Looks like I'll be back soon

I know, I know, I've been totally baby obsessed and have only touched clay once in the last 4 months.

Unfortunately, my twins miscarried at the age of 18 weeks and 6 days.  I'm still in the throws of woes but it looks like pottery is back on the agenda. 

I don't currently have a job.  The work I was doing before the pregnancy was winding down because of the upcoming difficulties in camera lifting equipment while pregnant with twins and because of the possibility of going on bedrest at any given moment.

These are no longer issues.  Since I don't have a day to day job right now, I need to keep busy.  And since I didn't really do any pottery during the pregnancy, that's something I can do that I won't associate with my sadness.

So while I hunt for a regular job, I'll be spending a good portion of my days furiously making mugs so I can have a very full shop for holiday season 2011.

So I'm sorry to have left you all for so long but it's time for Buster and me to get back to business!

Any requests?

And Buster Helped!

Been making some mugs lately but haven't felt like doing handles. So I wrapped them and left them for handles another day.

Well, I left them on the shelf right next to my wheel. Someone rather likes to hang out on that shelf. I'll let you guess who.

You'd think he'd be kind enough to sleep in the bed provided or on a different shelf while this one was occupied, but no, he's Buster so he's Boss.  His butt is gonna park where he wants it to park.  Guess what it parked on?

Lovely isn't it?

Yeah, not so much.

Added a handle and will fire it anyway.  Hope somebody enjoys a mug blessed by Busters Butt!

 

What's been going on around here

Hey folks,

I haven't been blogging much because it's been boring stressful stuff.  So here's a big ole post to catch you up on what's been going on around here.

When we last heard from Buster, he was at the vet.  He was a very good boy and took all his medicine.  He got very accustomed to hanging out in the laundry room and now tends to follow us into the house whenever he gets the chance.  He showed up at just the right times for the week we had to give him meds and he healed very nicely.

Then a few days later, this walks in.

That's not rain water folks, that's mud.  Pure mud.  Layers and layers of mud.

That's what the towel looked like after the THIRD time wiping him down.

Even brushing him the next day yeilded a big pile of dirt on the floor.

We think some mud got into his eye because it's been watery and a little crusty.  We've flushed it out with warm water a few times (oh yeah, he loved that) and have been checking him several times a day.  It seems to be pretty much cleared up now.

In other news, the big deal around here has been our electricity.  I had the electrician come by to consult about upgrading the wiring in the pottery studio and to find a way to heat the place.  While he was here, all of the power in the house blinked and we tracked it down to the primary breaker leading to the house.

Two main circuits power our house and one completely blew out.  So for about a week, we were living off extension cords and such so we could get light and computer use in the parts of the house that no longer had power.  And all major appliances had to be shut down so no cooking, no laundry, no fun.

After jackhammering a portion of our carport and digging a 4 foot hole in the ground, our power box has been completely replaced!  Yay!  Our house isn't going to burn down now!

As long as we were at it, we went ahead and upgraded the studio.

I know that picture doesn't show much, but it shows what's missing.  No more cords and power switches hanging from the ceiling!  When I walk in, there's actually a light switch that powers the light!  YES!  Of course, I still automatically reach up when I walk in the door, but I'm sure I'll get over that soon.

And check it out, a properly installed heating unit.  *drool*  It works great.  I can actually work in the middle winter now!  And Buster is thrilled of course.  He has his own private heated little house.

So now that I'm able to work again, I'm trying out a new tool.  Specifically, The Steve Tool.

Loving it!  And it demonstrates my trademark cleanliness as it sits on the counter caked in mud.  Oh well.  I do a lot of other things well, cleaning isn't one of them.

I'm also working on a lot of lidded forms right now for some reason.  So here's a few things I've made with my new tool, in my newly powered studio!

So that's what I've been up to. 

Buster thanks you for stopping by!

