Hamster in a wheel

Ok so the show circuit was good. It was validating. I found my price point and I received terrific feedback and overall, the shows have been a success. I haven't done all that many shows but I'm starting to feel like a hamster in a wheel, getting nowhere fast. I've plateaued! The shows have been at Hill-Stead Museum's Holiday sale, Hill-Stead May Market (both for the last 2 years), Celebrate West Hartford Days (coming up on the 2nd year), Wampanoag Country Club (2 years).

I did my first show at the Coventry Regional Farmers Market. It was a great practice start. Now I've definitely priced myself out of it. Well la ti da! But these shows are a lot of work! Too much work. I don't like it. I'm still dreaming of my own storefront gallery shop. I came across this place through an Instagram post.

It's perfect!! Except it's in Nova Scotia. Hmph. It's important to know what you want though. The shows certainly aren't working for me anymore. Not that I'm not selling at them but they're just not my style. 

Work Smarter, Not Harder

October 26th, 2011

Under The Weather

Who knew one could become completely run down and under the weather doing what they love?! I've always believed all that business about positive thoughts and living blissfully is the recipe for you to be immune to illness but here I am with a box of tissue and a heavy head and a great deal of potting that I can't get motivated to do!
Perhaps it's the change of weather here in New england. My friend, Jenny Girl, says it's the "leaf mold". Or perhaps I picked up some germs in California or on the cramped and stuffy flight home. I am very lucky to have had the vacation and the timing was perfect after 4 months of working away in the garage making pots. I may have mentioned this before but my Pottery Guru, John Macomber, of Greenleaf Pottery in South Windsor CT told me once "Dave, this is not a 9 - 5 job, y'know". He told me this when I was admiring the patio sitting area he created around the kiln outside and imagined peaceful summer nights relaxing and stargazing when in reality, John works into the night then just goes to bed. It turns out he was right. After the first 2 months of full-time potting I began getting very serious about my production and my hours would reach into the night sometimes 10 - 12 hours or even more and 6 or 7 days a week. The hours may have been long but they were effortless. I retired with happy aches and blissfull exhaustion.
I had my first two vending opportunities only two weeks apart. In September my friend Richard Ott of the Design Source in Hartford invited me to participate in vending at their annual fundraising event for the Hartford Preservation Alliance. A handful of very talented Interior Designers each design a room in this fabulous loft building. Last year at this event Richard used several of my pottery pieces in his dining room display.

It was a great opportunity. I suddenly realized it was only 2 weeks away and my "Fall Fashions" collection wasn't ready. I had recently been inspired by the broadway show, Wicked, and I had a new line of bowls that I wanted to finish in time for this event...Wicked Bowls!

I worked diligently on completeing the Fall Collection while trying to figure out my display. I believe your vending display is just as important as the product you're trying to sell. Years of working in the restaurant business, dressing buffet tables, and creating arrangements around food is really benefitting me now. I managed to create something layered, tiered, warm, rustic and chic all at the same time. Pottery is folksy and I am determined to have a chic and sophisticated modern look to my folksy art without glazing in glaring neon-pop colors (although that can be fun). So that's sort of a tricky category of design but you see it all the time in your Restoration Hardware catalogues and what have you, mixing old rottten barn boards with super sophisticated technology or an ultra modern chair. I LOVE that stuff! BUT I had spent the last 3 1/2 months not making any money so I had to be thrifty! The Ocean State Job Lot is our odd lot goods place to go. I found a really great silvery-blue-gray-green (if you can imagine that) fabric that was heavy too with a subtle pattern in it that was going to be perfect for covering my tables. Make sure you have plenty of fabric! At both gigs people had sloppy wrinkled sheets over their tables that didn't go to the floor, exposing table legs and empty boxes or back-up goods...not a pretty sight. Nobody wants to see your ugly table legs or your piles of poop under the table! Think of it this way, your 10 x 10 vending booth (although it may be at a farmer's market in a field) is also your storefront window. My Handsomepants is a genius! I bought bamboo blinds from the Odd Lot to use as my table top cover. Brilliant right? A little woody earthy balance to my super chic fabric. But they were slats with a two different tones of wood and too busy. They were going to take away from the pottery. My Handsomepants gestured to the grassmat blinds in our TV room, "You need something like those". GASP! Oh could I?? So I did. I borrowed our television / sunroom's blinds to be used as my table covering. I was tempted to cut all the strings but found a way to use them without damaging them so i could return them to where they belonged.

