Art Biz

Artist-Customer Satisfaction, Easy As ABC 123

 

I live and work at the edge of the Pacific Ocean.  A  half a mile inland from a sheltering bay, I sometimes have the pleasant experience of days which are not wholly foggy, but are surely not sunny. Coastal weather.

A recent day was Neither-Nor,  switching camps several times. I lunched with some creative clay friends and the conversation returned like the perennially teasing fog bank to the subject of how to find selling opportunities which suited our artistic styles, our out-of-pocketbooks and, most importantly, our temperaments. The rub was how to not waste time and money on the false starts:  the places where we and our creations are not loved and understood and consequently don’t tend to sell at any price. The questions and answers were as nebulous as fog.

It got me thinking about the Circle of Artmaking, of which I consider active selling one of the more puzzling arc segments . For one thing,  it’s crucial to the circle only if an artist chooses it to be – all sorts of wonderful  and profound art is never offered for sale. So what changes if the Circle is widened to include the marketplace? Pretty much everything and nothing.

Over the past five years I have constantly narrowed my scope of endeavor and rigorously back-edited my inventory in order to concentrate on the stuff that my Muses keep chattering on and on and on about.  I did not do that primarily in order to sell more (even if I hoped I would,)  because it’s clear that I’ve created a niche collection that absolutely NO-ONE is out there looking for. And yet, when I step into the right selling arena, when the right tribe encounters my works, they admire, want and often buy them with a knowing smile. (And welcome to my Secret Collector’s Club!)

My clay colleagues and their snappy works happily share similar slivers of uniqueness: nobody really wants what we have….until they see it somewhere right.  We’re not for everyone and truly don’t want to be. We just want to complete the circle, cover our costs and get that bone of validation for our efforts.

And when it works, it’s easy as ABC 123

ABC rests with the artist:

A –  Make the The Right Work

B –  Offer it for sale – at the Right Price –  in The Right Arena

C – To the The Right Person(s)

We could stop Right Here and call it a lifetime’s quest to define our ABCs adequately.  We could sigh that it’s too foggy to pin down, a moving target and so on, but actually it helps to forge onward to the parts not in our control: 123.

123 describes the Right Person(s) as having:

1 –   the ability to resonate with my Point of View and Voice in Clay, especially with Humor and Irony

2  – the capacity to purchase my work; as in having the Space and the Budget for it, or a Reason/Intent to Buy

3 – a Developing Connection to me, whether real or imagined.

My first buyers were family (Thanks, Mom!) and friends, then clay colleagues. Then a complete stranger bought something, which is always a turning point.  Then some of those strangers actually returned and bought more, a nearly shocking development. This made them Collectors and often, friends. This is also when I could begin to see who was resonating with what I was doing and in what way. THAT’S who I want to put my work in front of, not everybody!

Must I always throw my art into the general and aimless marketplace like so much spaghetti against the wall? NO! It’s better to get clear on who buys what, when and how and where is their natural habitat? I’m still defining that and sense that I always will be, but I have some important clues I’m following up on. Sometimes the habitat is online, and I suspect there are other emerging realms in this fast-evolving world. Agility and awareness, as fluid as the fog bank.

Up top is a photo of what I want more of in terms of Artist-Customer satisfaction. This man was in my booth, all smiles the whole time. He asked about and appreciated nearly everything. It seemed the more I answered his questions, the happier he got. We both lit up. Playfully  and easily he selected two pieces and took them home. Continuing to play he sent me the photo below. Thank you Eric Cummins for being the Poster Child for my Secret Collector’s Club and helping me understand what we both want more of!

 

-Liz Crain, who takes heart in the fact that this nebulous marketing arc of the Circle of Artmaking is a hot topic for many, from her lunch partners to such deep-thinking writers as Roy Harris in his book The Great Debate About Art (tangentially, to get the party started) and, to one of my favorites, Seth Godin who exhorts us to “make a list of the differences and the extremes [of your “brand”] and start with that. A brand that stands for what all brands stand for stands for nothing much.”

 

 

 

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You’re Better With Better Tools, Maybe.