Chicken Roaster Trial Run

Well I finally got the fabled chicken roaster out of the kiln and we put it to use!  Learned a few things along the way but all in all, I'd say the design is about 85% there.

And here we go.

Here's our first look at it all nekkid.

Here's what we're going to stuff into the chickens butt.  Mostly lemon lime soda, a dash of worcester (I'm so not looking up the spelling for that), some garlic, and fresh rosemary.

Woo hoo!  It fits perfect!  The chicken slid right on so it was small enough to fit, and the chicken holds itself up with no problem so it's big enough to support the weight.  Awesome.

Hubby added some olive oil, salt and pepper to the outside of the chicken to get a nice crisp skin.

And it's time to go into the oven.  It's best to put pottery into a room temp oven and let it warm as the oven heats up rather than to put it straight into a hot oven.  Severe temp changes cause thermal stress and can lead to cracking and overall shortening the life of the pottery.  Just a little tip for you there.

Here's what we see after a half hour at 400 degrees.  Notice some of the juices flowing into the pan.

Ok, not very visible, but trust me, there were juices.

After the first half hour, hubby lowered the temp to 375.  So, after an hour and a half in the oven, hubby added some zucchini and potatoes.

And back into the oven for a half hour.  Oh boy, here it comes!

Oops!  A little spill.  That's because there was a lot of juice from that chicken and the walls of the pan need to be a bit taller.  And the handles need to be a little wider to make it a bit more stable when pulling it out of the oven.

That's a good lookin bird.

Carve right there on the roaster.  Can be carved at the table if you're so inclined.

Look at how juicy that sucker is!

Ok, this next pic is a bit gross.  This is what's left on the roaster after carving the breast.

And here's my dinner! 

So, conclusions!

1)  For a prototype, this is awesome.  Works just fine.  We're gonna keep it.

2)  Some of the moistest chicken I've ever had.  Seriously.  It wasn't stringy at all.  By the time I got my plate to the table, it was swimming in juices.

3)  If it hadn't been so late, hubby could have easily made gravy right there in the pan.  There was about 2 cups of chicken drippings in the pan.  Tasted them (to see if it was from the chicken or from the soda dripping into the pan) and he said it was a perfect chicken stock.  That's in the fridge now for cooking with later.

4)  The walls need to be a little bit taller.  They are about an inch high on this one and should be about 2 inches high to properly hold all the juice.

5)  The handles should be wider.  Having them narrow and centered made it a little wobbly taking it out of the oven.  And wider handles would be easier to grip with oven mitts on.

6)  Need a stronger flavor.  We'll be expermenting with various marinades and alcohols and sauces to see what flavors work best.  The lemon lime was a good idea but the flavor was too subtle so you didn't really taste it in the chicken.  But damn that chicken was moist.

7)  It cleaned up really easily.  All the hubby did was rinse it off and it looked ready to use again.  And it fit in the dishwasher with no problem.  I hate those things that take up 1/4 of the bottom shelf of the dishwasher.  This was able to sit on its side so more stuff could still fit.  Awesome!

All right!  So now all I need is some heat in my pottery studio and a couple of months to get some of these made with the new design improvements and we'll be in business!

Ugh, work stoppage

It looks like I'm not going to be working in the studio for a while. 

I went out there the other day and the space heater wasn't working.  Tried it in a few different outlets and nothing.  My guess is that some electrical thing shorted on the inside and as a safety measure, it shut the whole thing down.  Certainly preferable to a fire, but, ugh.

I know what you're thinking - I should just get another space heater.  Well, it's not that easy.  I only have 2 outlets in the studio.  A normal one in the wall that an electrician has tested as safe and another one in the air that the light plugs into.  Both of these are right by the door to the studio which makes it difficult to fit in all the things I want to plug in where I want them to be.

Yeah, not exactly the picture of safety there is it?  Plugging the last space heater into this was an experiment.  When I turn the light off, the power to this entire outlet turns off so it was easy to make sure that the heater wasn't pulling power when it was unattended.  Thus, reduced fire hazard.

