easy to do...I mean look at all these big companies dropping like flies, it all comes down to spending less than you make. The trouble is I like the life I have now and want to make more rather than cut costs.

So I need to sell more of my work. Really it shouldn't be that hard. If I could get 1/2 of 1% of the residential population in the state college area to buy a piece from me I'd be set for years. If I could sell 50 pieces a week on average spread out over all my outlets, I'd truly have it made...only 50 pieces.

I think we're going to do another sale at home this weekend. Throw out the sign and hope for passers by. Even if we only sell a few pieces it'll be less expense than packing up and driving to a small SCA event and much less hassle than an art fair.

The best part is it takes some of the helpless feeling away. Something I am really lucky to be able to do. Someone making an hourly wage can't just decide to try to increase their salary instantly. And I don't know if I can, but I can try :)