I just spent a small fortune on some clay carving tools. They are stainless steel, nicely shaped, and noticeably weighty, so maybe their price per pound compared to garden variety aluminum/wood tools is the same, or even cheaper. I don’t know. I don’t care.

Sexy-Expensive-Designer tools are a relatively new thing in the clay world – new as in this millennium, really –  because clay is such a primal activity and often just as easily managed with your hands and maybe a stick and a shell. I have a couple of older books devoted to the ancient practice of making your own brushes and tools. I’ve done this.  I think as a group, clay folks are pretty opportunistic and will have fun making a tool out of pert near any ol’ thang.

OK,  now I’m getting silly. Yet I do mean to contrast the down and often dirty home-grown self-sufficiencies of much ceramic work – especially functional pottery –  with an ever-growing arena of High Artistry featuring the precious piece – now considered sculptural – on a well-lit pedestal in a hushed gallery. Could this paradigm-shift extend to the tools as well?

As usual, I sit somewhere in between and am not above cutting an expired plastic card into a shape I need to texture my clay. Yet  I am equally amenable to paying $30 for four sassy-orange, very nicely engineered and name-branded cutting tools.

And why is that? To my mind, tactility rules, not aesthetics. How does it feel? Does the extra heft improve my performance? Do the insanely precise loop shapes cause me to take more care when I make a cut? Do I clean these tools more often because I respect not only their excellence but their cost? Maybe that’s all true, and yet…

Am I buying mystique? What or who is the maker/seller Xiem?  I know it’s a clay center/gallery in Pasadena where a few years back I was rejected for a show by the mythic Paulus Berensohn. I figure he gazed upon the slides – yes, slides! – of my pathetically unevolved work for a few seconds, and then sent the loveliest personally hand-written rejection email an artist is ever likely to receive. Other than that, Xiem has a certain panache and stretches like a heirloom sunflower towards a stylistic sensibility I’m not quite sure I fully share,  having one foot as I do on the opposite bank of that crik,  being a homemade tool-maker and all.

Am I buying Xiem’s tools because I’m a sorry-ass toady wannabe?  Nope. At least I’m sure of that! I bought these tools because they felt right in my hands.  I hoisted their remarkable heft, noticed the eight cutting shapes and their sharp beveled ribbon edges and knew I held excellence. Excellence I could extend into my work. These babies are just gonna HUG the road!

I have a lot of tools, but like my first Cabrillo SummerArts instructor, Una Mjurka, I return to the ones that do their jobs simply and well. Una had reduced her tools to mainly an all-purpose wooden stick and a favorite brush. She’s good like that. I’m almost there. It’s a practice, sort of a ceramics studio version of the Zero Waste Home. I have my personal stick and brush, and I know purpose and supreme function wherever I encounter it. Why bother with gizmos?

So the Better Tools Search comes with a caveat: what’s better for you? What do you need to make? What will facilitate that?  What do you need to jettison? Will this new tool facilitate your crafting more than any tool you already possess? How will you justify the cost,  of either your time spent making it, or your cash spent buying it? I can both recommend and un-recommend these Orange Beauties. Depends on what you want. But if you ever get to test-drive one, do it!

~Liz Crain, a ceramic artist who  – up til now –  swore her Amaco T-9 Sgraffito Tool was the supreme instrument.

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The Human Vignettes of Open Studios

After all, the deep and true story of any Open Studio is the people. Oh, it might seem like it’s about the unique art on display and available for purchase (My job is to make that true.) Or about the goodies to munch. (Up to my  helpers, really.) Or about clarity and support for the whole shebang. (I pin that on the trendsetting Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County.)

All that obvious stuff aside, what it actually comes down to is moment by unscripted moment, person by personal person. You do the artwork, make the signs, buy the flowers, fly the balloons, hang up the process storyboard and the ‘interpretive messages’ and open your doors at the appointed hour. And who comes is…. who comes. And it’s always people: to see you and your art….or maybe just you or maybe just your art. And it could be anyone.

 

HERE COMES ANYONE!