Clearly something about this plan didn't work.  Maybe it was a crappy space heater that just bit the dust, maybe it was an electrical spike of some sort, I don't know.  I do know that I'm not going to use an extension cord to put a heater in a better location.  And this is the second space heater to go kaput on me out there so I'm REALLY not trusting the wiring I've got going on.

I've left a message with the electrician to find out what it would cost to put in another outlet on the other side of the studio.  We can't really afford to spend much but if the cost of an outlet (maybe they can install some sort of safety mechanism so if it gets too hot it will cut the power?) means I can keep the studio warm and work year round, it might be worth it.

In the past, I've generally stopped work in early October and don't really start up again until April or May.  This year, I'm really wanting to keep working and have been able to work into Mid November.

And of course, there's the Buster question.  He's spent plenty of winters outside so he's fine, but that doesn't mean I want him to be cold.  My job is to spoil him rotten (I'm very good at my job) so I'd really like to provide a heated room for him to live in.

But I just can't put a third space heater out there without making sure that the wiring can handle it. 

I have a lot of stuff made and drying, probably enough for a full kiln load.  So at least I can fire that and get it finished.  But I'd really rather be working on the wheel.

Neil Patrick Harris Mug of Pure Awesome

Normally I don't just post about a product I've put up for sale but this mug is just too damn awesome not to share.  So here it is, available for sale on http://alexmmr.etsy.com/  [quick update - this sold a couple of days after I posted this.  And my etsy store is closing in favor of Artfire]

What does NPH have to do with a mug that doesn't even have his picture on it? I'll tell ya. The lifespan of this mug will mimic the awesomeness of NPH's career.

It starts out as a serviceable mug. It does it's job of carrying your coffee around the office. It's a little bumpy, maybe even a little funny lookin. Co-workers will comment that it's a huge, bumpy mug you got there. But you know how inherently awesome it is, so you soldier on, a fan of your mug.

But you get sick of the comments so you take it home. And it continues to do it's job. Graduating from coffee to cocoa with marshmellows. Eventually growing into the mug that holds a days worth of soup when you're sick. Such a great mug, always there to do just what you need it to do.

Then it starts to appear in the office again. You boldly proclaim the awesomeness of your mug while your coworkers scoff that it was a childish novelty that can't possibly be so great as an adult.

But then they start to realize it's true power. Your mug sets you apart. Everyone knows when they pass by your desk and see this mug, that someone bold and brazen sits there. They see the wonderful colors cascading inside the mug. You have not wavered in your fandom for this mug and now the mug itself is seen as the true meaning of awesome! And you are the visionary who saw it's potential from the beginning!

Your coworkers now bow down to your mug in the break room, for they know that when you proclaim that you get the first cup of coffee, it means you get the ONLY cup of coffee! You're pounding it 28 fluid ounces at a time! And when your mug leads you to that coffee maker, all others cower in fear. No ordinary mug can stand beside your NPH Mug of Pure AWESOME!!! World domination is imminent!!


*ahem* Excuse me. Here are the technical specs:
Holds 28 oz

5 inches tall by 4 inches in diameter

Black glaze that bursts blue randomly throughout

Nice big handle for that man size grip

Thrown on the pottery wheel, altered, fired to cone 6

Safe for the microwave, oven, and dishwasher



Are you awesome enough to own such a mug?

Religion on the Potter's Wheel

I wrote this for a religion based blog but it's certainly apropos here as well.

One of the things that makes me feel very centered, grounded, and spiritual is creating pottery on the potters wheel. Whenever I sit down with a lump of clay and allow it to spin between my fingers, the world goes away. It’s very rhythmic, tactile, and there’s a different kind of thinking that occurs when I’m doing it. It’s kind of like my brain separates into two processes. My constant inner monologue slows down and just kind of randomly pops up and flows freely while another process, one purely made up of feel takes over and guides the clay around in my hands. I don’t think about squeezing a little tighter or grabbing that tool to cut off the top, it just kind of happens.


