I like to keep my page fun and affirming so I flip flopped on whether I should post this. But as we approach holiday market season, I know other makers/artists who follow me will share the same frustrations. So, in the interest of community and education, I present to you -
Top Things *NOT* to Say to a Maker/Artist:
1) “How long did this take you to make?”
It’s irrelevant if it took me several days or several minutes. If it took me a short amount of time, it’s because I’ve put in 11 years of practice to get myself to the level of skill required to make it quickly. But it also requires understanding the process of ceramics. The piece is not made in a single step. The “making” part may sometimes take only a few minutes but there’s drying, trimming, drying again, firing, glazing, firing for a second time, and cleaning time required beyond that. Every single piece requires a minimum of a full week from start to finish, and that is if absolutely everything is timed perfectly and nothing goes wrong. (Cont. in comments)
My knots are individually hand rolled (I don’t use an extruder, the main reason being that I’m too lazy to clean it) and tied. But there are oh so many steps beyond. After they are knotted, they are left to dry for several hours or overnight under plastic (depending on weather conditions). When they’re dried to the perfect leatherhard stage, I burnish each knot to smooth out any marks from rolling and any small cracks that may have occurred in the knotting process. Then the ends are trimmed off with an exacto knife and edges are smoothed out. Each knot is then stamped with my mark and carefully formed into its final knot shape, and left to dry fully over several days. After the bisque firing, I wash each knot and file the ends to make sure that there are no rough edges that could snag your napkin or feel sharp to the touch. Then back in the kiln to 2200F and after a quick bath and final inspection, on to your table! 🥹
Also this is my first process video and real reel with clips edited together, I don’t know if I did it right or if I’ll ever do it again but I tried and I hope you like it.
🎥 @clayedition
Recently I was left a 3 star review on this spoon rest on Etsy, that it was nice but overpriced for what it is. It sells for $34, which I understand isn’t a price point most consumers are accustomed to in this age of cheap and fast. I wanted to be very transparent on the pricing, specifically for this piece but the general math I apply to all my work. The cost of the materials (clay and glaze) run about $2 per piece. Add to that firing fees ($1.50), and I actively spend about 30-45 min per piece (throwing, trimming, cleaning, glazing, cleaning again, sanding). To ship, packing materials and shipping box cost me about $1 per piece. Postage is covered by the customer on Etsy if the order is under $35, but if the customer bought anything else from my shop, “free shipping” means that I am paying for it. If I paid myself minimum wage for labor, that would be around $10 even before covering fixed costs. (Continued in comments)
It’s that time of year again! Charts! Graphs! Data! My face!
2025 Wrapped!
Online sales were waaaay down this year (-42.4%) but the universe is always conspiring for you to succeed and I still made an 18.9% increase in income 👀 thanks to some teaching opportunities and incredible support at in-person events.
I also had some health setbacks (boooo) and some unplanned international travel for funsies (yay!) that took several weeks of production time away (oops) but boss is real understanding as long as I make up the hours. 🥲 And boy did I. I made almost 2200 pieces and rolled 1343 ft of coils by hand. 〰️〰️〰️
Thank you for supporting this girl’s dream of making a living out of silly things, because if we can’t have a little joy in these f*ed times what else do we have?
As always, my eternal gratitude to all my friends, family, customers, followers, supporters, and the maker/artist community as I vaporize out of the studio to lie down for several days. ❤️🙌🏼🛌
📸 @sglstudios
Threw a bunch of espresso cups and started a new job as a content creator yesterday. ✌🏼
Thank you @julie.a.designs for reminding me of the newspaper trick. 🗞️
(Yes, I did compress out the little point on the floor at the end.)
Hello. I have a cold in the middle of the summer so I took the day off and made a 52 second reel of the cutting process that took 52 minutes. 🕳️
Arriving soon to a shop drop near you!
I’ve been giving myself a lot of freedom to work on whatever strikes my fancy this year. But with this exploration come some weirdos and experiments that could’ve gone better. 🙃
So, good news, I’m opening up a special section on my website where you can find some cuties at nice prices. There will be one-offs as well as cosmetically imperfect seconds.
It’s called 〰️Second Sundays〰️ and will open every second Sunday of the month at 11 AM ET for 24 hours. (That’s today!)
Also working on building up inventory for a proper shop drop so be sure to sign up for the mailing list and follow here for first dibs! ❤️
Popping up to say hello and let you know I’ve been working on lots of new things. Some are small, some are big, but I think they’re all nice and I hope you think so too.
It’s gonna take a little more time to get them all up online but something fun is happening in the next couple weeks so please be patient with me I’m just three raccoons in a trench coat playing with clay.
🦝🦝🦝🧥
Ngl, this year was RUFF. It was a real roller coaster, there were some months where I felt like full time ceramics really could be viable, but many more months where my expenses far exceeded my income, and I participated in several stinkers of markets where I didn’t even make my booth fee back.
By some miracle of miracles, things turned around in the last 3 weeks to a 3.9% growth over last year. 👀 But it really wasn’t a miracle I suppose. It’s all thanks to you, my followers, supporters, customers, retailers, and the maker/artist community! I love and appreciate each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart. 🫶🏼
And now, please enjoy some silly charts of my year in review.
(Thank you @meltz.studio for this shot of me as some Steve Jobs of ceramics. 👩🏻💼🍯)
V pleased to announce the launch of the Crinkle Fry Mug for @food52 Mugs52 Class of ‘24! Limited edition of 20 available exclusively on food52.com! 🫶🏼
Peep @gday_thrillseekers and my mugs buddying up in the group shot as the inimitable fish and chip duo!
📷 @armandorafaelphotography