It’s a similar meet and greet as your wedding reception, graduation, or retirement: that  quasi-awkward and soulful roustabout that includes maybe everyone you ever knew and some you didn’t. It takes a special stance and presence to pull off, especially for an avowed introvert like me who needs time and space to recharge from even a supportive tide of humanity. And generally I don’t get that!

This year, opening day was also my birthday.  I passed out faux diamonds to the delight of my visitors and I went out to eat afterwards with my family at a pretty wonderful place. I was an overwrought birthday girl who still needed to pull it together and manage 11-5 on Sunday, too.  I swear, the voices did not leave my head for a week. At least I had time between first weekend and Encore Weekend, but of course I spent that time making more work and visiting other ceramics artists.

Yet, now that a week or more has passed since the closing Encore Weekend of the Tour, I’m able to describe in small vignettes who extra unexpectedly dropped by this year.

NEIGHBOR PETE

We love Pete. He’s 94 – as he is quick to tell you – and still full of vinegar and gab. He met my son Roger and his girlfriend Cassandra on the sidewalk when they were returning from placing my green directional  signs at the corner. He regaled them with (um…repeated from last year) stories of World War II and the young men he trained to fly, saying he still gets birthday cards from them. It’s a juicy memory for Pete and he came up the driveway and into the Open Studio gallery at least twice more that day to tell anyone and everyone in the room of his fond escapades. His lively blue eyes and peppery gestures delight, and it’s fun to manage his excitement with as much love and enthusiasm as he generates.

 

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

I can easily tell the local high school ceramics students who come to dash a few notes and check off another artist visit. I jokingly ask them “Got homework?” and proceed from there. My mission: become ‘real’ and defy the Artist on a Pedestal mystique. It’s just me, Lizzy-From-the-Block, who happens to make some awesome shit. Yeah, take photos! Yeah, I’ll pose. Yeah, say hi to your instructor because I KNOW him and we’re passionate about the same thing.  May they come to see how this is not mysterious, just fueled by love of expression, the curious artistic “What if?” and an excellent work ethic.

 

THE NO-PRESSURE BUS TOUR

About 48 hours before opening day, I got an email from the Cultural Council alerting me to the arrival on Sunday of the 24-seater bus full of major donors to the Cultural Council. I was the last stop.  I could have opted out of the visit, but why would I?  It proved to have an unforeseen impact. First, the bus arrived 20 minutes earlier than targeted! Son Max, the professional bartender, scrambled to grab the wines and glasses on the front table and also serve up  the husband-made foccacia and olive tapenade.  The bus tour completely filled my small old-house spaces with bodies! They’d already had lunch and enough wine and appetizers at the five other studios they’d taken in earlier,  so they were tuckered out and had seen enough.

One of the tour leaders mentioned to me in the milling onslaught that I could speak to the group if I was so inclined. I hadn’t considered that, but taking it as my only chance to make friends – seeing as how some were beginning to leave after only about 15 minutes  –  I decided on the fly to address them. Many were already outside headed back out to the bus, so I found myself on my front porch delivering a heartfelt and choked-up impromptu speech about the Full Circle. It went some thing like this: Thank you deeply for being here.  We all count in this artsy endeavor. Even when you are not here, I carry your enjoyment and support back into my studio. The learners you also support in the schools matter.  I’ve seen the 2nd graders I taught as a SPECTRA artist in the 90s arrive at Cabrillo College Ceramics or here in my studio,  still on fire for the arts. All hail Arts Education, your vision and your presence!

What I said – I wish I had a video – felt genuine and true. I was SO glad the bus tour came here, but not for the reasons I thought I would be.

 

HOMECOMING TIMES FOUR

Some of my visitors walked unannounced up my front path after decades of no communication. I was relieved to recognize them AND remember their names. Seriously. That is one of the greatest skills an Open Studios artist can cultivate: name and place retention. Of course you have your mailing list to help jog your cognition, but these folks, well, I’m talking OUT OF THE BLUE and good luck with it!