As with any interest in life, I started seeking the knowledge of other people. I’ve read some books and have joined some pottery mailing lists online. I’ve found all sorts of little tidbits that have made my experience on the wheel more successful and more enjoyable.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that I haven’t actually been doing pottery for the last 20 years. You see, on these mailing lists, there are a lot of professional potters who have made clay their life’s work. According to some of them, you’re not a real potter unless you dig up the clay from your own backyard, study years worth of chemistry to be able to mix your own glazes, sit up for 2 days at a time to stoke the wood burning kiln that you built yourself and have a degree in welding so you can make your own tools.

Dude, that’s hardcore. I’m not hardcore.

According to the professionals on the mailing list, since I don’t make vases that are 6 feet tall, I’m not worthy. And since my pots are generally pretty simple and not deliberately out of whack in some way, I have no artistry.

Many of the professional potters encourage you to make 100 mugs all the same size and shape as a means of improving your skills. I’m sure after making 100 mugs that are all the same size and shape, I would be very good at making that particular size and shape of mug. However, I have no desire to sit at my wheel for hours to make those 100 mugs. And because I don’t have this level of dedication to my craft, I have no right to make pottery.

For a while, these guys really got to me. I would go out to my little studio, look at my clay, and my store bought bottles of glaze, and feel unworthy to make myself a bowl. It was as if all of these people were watching over my shoulder and shaking their heads in disgust because I didn’t place my fingers on the clay exactly how they think I should. I was cheating because I used a Giffin Grip to center my pots on the wheel rather than spending countless hours and countless ruined pots learning how to tap them to center. They were so insistent that things be done the way they wanted them done that they acted as though if I did not use their exact methods, I was causing them physical injury!

Suddenly my once joyous hobby was now soured by countless disapproving faces and opinions, all of whom I would never, ever see. When I sat down at the wheel, my inner monologue started quoting all of the rules and regulations of what makes a good pot at a million miles an hour. I didn’t step into my pottery studio for several months because of they disapproved and I couldn’t enjoy the process anymore.

Then I started really looking at the pots created by these experts that everyone called stunning and truly art. I wanted to see the beauty that they all saw. However, by and large, I saw a bunch of lumpy, brown piles of poo. At first, this really reinforced that I was an idiot. Why could I not see the artistry that everyone else was seeing? The thought of owning one of these pots that others so coveted was unappealing. And the sculptures, ewwwwwww! Does the world really need another pointless asymmetrical thing that looks like a sea urchin puked up its innards? Dusting that thing must require hazard pay! How would that piece of artwork enrich my life?

Then it occurred to me – None of these disapproving people are ever going to see my pottery. They’re never going to watch me create that pottery. And even if they did, if they think that lump of bumpy barf is beautiful, do I really care what they would think of what I create?

I had allowed the opinions of a bunch of faceless names on a mailing list to take my joy away from me. Just because I can’t make 50 mugs in an hour doesn’t mean I can’t make a pretty mug. I like my mugs. I make them about double the average size of what you can find in Walmart because when I drink coffee, I want a big cup. And do I really want to be able to make 50 mugs an hour? I would be spending all of my time driving around to buy more raw materials, hauling tons of clay into my studio, then loading and unloading kilnload after kilnload of matching mugs instead of enjoying that feeling of clay sliding around in my hands.

I’m back in the pottery studio now, and I enjoy it again. I don’t allow these people to look over my shoulder and tell me what I should and should not be doing and instead I simply enjoy the process again. I’ll spend about three hours at a time and I’ll make 3 mugs (of different shapes and sizes), 2 bowls, a couple of little dishes to put cat treats on, and maybe a goblet or two that don’t match. So far, drinking out of my mugs of various sizes and eating out of my bowls of different shapes hasn’t killed me. And no one has sued me for medical expenses because I used a tool to hold my pots rather than tapping to center. Once again, pottery is enriching my life in the way that I want it to.

