Prints

Now, this is just a random, stray thought I've been toying with... but I'm considering offering up some of my amateur photography as prints for sale on Etsy. I have been obsessed for the past few weeks with photographing the barren, winter trees that I see on my drives to and from work everyday, and I think that the subjects would definitely fit in with my "Earth, Trees, and Heather" image. I guess I'll have to play around with printing methods first to see whether it's a viable option.

Thoughts?

Pitfalls and Shortcomings, Part 3: Brand-Image

On Brand-Image:
I've known for a long time the value of a Brand-Image and fitting a 'niche', as they say... but in looking through my work, it mostly looks disorganized. One of the biggest things I want to work on this year, is creating a cohesive presentation, both in the studio and online, so that all of my work... more or less looks like it all goes together.

I currently have a signature stamp using the emblem of a wolf on the bottom of some of my stuff, my initials on others, and a star on still others. I really like my wolf... but it doesn't go with the store name/image. (On a side note, apparently nobody recognizes it as a wolf anyway. Bahumbug.) If I ditch the wolf, I could switch to a tree, and/or the actual store name... Or, a branch of Heather. That could work. Using my own name sort of causes problems, what with the last name thing (which is why I don't much like using my initials, plus they're sort of ambiguous. "Who is this HB person?")

I also really want to move away from using class-glazes, and producing my own instead, so that I have a uniform palette to choose from, which will help with things looking like my work, specifically, rather than just anybody's. I know that it does to some extent, but there's room for a lot of improvement. When I look through my store at what's for sale, it's kind of all over the place, and I don't really like that. I want it to all tie in together and be mine. Part of that includes hunting down what glazes my high school pottery teacher had, because I really liked some of them. I did work on some loosely-associated 'themes' during the second half of the semester, with the two bowls and plate that have leaves pressed into them... And I would like to continue with that direction, as well as others.

And... I'm not sure I like the way some (a lot) of my pieces are photographed. Sadly, my camera is out of commission at the moment, but when it's fixed, there are some I need to re-take because they came out a little blurry, and also I find the use of mom's couch (yes, that's what it is, cheap scenery) a bit distracting.. The ones with the all-black backgrounds look much crisper. I think I need to find some sort of backdrop to put behind them, just a black or a gray sheet, and then do that for EVERYTHING, so it looks more professional. I've browsed around other shops on etsy, and noticed a lot of them have used a gradient black-to-white background, which I think is a photography backdrop. It seems to work pretty well, so that's also something to think about.

Pitfalls and Shortcomings, Part 2: Finances

On Finances:
It seems I either misplaced, or forgot to order, a debit card for the separate checking account... Whoops! Made paying for shipping rather inconvenient! I have to remedy that. I also need to look at a unified way of examining cash flow, and including extraneous costs, since the transaction fees from both Etsy & Paypal, though small, are not something I had previously figured into my prices. Etsy does have a downloadable something-or-other, I think, or I could buy some software... But I also need to sit down and make a list of all my real expenses, line by line, both in production, and in distribution... and of course, I need to start allocating for some advertising.

Speaking of which, I really need a more accurate assessment of appropriate cost to manufacture a piece, including actual time spent on production and materials. My clay comes in 25 lb. bags (I think), and it only really costs me about $12-$13 per bag, so 2 - 3 lbs of clay doesn't cost all that much... but time and studio space cost money.

I can be in class for about 4 hours, and produce maybe 6 - 8 pieces. (More like 12 if they are smaller.) It takes another 2 - 3 hours to trim them all, and after bisque another 1 1/2 to glaze everything. Which comes out to 8 1/2 cumulative hours for about 8 pieces, or 1.0625 hours per piece. Since not everything that comes out of the last step, the glaze firing, is actually sellable, my success rate is more like 60-70%. Which means I just spent $8 on clay, and $127.50 on time consumed (if I assume I cost about $15/hour when I could be doing other things with my time), to produce ~5 sellable pieces. Which gives me around $27.10 per item, of pure cost to produce. And that's not including the cost of access to the studio itself, and the fact that I only used class-glazes, which are free.

...A bit of an eye-opener, when I have things for sale at $8-12.

Hope Floats

I want to take a break from the sequence of reviewing and reflection, to talk about something I just found yesterday.

For a while now, I've been wanting to set up my own studio that I could control myself, that I would have access to whenever I wanted, as opposed to relying on school or a public studio that is only open during certain hours. But I was pretty much resigned to the fact that it would probably be a while before I had the funds to do that, since it requires a lot of large machinery. I had done some looking online at different wheels and done some pricing on kilns a while back, but it looked pretty expensive.

However, in browsing around Craigslist (which is an awesome resource, by the way), I found not one, but TWO listings for used pottery wheels! One even listed the possibility of some kilns for sale as well. I am a little short on cash at the moment, but I think at around $350 - 500 for a wheel, that's not something I can really afford to pass up, even if I have to store it in the garage for a little while.

I'm hopeful!

Pitfalls and Shortcomings, Part 1: Shipping

So... the year is over, a new one has begun... and being that I officially own my own store (albeit, online), I have reviews to do.
Last year, I had some of my first sales, and experienced my first couple attempts at trying to ship merchandise out-of-state. It was... an interesting experience.