Mom of Young Son’s Playmates: Stunningly beautiful, with her new husband in tow, after moving out of the country and back and then to at least three other states before returning to CA, was the mom of two grown boys, friends of my sons back in the day. I remember all four kids perching in the almond tree out back when the branch her boys were on gave way and dumped them on the ground, with only a few scrapes and lots of tears. The almond tree has never looked right since. A joy to see her now, though.

Former Co-Worker Buddy:  What’s special about the smiling face of a fellow Intel adventurer from the 70s? I left, he stayed and retired comfortably at 50. It’s been a long time, and we have Facebook to thank for the initial reunion, but there he was, smiling the same and sharing some of his current interests that also happen to be mine and my hubby’s. I sense another confab real soon. No time lost and what a pleasure to reconnect.

Very Special Auntie: She was frail and tentative. And before I knew she was here, the bus-tour had overwhelmed her like a tidal wave. When they left, she was still there, aiming to make herself known. We chatted a little and then I re-introduced her to my now-grown sons that she’d doted on. An honor for her to visit.

Longtime Missing Clay Colleague: She had moved and moved again, I’d heard. It’d been over seven years, yet I’d never heard from her, even with a few notecards of inquiry sent. But the soulfulness of our formative years in clay classes and open labs was not to be denied. She came with her gracious grown daughter and I’ve forged a reconnection for which I have hungered and hungered.

 

As it turns out, the Art and the Open Studios format is the bait. It’s the human connection that  binds and lasts. My artwork, as passionate as I am about it, is merely a backdrop to those connections.  Yet without the Open in Open Studios, without the Full Service presentation and a certain formality, without the serious and true family backup, the postcards to my mailing list, the consistent Facebook postings, the rest would not take place. Of that I am convinced.

Last post I talked about the  chunk of my Clay Tribe I could visit during Open Studios. That tribal group really extends to all the neighbors, students, bus tourists,  former acquaintances, appreciators and visitors. After five years of Open Studios I finally get how the reception is for everyone and I expect and welcome all comers. Because that’s who matters.

~Liz Crain, who struggles to maintain her harmony and equilibrium all year long, not just during Open Studios.

 

 

 

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A Frank Look at Money and Venues

The Situation: At some point, Dear Ones, every artist who’d like to “sell” is looking for validation. If someone –  a complete stranger, a friend, or even your mom – gives you respectable money for your precious creations, you cross a line from self-pleasuring hobbyist to validated emerging professional. Just like that. And it feels good.

We won’t go into how squishy and dotted that line is, or how many times you may retreat and re-cross it;  sure, then unsure, than sure again of that validation. It can really mess with your head. Not to mention your work in the studio.

Instead, we’ll fast forward to the place where all the problems you’ve solved in order to stay validated are different now. You’re a Selling Artist. Though you may still and forever be “emerging,” the talking points become more about your niche, your ideal customer, your pricing practices, your product families. Art Biz stuff. Besides making the most excellent and meaningful work you can, where are the optimum places for you to be in order for it to be enjoyed and purchased by those who naturally want what you have and have the means to buy it? Where is the Goldilocks Validation Zone?

That last question will never really go away because it involves the agile art market and your fragile toehold in it.  This applies to us all: I don’t care how big of a name you have or market you roll in, agility and adeptness in responding to change are your trusted allies. You will answer and re-answer such marketing questions until you no longer seek market validation.

 

The Plot Sickens:

A few Art Soup thickeners here: You’re in charge of this selling stuff, every bit of it. Even if you partner with galleries, co-ops, wholesalers, art groups, agents and tour events, you are the partner too.

No pathway is a sure thing.

Going ONLY after money is a one-way ticket to meaninglessness.

Beware of seeking potential validation, which might masquerade as all-promising flattery and/or “exposure.”  You might lose sight of a venue or event’s viability. (I’m looking at YOU quasi-donation pay-to-play garden party.)