So what the heck does this little diatribe have to do with religion? Well, religion is like art. Someone will always be happy to instruct you on how you should go about it. Like art, the reason to have religion is to enrich and improve your life. And like art, everyone has an opinion and many are adamant that their way is the only way to go about it. But sometimes, even what the “experts” most covet and what their adamant instruction is leading you to is just a pile of poo.

More randomness

Selling tip - Amazon now allows non amazon items to be in your wishlist.  You just grab the link they provide and as you're websurfing, you click on the link and it clarifies what item on that page you want on your amazon wish list.  Now all your friends know to buy you that special glaze from the shop across the country.

Pssssst:  you can add stuff from my etsy shop to your list if you want.  here

And now back to random crap in my studio.

Shop towels.  I LOVE THEM!!  They are thicker and lusher than papertowels but otherwise function the same.  These will smear the clay off your hands pretty well when the phone rings while you're in the middle of throwing.  I get mine at costco.  And yes, this one individual does go through a coscto size package all on my lonesome.

This is an old cd rack.  When I'm throwing mugs with the insertable bats (more below) the mug and bat fit perfectly on this.  And it's easy to cover all at once with a giant garbage bag or leave to air dry.  Got it for a buck or two at the thrift store.  The bottom is cased in concrete so it don't tip over.

I love this bat system.  I mostly throw mugs and cereal bowls and I don't need 10 inch wide bats for that.  With this, I just pop a small bat into the square, throw, and then pop that bat back out and set aside.  Brilliant!  Space is major commodity at my studio so anything that saves space makes me happy.

Pegboard.  Brilliant!!  Thank you previous owners who lined a wall of my studio with the stuff.  I'm one of those people that if I can't see it and grab it immediately, it may was well not be there.  Look at all the crap hanging on my wall.

These are brilliant as well.  Pegboard shelves.  The perfect size to set a drying mug on when I need to get it out of the way.  It's a place for little things like my clay inkstamppads, or the flower pot that I'm going to do something with some day, honest!  Or to hold the random rolling pin.

I'm still trying to figure out how to do the protography for my etsy site.  This was one option.  I just ordered a table top light tent kit which comes with lights and stuff we'll see if that increases the quality at all.  Tell me, when you're shopping for this kind of thing, what do you want to see in the pictures?  What's important to you?  This was taken on my bar with a blue suede jacket toss over a shelf.  The bar provided most of the light and I put tissue over my flash to diffuse it.  They say the flash is pure evil but it was really the only way to properly light the darned thing.  What do you think?

Please comment below!  My ego is fed by your comments and it's getting hungry!

Random tips and things from my studio

So a few random things about my studio that some might consider tips or tricks.

What you're looking at here on the left is how power gets into my studio.  It was like this when we moved in.  There's a light switch which turns on power to the rest of the outlets immediately adjacent.

Odd thing to blog about I know.  But I have it here because I need a space heater in my studio but space heaters are notoriously dangerous.  And since I need to heat the studio for a while before I actually enter it, I get nervous that I'll leave it on, forget it's on, and have a burned down studio several days later.  So I plugged it into this outlet.  It only turns on when I actually have the light on.  Because the light shines into my bedroom at night, no risk of me forgetting it's on!

Here is said space heater.  It's up on a table because the power cord to reach the outlet that's on the ceiling is kinda short.  I used those wire shelving things that everyone seems to use in college to build a little cage around it.  Now I'm less likely to knock it over and I can put drying pots on the shelf above it to speed things up a little bit.

Ok, let's talk lids.  I often throw them right side up.  Use about twice as much clay as you want in the actual lid and then carve the big pad of clay off the center when you trim it.  And I roll the rim over to make it thick and strong.  I also tend to make my lids on the large side because it's very easy to shave them down once everything has dried but you certainly can't expand them if they are too small.  And I guess that's the only advice I have about lids.