The display was fabulous! I incorporated old fruit crates and potted mums and even a hay bail by the time my second show at the Coventry Farmer's Market came two weeks later. We had such fun at both events! I had had help and I could'nt have done it without them. I also learned something about buyers and sellers in tent vending-like venue. If you have a helper that you're having a good old time with, goofing off a bit, enjoying yourselves, people find your booth more approachable and you appear very likeable and then they just want to buy your stuff. Also, people shopping together with friends are more likely to buy stuff. They feed off of each others' shopping buzz. Not that you can control whether someone shops alone or not. But when you are alone and the shopper is alone, everyone is a little more shy and stand oof-ish.

The vending events were a LOT of work but more successful than I ever could have imagined. I injured my radial nerve, muscles and tendons in my hand getting ready for these two shows back to back but it was worth it. However, I'm still recovering. The sales were really validating! I CAN make it as a potter. But I remind myself of a saying I heard once and play it over and over again; "Work Smarter Not Harder!" I know I do not want to be Schlepping my pottery all over for these shows so I am making careful decisions about how to create without cramming it all in 2 weeks and injuring myself and how to best market myself and get into shops. I think my product is pretty Shi Shi so I'm only going to pursue the opportunities that appear to be the most prosperous! If you are an aspiring artist / crafter, I suggest you do the same...see yourself and your work in the BEST possible light and place you can imagine. For me (in my imagination), my work is being delivered to fabulous home design stores from New York to San Francisco while I manage my own Artsisan's co-op / Design store in some touristy New England town...somewhere...and someday. Soon! 



A Summer To Potter Around

Back in February Handsomepants and I were on our way home to Connecticut from a chilly visit with friends in Portland, Maine. Our friend, Annemarie, was travelling with us and listened as I pined away (I'm sure I was whining) about my dream of being a full-time potter / designer / creative person and at least I was trying to believe that it was completely possible. Annemarie asked if I had read "the Secret". I had. I had also read Deepak Choprah's "Seven Spiritual Laws of Success", and "Follow Your Bliss and the MOney Will Come", and stacks upons stacks of spiritual books along the same lines. Books I wanted to believe and I certainly got something out of them but the messages weren't really sinking in.

Meanwhile, I was currently listening to Ekhart Tolle's "Power of Now" and a "A New Earth" which was beginning to have a profound affect on keeping me in the present moment and accepting and noticing where my thoughts and energies were focused. I was already spending little to no (mental) time and energy in the past. I had a rotten childhood. In January I took a memoir writing course. The exercise was a stirring one. It disrupted my present security that I had with myself. All of a sudden I was 9 years old again with a wicked stepfather and as I was "getting into character" it brought me back to the painful, hopeless and worthless feelings I had as a child. Ekhart Tolle's teaching helped me to realize there was no use in going there. He states "I have no use for the past except to learn from it". Brilliant. Simple and brilliant. I spent my entire twenties mourning my "lost" childhood and all the horrible things that had happened to me. Was it helpful?...I don't think so. I suppose it was a process I needed to go through but what really got me through it was visulaizing where I wanted to be! I got over it and gave it no more of my attention. If I start to daydream in the direction of bad memories I simply notice and turn my attention back to the present, to who I am today which IS a result of the life I had so I am grateful for all of my experiences...even the rotten ones.
So Annemarie suggested "The Teachings of Abraham" by Jerry and Esther Hicks. Also known as the Law of Attraction which apparently came before The Secret and is precisely what the Secret was based on. But The Secret did not have an impact on me and as Annemarie spoke of the "channeling" that Esther Hicks does to summon Abraham (which is not one being but a collective sort of being in an other but present universe) I rolled my eyes a bit at the hokey sounding-ness of it. Annemarie felt that she created her present situation from these teachings. She had the job she wanted and she went to great lengths visualizing herself there and really "feeling" what it was like to have this work in her life. She stressed that really feeling it was the key. Well, this was interesting enough to put in my cap.  She also suggested that I take a few months off from work to figure it out. She said, "Handsomepants will support you!" and we all laughed. Then I quietly daydreamed about it...