 

The Frank Look: Until recently, I just ran numbers on my actual sales and actual costs venue by venue or event by event in order to understand whether or not each was profitable. It was good insofar as I was able to compare what has happened over repeated months and years, so I could understand how tweaking all sorts of things (staying agile) impacted the bottom lines. I also know my overall annual income and expenses and net profit. But I sensed dis-parity in my “income streams.” What would help me understand where my efforts approached that GVZ and where was I perhaps not making the best use of my time and troubles, or, heavens, where was I spending money on an illusion (and going in the red to do it?)

The key to creating The Frank Look is to leave the world of real sales numbers and just suppose the same gross sales across the board. I started with a flat $2000 in annual sales, so let’s look at that, venue by venue:

Traditional Gallery: No out of pocket expenses.   Commission 50% = $1000.  NET: $1000.

Vanity Gallery: Upfront Monthly fees $48  x 12 = $576.  Commission 15% = $300. NET: $1124

Co-op Style Gallery: Annual Membership = $50. Entry Fees: 4 exhibits x $45 = $180.  Commission 25% = $500 NET: $1270.

But, wait, while the Co-op looks to be the most lucrative of our galleries,  there are soft costs which must be taken into account: namely the volunteer time required to “sit” the gallery and the travel expenses specifically associated with that task (not in getting the work delivered/picked up.) Even if I value that time at a ridiculous $10 an hour, it plays out like this:

Hours to Gallery Sit: 72 x $10 = $720  Travel: 12 x $5 = $60. ADJUSTED NET: $490

So ya gotta ask about the Opportunity Cost of lost studio time as well as applying a more appropriate hourly rate. Seems to me the news only gets worse for the Co-op Style Gallery.

 

Let’s look outside the galleries. Applying the same flat $2000 sales to shows and art tours….

Regional  Outdoor Show: Costs, including fees, commissions, mailings, transportation, volunteer and booth sitting time = $981.  NET: $1019

Local Outdoor Show: Cost, including fees, transportation, volunteer and booth sitting time = $361.  NET = $1639

Major Art Tour: Costs, including fees, mailings, postcards, volunteer and selling time = $810.  NET: $1190.

That Local Outdoor Show wins: no travel expenses, lower fees, NO commissions.


Are you still with me? Because there’s more.

What’s my Downside Risk?  What if I had ZERO sales?

Traditional Gallery: COST = $0

Vanity Gallery: COST = $576

Co-op Style Gallery: COST = $1010

Regional Outdoor Show: COST = $681

Local Outdoor Show: COST = $361

Major Art Tour: COST = $810

Sorry, Co-op. Yay for Local Outdoor Show! Very respectable, Traditional Gallery.


These numbers are telling me a clear story about comparable and true costs. I ran them for $1000, $3000, $4000 and $5000 sales figures. with no unexpected variations. The themes were the themes. The good got stellar. The not-so-good  dwindled and rotted as other factors came into play.

Most important other factor: the likelihood of selling a certain amount or not. Some venues are undeniably hampered in that regard, others are nearly unlimited in potential, some need to prove themselves.  It’s also fair to consider such things as: In which of these venues do I feel at home? Am I treated fairly and professionally? Is my work given a spotlight? Which of them takes less physical/creative energy to maintain? Which are better for my relationship to my collectors?

It all goes into the hopper, and armed with both The Frank Look numbers and my horse sense about where things go well, I can better determine where  that Goldilocks Validation Zone is now and in future possible exhibition venues or events.

~Liz Crain,  an artist who tries to squeeze meaning out of every effort, whether sublimely creative or calculatedly analytic, yet knows all will be well regardless.

 

 

 

 

 

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It’s Complicated: Distilling 30,000 Years of Ceramic Art into a Six-Week Beginning Handbuilding Workshop

OK yes, that title is a tad dramatic. But it’s not a needy and exaggerated untruth: I’m actively sorting and defining what I know and enjoy about the entirety of ceramic arts in order to hone in on the heart and soul of this Beginning Handbuilding class, taught by me,  starting at the end of this month.

And this week that honing process hit critical mass. It felt a little like peeking into a ramping raku kiln and watching for the powdery glaze on the pieces to liquify, come to a bubbling boil and then to smooth out again as both it and the ware it is coating becomes blastingly red-hot. And THEN comes the moment to shut off the gas and pull the pieces with tongs into their garbage can reduction chambers. Most of you ceramicists out there will understand this reference, but if you need a visual, here’s a good one.