This is one of those nets used to strain paint.  The top is held open with an embroidery ring.  The ring is then set on top of two posts from my pegboard.  What possible use could I have for this?

Reclaiming clay!  I scoop all of my slurry and trimmings from the reclaim bucket into this bag.  Of course it has a bucket underneath it to catch all the icky the oozes through it.  Because I don't reclaim massive amounts of clay, and this bag will hold almost a full bucket, it's just the right size for me.  And because it hangs in the air yet with a nice net around it, it dries evenly all the way around and nothing gets into it.  The day after I put the slop in, I scrape the outside of the bag to get rid of the semi dried clay that is now attached the outside.  This way when it dries enough, I just turn it upside down and peel the bag off and the bag is not actually embedded in the clay but rather sits around the clay.

I had a problem where all of my pots would get little clay crusties embedded into their feet.  My whole pottery studio is coated in a layer of clay so there's pretty much no place to put finished pots where the crusties won't attack.  So I bought some bisque tiles to set things on when they are finished.  Haven't needed to clean them yet and the crusties have stayed away.  Yay!

I hope this gives some of you ideas of how to solve the problems you run across.  More silly ideas tomorrow!

Vending Table

I did a vending table at an event today.  Kind of hard to describe the event.  It was kind of a performance competition in the Bardic tradition.  It was the first annual Eisteddfod.  Yeah, I don't know either, but that's what it's called.  My best friend was running it so surprise surprise!  I was one of the vendors.

Some might say the event was a failure.  Due to torrential rains, the economy, and possibly not the best advertising, I'd say that all in all about 30 people were there all day.  That includes us vendors and other staff members.  There was not a lot of cash changing hands.

And yet despite this, I walked away feeling pretty darned good about it.  A lot of times when you're vending, you're staring at the clock, bored out of your mind, just wanting to get the hell out of there.  I didn't find myself doing that this time.  Everyone was very enthusiastic about my work with the kinds of compliments that tell you they know what they're talking about and actually mean what they are saying. 

For this event, I had raised my prices significantly.  I used to be drastically underpriced and now I'd say my prices are modest but average.  Not a single person commented on my prices!  I was afraid of that "oh, I like it but I can't afford it" or "oh gee, can you let this go for $5 cheaper?"  Nope, not a single comment.  The few people who purchased my stuff simply handed over the cash, a few compliments, and seemed very pleased with their purchase.

All in all, I'm very inexperienced at vending, but here's a few things that seemed to work for me today.

1)  Levels

I was given a standard 6 foot table.  I found that by taking the leaf out of the old dining table in my pottery studio, I had an additional surface that was 4 feet wide by 1.5 feet deep and about 2 inches tall.  I took some kiln stilts and layed them sideways and put them under each side of the leaf.  This raised it an additional 2 inches or so.  This gave the table a raised platform on the back half of the table in the center.  Once I laid the tablecloths over it, it looked wonderful. 

In addition, I now had a 4 inch high cubby hole for me to put my money box, book, phone, food, extra bags, etc.  It was almost like being given a whole new table space.  In addition, I had an overturned cafeteria serving tray which was about 6 inches high under the tablecloth on one corner of the table which I put a laptop on (more on this later). 

I also had a set of 3 box-frame-shelf thingies (here) along the back of the table which gave me not only small shelves to set various mugs on, but also framed some of my showpieces.  Since they are all different sizes, they make for some nice visual variety and they embed into one another when packing up.

When you spread out pottery on a flat surface, it's all chaotic and just a mess to the eye.  You can't actually see any of the pieces.  With these little changes, my whole table looked organized, everything was visible, a few items were highlighted, and it was visually appealing.  I'm a dork and didn't take any pictures, but a friend did so I'll edit a few in as soon as I get them.

