Piedmont Craftsmen Virtual Show - July 25, 2020

Potters are good at being creative, especially during a pandemic. In person shows and exhibitions have been cancelled through the end of the year. We don't do many shows but do enjoy the one or two we do each year. We are juried members of Piedmont Craftsmen and we will participate in their first online show happening on Saturday. The show is on a really cool format where you can actually video chat with the artists during the show! We hope to see you there.

Here are the details:

Piedmont Craftsmen is excited to present our first ever Virtual Fair on Saturday, July 25 from 4:00 to 7:00 pm EDT!

Join us and more than 30 of our Exhibiting Member Artists taking part in this live virtual event. Shoppers and visitors will be able to interact with each Craft Artist face-to-face from their studios, through easily accessible chat rooms via our Virtual Fair platform.

To visit the Virtual Fair, all you need is a smart phone, tablet, or computer with an internet connection. Click on the link to pre-register: https://my.boothcentral.com/v/events/piedmont-craftsmen-virtual-summer-fair Enter your name and email address, and we’ll send you reminders as the event approaches. This event is free to attend.

Focus

Today we had our first shipment of bubble wrap and boxes for 2014. Now to find a way to squeeze them all into our storage room! We use a lot of free priority boxes from the post office but we have some items that just don't fit into them, although we have been known to be very creative in combining two small boxes to make larger ones. These bundles of bubble wrap are gigantic and we have been going through them rather quickly which leads to the subject of this post.

FOCUS

As 2013 was coming to an end, Jeff and I looked back on our business practices for the year.

We are very happy that we followed through with our plan to focus on selling our pottery through Etsy. We set goals and surpassed them. Yay! 2014 will be even better.

Then there are shows... we don't do that many and this year we are dropping Festival in the Park in Charlotte, and looking for something to replace it. There are a couple we are considering. Not sure I want to do anymore shows than we have in the past, but if something looks promising we may consider it.

The biggest decision we have made, going into the new year, is to discontinue our membership in the local co-op gallery. Our sales were down, despite our best efforts to figure out what would sell there.  When we did the math we realized that with the annual and monthly fees we were taking home 50% of our sales AND working three days a month. It just makes sense for us to send more work to the consignment galleries that take 40% of sales. The time commitment to the co-op was to cutting into my studio work. With three extra days a month I can make quite a few more piggy banks to sell on Etsy!
We will miss being part of the co-op. Belonging really gave us a sense of community and we will miss that, but it was time to move on. Our term will end on February 28th.


2013 had a very happy ending for us, and I am looking forward to 2014.

Online selling

I set some goals for myself this year, and one was to double my sales on Etsy. I figured it was attainable because I really hadn't sold all that much in the past, mostly due to the fact that my interest in it came and went.
This was the year to get serious.
I am getting close to my goal and I figure with the holiday season coming up, I might even surpass it. Don't get me wrong, I am not making tons of money through the site, but Etsy has brought in money that I otherwise wouldn't have in my pocket. To make a living in clay you need to be selling work in a variety of places and venues. Compared to craft shows, Etsy is a piece of cake... but we won't stop doing them. As a matter of fact, this year we have kicked it up a notch and are doing a few more shows... check out my events listing on the right side of this page.
Tracey Broome did a blog post the other day about Big Cartel. I hadn't even heard of it (where have I been??). Tracey already made a sale through the venue! Since you can give it a try for free, I am considering jumping in.

In the meantime, I have been adding some new items to my Etsy shop...

as always, pigs are the #1 sellers!