green to yellow

I'm trying to get myself geared up for my 2 up-coming shows, and I must admit that it's hard to think about Christmas and holidays with this kind of weather. We are probably due in for a bunch of rain soon, but in the meantime, it's been lovely during the days, colder at night, with only a hint of frost.  The apples are starting to turn sweet, and we are going to have to get a hold of some more soon. 

I always find that fall feels like a good time to hash out new designs and ideas that have been stirring while all the other production has been going on.  Although this year my designs are getting more complicated and less efficient in the glazing department.  Glazing a kiln-load of work is taking me a whole week, when it used to take about 3 days, partly because I'm working through design ideas, but also because my process is just that- slow.  This does not bode well for me when it comes to wholesale orders.  I feel the pressure of needing to get the work out faster and smarter, and even cheaper.  It's an interesting thing to think through- how much wholesale (ie double the amount of work) can my business sustain.  I'm sure there are some good formulas out there for how much direct sales/wholesale/e-sales is a good mix- it would be interesting to know what that should look like. I guess finding the 'perfect formula' is somewhat subjective, but it would be at least nice to know.

What am so I afraid of?

I will admit that I find it hard to price my work. I have a hard time not giving people a deal when they come by the studio to purchase my work from me (I'm a real softy on the home front...).  I'm not really great on the cold hard facts when it comes to crunching the numbers, doing the math, and actually figuring out how much it costs for me to run a business to actually make a profit. 

And then there was this conversation I had with my husband the other night.  We were talking about an artist friend of mine who quoted a potential client a really large sum of money for a custom order they were inquiring about.  I admitted that I didn't think I would be able to quote that high an amount on my work.  That I felt I would somehow be obliged to cut the person a 'deal' based on the volume of the work they would want.  Even if they didn't ask for one.

He asked why I thought asking someone to pay me what my work is valued at would be too much for me to ask.  Why I was afraid of making money or making a profit.  And I had to stop and think about whether I really and truly do value my work.  

It's a complicated issue for me.  It's not just about whether I value the work that I do, it's also whether I value ceramics, or art on the whole.  As 'luxury' items that I can't often afford, I find myself questioning the value of making more stuff in a world that already has enough stuff.  I see well-designed, manufactured objects out there in the world for cheap and my psyche questions why my work should be so much more costly to a consumer than that work? 

I can't help but come back to the reason why I do what I do at this point in the conversation that happens in my head: I love what I do and what I make. It's a craft and a skill that I've been honing for close to 17 years and it's something so part of who I am and what I dream about that I can't imagine my life without making.  And at the end of all that I realize it's not about the money for me.  If it were, I wouldn't still be doing it. And that's the catch, the hitch, the dilemma I have with my own argument.  If it ain't about the money, it's most likely not going to be profitable in a financial sense.  If I fall into the trap of measuring success financially, then given my mind-set I'm probably always going to be disappointed.