I imagine these little guys looking up at my elderly neighbour on the balcony, cheering her on! She fell a few weeks ago and mildly chipped a hip bone- thank goodness it was a soft grassy landing.
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Thank you for the feedback on my previous post on Craft Fairs! Maybe it's just me, but I wonder whether there's been a bit of over-saturation in the 'craft show' department. From my perspective, craft show organizers jumped on the band-wagon and just let nearly everything and anything into their shows over the past few years, not really doing the kind of curating that perhaps really needed to be done to make sure that everything in the show represented the best of.
Perhaps too, the larger craft shows that have existed for a few decades have started to feel like a mall for those of us who are used to going to more intimate, smaller shows. This was one of the reasons I had decided not to participate in the One of a Kind Show at Christmas- I just felt as though it was over-whelming people- this massive trade show style building with no natural light and no character. It hardly seems in line with the slow craft movement.
It's also interesting to hear a little feedback on pricing. There are a lot of great articles for craft/art people on how to price one's work. Personally, I have always felt that the assumed value of ceramics was low compared to other art mediums. Factor in the time spent to learn the craft of ceramics (years in school + workshops + community center courses + years of professional practice- for me this adds up to 18 years), include the time it takes me to turn around a full kiln-load of new work (2 weeks to make the wet work, 1 week to dry out and bisque, 1 week to glaze/glaze fire), plus add the cost of supplies, the cost of renting a studio, the cost of hiring occasional help to up-date the website/photograph the work/be a summer studio intern/make my production molds, plus the cost of the kilns, the cost of doing shows/travel to do shows, plus the biggest cost of all: wholesale, where the shop takes 50% of the retail price and now my $40 mug is actually only a $20 mug that I have to pay all those things with. Not to mention bank/internet fees, business licenses and shipping/packaging costs, which always seem to ring in a little more then what I charge. Did I mention that I like to pay myself sometimes? Interestingly enough, I very rarely have extra stock- especially mugs in the studio- they sell out faster then I can make them.