EDIT: Adding a picture! 

2)  Video - USE IT

In my real life, I'm a videographer.  So my real life and my hobby life needed to come together.  I gave up a precious square foot of table real estate to house a laptop with a video on a loop.  You can see it here.  It has no sound because I don't want to bother other vendors or listen to it myself all day.

Best use of table real estate EVER!!!  I suck at striking up conversation.  I usually rely on my best friend to do it for me because she can chat up anybody about any topic.  But she was doing other things today and I couldn't use her as a crutch.  This video did more for my table than anything else could.  It made everyone take notice of my table, they stopped at my table to watch the video, and they then asked questions about it which made me able to converse comfortably.

When I made the video, I just thought that having something moving would be a little eye-catching and it might make people pause long enough to give my wares a quick once over.  I had no idea it would be as effective as it was.  People would actually watch the entire 8 1/2 minutes of it and then talk to me about it as it played through again!  They would laugh at the snarky comments I embedded.  Then they would pick up all sorts of mugs and stuff at my table and really look at them while chatting like crazy with me.  And for those who just stood and watched, I was able to simply say "Oh, this is the finished mug that you see being made in the video" and ta-da!!  Instant conversation! 

If you clicked over and watched the video, you'll probably see that it's not the most fascinating thing ever.  But in the context of a craft fair, it may was well have been the yet to be made next Harry Potter movie.  People were just so fascinated by it!

Seriously, if you can make a video of yourself on the wheel, do it.  Totally.  Recommending it again, make a video.

3)  Trading

Very few people can go to a craft fair and walk out with more money than they went it with, usually because all of your income becomes outgo as you peruse other tables.  Trade with people.  They will probably love your work, you'll get what you want from them, and they will give you all sorts of tips and tricks to selling at fairs.  Not to mention it really tells you a lot about what people like and don't like if you can watch someone look over your stuff when they can choose to take anything they like.  You'll get a really good idea of what people are naturally attracted to so you can call it "marketing research costs".

You also build up good will with other vendors.  Be nice to them, they may be the ones who sell for you while you're in the potty and they might let you use their credit card machine if you don't have that capability.

4)  Be near the coffee

This is kind of a no brainer but for potters, this advice is ten-fold.  Knowing that this particular crowd might be more inclined to prefer a reusable mug to a styrafoam cup, the organizers let me put a bunch of my crappy mugs on the table with the coffee.  Now this not only gives you more table space to spread out on, but it also gives you a chance to get rid of all of those crap mugs that you want a couple of bucks for but don't want to sacrifice your own table space for.

I put half a dozen of my "seconds" next to the coffee with $5 price tags.  It was my first sale of the day.  A woman liked one of the mugs (one that I can only see flaws in), turned to me and asked if I was the person to pay, she bought the mug and got herself a cup of coffee.  I tossed a buck back into the "suggested donation" bucket to pay the event back for the coffee.  She likes her mug when she wouldn't have been able to afford one of my better mugs, less environmental impact, and I get the damned thing out of my house plus an extra $4!  I would have been just as happy to give the damn thing away.

If you're next to the food, people will naturally come to you.  If you're selling something that will assist them in eating the food, sales are imminent.  And if you're willing to keep an eye on the coffeepot and money bucket, the organizers will be thrilled to just let you handle it (and spread your stuff out on their table) while they do more important things.

5)  Packing it in

Bring extra newspaper.  I have no idea how, but when we were packing up at the end of the day, we had less packing material than we started with.  Theoretically this can't be possible since we didn't use any of the packing material when selling the pottery and we had less pottery needing packing material when we were leaving, and yet we ran out when packing back up.  I have no idea how that happened.