All this week I gathered and listed and piled and flagged.  I re-piled and sorted and started a board of sticky notes detailing each project’s intended trajectory through the weeks. I assembled the needed demos, quotes, glossary, Important Things to Know and on and on. I culled (which was clearer and easier now) and kept the best.  A Beautiful Mind got nuthin’ on me!

Last post I talked about how this class-formulating process amasses information. I think I mentioned something about comparing the ceramic teaching process  to cooking show demos, but I’m reporting in tonight that I’m not quite ready for that one. Maybe next week. I HAVE made one sample of a Press Mold Wad Pot, which you can see below,  but now I realize it’s the first of several needed to provide tangible illustrations of the important stages of just one of three comprehensive methods and techniques I will be teaching.

Press Molded Wad Pot at leatherhard

And that serves my personal understanding of Full-Service Ceramics. Sometimes students can connect the dots, but I find in ceramics it’s not all that easy. The whole process is un-obvious, far-ranging,  deceptively sidetracking and negotiable.

But that’s also the most important clue for me as as Interpreter and Guide: first and foremost, I need to have a profound and undistracted personal sense whereof I speak. If I gloss over, give the short shrift, make assumptions, it does not do the job in that satisfying way. I think I am connecting my own dots, retrospectively. As a matter of fact, I could re-title this post Things I Wish Someone Told Me Right Away.

And even then, the only way out is by doing it. So while I prepare and attempt to perfect my offerings for my new class and students, ceramics has also taught me to be more comfortable with imperfect and unexpected outcomes. With learners of all ages, that’s nearly a given. Years of helping clay handbuilding students has told me this amount of preparation is no less than the right amount, as cloggy and complicated as it can be. I’m glad it’s ONLY 30,000 years I need to review and condense and, like I said, I’m enriched and privileged to do it.

Class Nuts and Bolts: 6 Thursdays, 2-5pm, Session I: Feb 23 to March 29, Session II(with different techniques, projects and subject matter I still have to formulate): April 12 – May 17 held at the Santa Cruz Mountains Art Center, 9341 Mill Street, Ben Lomond, CA,  831-3364ART.

If you’re so inclined, you can call or register online at www.MountainArtCenter.org. Class is $180 for Members/$200 Non-Members.

Next time: Those visual aids!

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Crouching Teacher, Hidden Student: Crafting an Excellent Clay Handbuilding Class

Step right up and lookee here: I said YES when the enthusiastic folks at the Santa Cruz Mountains Art Center asked me if I would  be so kind –  and organized! –  as to offer a structured series of Beginning Handbuilding classes. That was a few months ago and now, here they come in just a few weeks. I better get this figured out.

I got thrown into the briarpatch at the outset, because in order to write not one course description but three of them  – Short, Long and For the Press – I needed to have my raw concepts of what these classes would be about aligned with my personal take on the ginormous field of ceramics. Nothing like starting right in.

Just what do Adult Beginners or Re-Newers want? Or need? What do I have to offer them? Could I parse this out and still keep it meaningful, soulful and artistic, for us both?

How much does my editing, formatting and delivery of this wide-ranging subject affect outcomes? I concluded it was puh-lenty and I would do well to start back at my own beginning, boil it down to the bare-boned basics and embellish prettily from there.

So what you see to the left is my long-time method of distilling knowledge: get a side table, dedicate it to the topic at hand, and proceed over the ensuing unfocused weeks to pile it high with everything which might be valuable to that cause. (It’s also how I wrote my college term papers, so I guess there’s a workable precedent in force.)

Supposedly Right-Brained Creatives respond better to horizontal, visual, tactile piled-up available information – as opposed to vertical files behind cabinet drawer-fronts –  and I agree: when I have a thought, a pertinent quote, a book, an article, a snippet of anything I suspect might be useful, I just throw it here, feeling rich and capable.