On Shipping:
My goal was to be able to ship within two business days of payment, however I have found that difficult to maintain. Although in theory, if I got up early enough I could ship any day, including days I work, in practice it's proven very hard for me to actually do this. I may have to reconsider limiting my shipping to Tuesdays and Thursdays, the days I usually have off of my normal job. Or, I could extend it to 3 - 5 business days, on the theory that I will at some point have time off in there somewhere. I really prefer a 2 - 3 day schedule though, because any longer than that feels sort of... excessive. And as a customer myself, I'm usually impatient for stuff!

Another thing I found out, was that packing materials are sort of at a premium without actually, you know, purchasing them. In the very beginning, my shipping estimates were not even close to accurate, and I had to swallow the difference of about 5 dollars on the first few that went out... and then after raising them, I found they were a little excessive when sending multiple items in one box, so I've adjusted them again. I think it's pretty close now, but the cost for the packing materials themselves may change that.
Also, note to self: Never pay for UPS to pack stuff, it's way too expensive, and it's my OWN artwork, so it's not like I don't have incentive to pack it securely.
In the near future, I need to get a postage scale so that I can have everything all printed and packed for drop-offs, instead of taking 30 minutes every trip to the UPS store. (Yuck.)

I should really formulate one, uniform and consistent packing formula, so that I'm not scrambling around anymore. I like the idea of using recycled packaging as much as possible, I could easily get a shredder to shred up old newspapers for filler instead of using Styrofoam peanuts, but the raku items may require some bubble-wrapping. I still need to solve my boxes problem though. I also like the idea of offering gift wrapping, but that is going to require some additional thought for pricing.

Year's End and Review

The fall semester is almost over, the kilns have been going almost non-stop at school to round up the end of class. My last official class is next Tuesday, which is really just a day to critique and review each other's work, and otherwise goof off. It also hails the end of my production year, as the studio will be closed while classes are on recess. Which means some time to sit back, relax... and look back over the past few months to see where I dropped the ball.

Over the break, I'm hoping to snag some much-needed backroom work in organization and planning. I made my first couple of sales over the past month, and will be sending out my first shipment tomorrow morning, which I'm very excited (and nervous) about. I also have a bunch more work from the past semester to put up for sale after the class critique. But still, there's lots of room for improvement...

In the next few posts, I will be focusing in more sharply on individual sections, but a brief summary:

In Review...
I made a couple of sales this quarter, which is great! But, it could be better... my delivery time has been lacking, in part because of a lack of preparation. My shipping costs also need some refinement, as well as the overall look of the shop by finishing my banner and taking better/more uniform photos of my items. I got a new camera for this purpose, but I haven't decided on the backgrounds.

I'm seeing that I definitely need to streamline my processes more. A lot of extra work could have been avoided with better notes, especially on glazing. Nothing sucks worse than a really great piece coming out with a bad glaze. I also need to do more pre-planning, as I find myself wasting a lot of time just trying to figure out 'what' to do.

I also took a shot at putting a small selection up for sale in a store setting, and while they did generate some interest, there weren't any sales. I think I will have to refine my selection and display a bit, if it's going to be worth it. However, it's free, which is a plus.

In looking forward...
I plan to dedicate a full 2 - 3 weeks to just glaze-testing once classes start again. A full selection of colors and then collection of tried-and-true mixing combinations, so I'm not wasting full pieces just trying to test out one glaze. Once I have an effect and it's proved repeatable, I can expand in forms and create a more uniform look to my work.

Over the break, I'm going to be working on my photography and finishing up that store banner and matching business cards. I could probably take another look at my descriptions, and posted store policies, to see if I can improve the wording and appearance. I will also be looking into investing in some of the online-advertising on Etsy, to generate some more traffic through my shop. That's it for now, I'm sure I'll have more later.

Overflowing

One of the biggest reasons I really wish I could quit my job, is just so that I would have more time. I only have class 2 days a week, and since I work almost every day, there really isn't much room to squeeze any more days into the studio. So I usually try to squeeze as much work out of the hours I have available.

Which leads me to a problem: there isn't enough space.

The school allows me 2 shelves on the big rolling shelving units in the studio (just like every other student), and if I throw very large/tall pieces, I usually need to take out the top shelf to be able to fit it into the space. In a three hour period, I can easily produce enough, if I'm throwing large, to take up all the space available to me. Which means the next time I'm in, I need to trim and finish off everything I did the day before, or else I won't have room for anything new.

However, I haven't quite figured out the alchemy for wrapping my pots JUST well enough so they don't completely dry out in the days that I'm gone, but not SO well that they don't dry at all. So, I usually can't trim at the beginning of each class, and have to let things sit out while I work on something else. It doesn't really take all that long for a piece to dry, but it's a very specific point in dryness where it can be trimmed... Too much, and it's too hard, too little, and it's too soft and sticky, and warps easily.

It would be most effective, if I could be in every day of the week, or nearly so, so that I could check on things regularly and work when they are ready. Which leads me back to the original problem: Time.

*Sigh* It's a circular problem. e=mc^2 where the root of time and space equals the distance between myself and insanity... ..Or, something.