Remember those $5 mugs on the coffee table?  Not worth repacking.  While everyone is breaking down, just shout out that if anyone wants one, they should simply take it so you don't have to pack it.  Go ahead and announce that these are your crippy crappy mugs that you don't like and you'd rather give them away then deal with them anymore.  Anyone who would have bought a mug at this point has done so and has left.  Now those who couldn't afford it or were too shy can now grab one (with a business card in it) and their last impression of the day is that cool pottery person who gave them a mug.  That's a good last impression.  Not to mention, they usually can't find any flaws even though you can't see anything but them.  Now you have a group of people who are looking at what you consider crap, they love it, and wow if this is crap, your good stuff must be fantastic!  And again, you get that crap out of your house.

6)  Donate to the raffles

They had raffles at this event where anything worth less than $45 would be raffled for $1 and anything over that would be raffled for $5.  As people won, they were able to select an item from a variety of stuff donated by the various vendors.

My stuff kept getting selected.  A woman is now treasuring a vase that has been the bane of my existence since the day I created it.  Too nice to take a hammer to, but I couldn't find any purpose for it and couldn't figure out how to market it.  It was a round brown vase for goodness sakes.  How do you get noticed on Etsy for a round brown vase?  But now someone loves it.  And it's out of my house.  And she came over to my table to tell me how much she loved it and then went on to tell me how much she loves that mug, and that bowl, etc etc.

So I kept donating more stuff.  Lots of people now have my stuff and they consider themselves lucky to have it.  That's good marketing.  And I didn't have to carry it back home.

Now I know what you're thinking.  It seems like I gave away a whole lotta stuff.  Well, yeah, I did.  I don't create pottery to make money.  I have a day job for that.  I refuse to turn pottery into a bona fide business because I want to purely enjoy it.  If I collect a ton of it and someone gives me the opportunity to sell it off, swell, but that's not why I make it.

However, over the years I've become pretty good and pretty fast at making it.  My house is overflowing with stuff that is too good to throw out but not so great that I want to keep it.  So yes, I want to sell it.  So I'm investing in some long term marketing.  As far as I'm concerned, these are all just big business cards.  If you have stuff that you want gone and it doesn't really cost you anything to give it away, just give it away.  People will remember you and your name gets out there.  There's no way to calculate how this will come back to you, but trust that it will.  I really believe that my pottery is far more valuable today because of what I gave away in good marketing karma yesterday.

7)  It ain't all about the Benjamins

All in all, I took in a total of $60 today.  The organizers were unhappy about the lack of turnout so they waived all the vending fees as an apology.  That cash paid for the gas and food for the day for me and the hubby so I'd say I broke about even.

However, It was a great exercise in market research.  This is my third (I think) experience trying to sell my pottery at an event like this.  My table looked SOOOO much better than it has in the past.  I learned that the video will not only make people pause at your table, it makes them engage with you and your wares.

And I'm a flattery whore.  True compliments, and I don't mean the empty "you have nice stuff" compliments, I mean the "ooohhh, you throw these so thin!  This feels so nice in the hand.  Wow, I've never seen that style before, how did you make it?" compliments are worth more to me than any amount of cash.  And that's because I now feel like my stuff is actually worthy.  It's worth what to me is a high price.  It is good enough to stand side by side with those who craft for a living. 

I'm now excited to do my next event when before I've always dreaded it.  And if I'm excited to do an event, and will now seek them out and actually enter them, I'll eventually earn a whole lot more $$$ than I would have if I were still feeling inferior and hiding my stuff from the potential customers out there in the world.

Starting a store

So I've decided to start selling my pottery. Not something I ever thought I'd do, but there's just so darned much of it in the house now that it's gotta go!

I've gotten some good responses so far. Not a lot of sales, but a lot of compliments.

Lately I've been making a lot of wiccan supplies. I really enjoy it because I know it's going to be specifically used and not just shoved in a closet. In particular, I like making the incense burners. Everyone can enjoy those and I love that I finally came up with a design that allows people to use all three of the popular incense types - sticks, cones, and charcoal.

My shop is at http://alexmmr.etsy.com