In good time, I will comb through the cornucopia and discover the inherent order there. Yes, I have a goal in mind, but the only way I realize it is to plow through and let it grab me. Inevitably the outcome is so much richer and denser than what I thought I was creating.

These stacks are certain to contain my decade-plus collection of notes and handouts from my stable of teachers too. Some of them have had genius ways of simplifying and Explaining It All….or genius techniques, genius timetables, and genius projects which I can freely channel, if not outright copy. I bow to those who gave this kind of effort before me, and I reap the harvest of their cultivation. Nobody comes out of nowhere.

And that’s really all there is to it. I’m no expert. I’m just someone who’s studied how to share and how to be a guide and to deliver substance. I’ve got some ideas on what sorts of things are good to know in the beginning and what sorts of things might logically follow.  I have theories on how to engage learners and how to aid them in discovering their own realizations and about how to foster the creative process as it relates to clay. Beyond that, what happens is what happens and I mean to stay awake to it. I’m a Hidden Student inside a Crouching Teacher.

Class Nuts and Bolts: It meets 6 Thursdays, 2-5pm, Session I: Feb 23 to March 29, Session II: April 12 – May 17 held at the Santa Cruz Mountains Art Center, 9341 Mill Street, Ben Lomond, CA,  831-3364ART.

If you’re so inclined, you can call or register online at www.MountainArtCenter.org. Class is $180 for Members/$200 Non-Members.

Next Time: A discussion of the super slo mo similarities between an illustrated ceramic process and cooking shows.

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Takin’ It Outside and On the Road

In terms of ceramic art, mine and others, I did it up royally last weekend. That means I went for maximum effort and uber-luxe spectacle by attending and participating in both the California Conference for the Advancement of Ceramic Art AND the Santa Cruz Clay Show and Sale at Bargetto Winery.

Friday: To Davis, CA and back (2.5 hours each way) in 12 hours. The other 7 hours we were NOT in the car, we toured 45 exhibits and demos at the 22nd annual CCACA. What a whirlwind of wonderful work! I’m always dumbfounded by a few pieces and suitably inspired by a great many more. For the first time, I was kinda sad not to have the whole weekend there.

Biggest showstopper of course: Cabrillo College’s outdoor exhibit titled “Hard Times.” Described as “a social comment on the economic down-turn and a trompe l’oeil ceramic art installation.” My all-ceramic aquarium piece, which I have previously spoken of, was made for this. Here are a few shots, a street view and one from the uphill side of things.

It was almost TOO realistic!
Anything not white is ceramic!

All the “pedestals” are pieces of furniture. Everything else is a ceramic treasure. (Well, you already know the aquarium is glass…) It’s daring to take an outdoor space and fill it with such a large concept. And when the sprinklers went on Sunday morning, the aquarium even held some water.

Saturday and Sunday: My first away from my studio outdoor ceramic booth set-up and sale. I called it a Pop-uP Pottery Village. It contained a population of around 25 local ceramic artists. We were all lined up in row and around a courtyard, representing an impressive range of pottery and sculpture, featuring artists old and new to both the craft and the sale. (Me? Definitely a Newbie on all counts, really.)

I found an authentically playful way to engage my visitors and my colleagues, felt surprisingly comfortable and pleased with how it turned out. At the end of Sunday, all my business cards were gone, I added a dozen new fans to my mailing list, made respectable sales, got a couple of leads to galleries (!) and found out I must have a bigger vehicle in order to safely hold the booth, furniture, display shelves and all the carefully packed boxes of breakable work.

Here are two views of my booth set-up, front view and from behind the “counter.”

Yeah yeah, I really need some signs!
I asked my visitors if I was the appetizer or the dessert.

It was probably a good thing to be so incredibly busy because my game got really tight. Not only did I survive some completely new ventures, I was energized and encouraged by them. A few things still need to be put away, the studio needs a good clean-out, but I am happily aware of how getting out there completes the creative cycle for me. Each time round is less scary and confusing and I savor the recharged impetus to make more work. And, best of all, thankfully these two events will NOT be on the same weekend in 2012. Yes!

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