A month and half later we were back at Annemarie's for dinner and I was more disenchanted than ever with what I was doing for work and longing more than ever to just create my pottery. But I was also trying to be present and make the most of my present situation. Annemarie sent me away with a couple of books; an audio book and DVD of Jerry and Esther Hicks. I started with the audio book "Law of Attraction...Attracting Money, Health and Wealth"...something like that. Within the first 10 minutes I thought it was all very hokey. But after "Abraham" was speaking through Esther Hicks for a while, I found it very engaging and profound. Abraham spoke with such clarity that it made so much sense! Finally something had really started to resonate with me. A-HA! Eureka! THIS is IT!

In a nutshell, your life is your thoughts and your feelings manifested! You are what you eat...you are what you think! I realized how I had been the creator of my entire adult life. Everything that I believed I deserved and was available to me I had...and not an ounce more. I noticed I had everything I had ever truly expected without a doubt. Everyhting that I truly believed I deserved and not an ounce more. So I decide to start upping the ante. I decided to expect more! Deservingly so and without any guilty negative thoughts around it. I stopped letting the word "but" get in the way. The word "but" is like a great BIG BUTT blocking you from what you really really want. "Oh i would love to work from home making pottery BUT how could I do that and maintain our lifestyle?". See how "But" immediately deflates you and blocks your path only because you said it? The word "how" was the next thing for me to get oujt of my thoughts and vocabulary. Ugh, this hurdle of a word...it's like getting caught up in the bramble when you just want to be on a clear path with a view of your final destination. Law of Attraction teaches you not to worry about the "How". Just see yourself where you want to be.

So a couple of months later I had the courage and confidence to turn in my resignation as Executive Director of a non-profit to pursue my passion. And here I am. "If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours"~Henry David Thoreau. Brilliant! I had some money saved but not much. I used a lot of it to buy more pottery supplies and equipment. I have a partner who can  manage the household expenses for a few months without my monetary contributions. We agreed that we would not discuss money (and certianly NOT the lack of it) or speak of it aloud except in positive abundant ways for at least a 3 months.

The word "Potter" is not only one who makes pottery but also defined as "to putter" and "to move about aimlessly". I visualized and wanted to potter around for the summer. From House to Garden to Wheel. By "house" I mean I want to work on myself and my insides with health, meditation and exercise AND I want to get to those physical house projects we never had time for. I want to poke around in my gardens in the morning because this is communing just a bit with nature and I want to spend my afternoons at the Potter's Wheel doing work that is fun and fulfilling. Thank you Law of Attraction and Abaraham. I'm going to keep a log and list of all the things I have been visulaizing that are coming to me in leaps and bounds. It is ASTOUNDING!

Pollywog stuck in the blog... I mean bog!

So today I assessed my pottery sales since August 2010. I sold over $1,000 in less than 4 months in pottery! That's terrific but it's not going to sustain my cost of living. So feeling a bit under the weather and with no gung-ho I made my way into the office. I spent the day working on a grant for garden preservation. Ho hum.

However, I did get an email inviting me to a Director's Coffee Klatch this Friday FREE with an interesting subject; the speaker's name is Princess Bola Adelani and the subject is; to learn the hidden, spiritual dimension of attracting financial success, through the Money P.O.W.E.R.T program. Okay so it sounds a bit hokey and can she really tell me anything I don't know already? I kind of already believe in the law of attraction and that believing something makes it so (eventually and with perseverence) and I know that we have all sorts of negative thoughts around money preventing us from having more of it. It's hard staying positive and feeling abundant when you just aren't. It's work! I was going to a Gentle Yoga class once a week several months ago to try and ease myself into a physically active and fit lifestyle. Even the "gentle" yoga was strenuous! I had to make the time and it still required effort. Even in poses where you just lay there you are still directed to have deep focused breathing. Talk about exhausting! And to get the most effect from it, you needed to practice on your own every day at home. Posture, breathing, poses = effort. Simple stuff with lots of effort. Flossing your teeth right before bed? 5 minutes of your time but Ugh! All I want to do is just crawl into bed! So practicing abundance and wealth awareness is difficult when it isn't abundantly apparent in your life already, when it isn't just doing it itself, when it just isn't who you inherently are. It doesn't help living in a community where everyone has everything. West Hartford people are relatively affluent. I have achieved a certain amount of objectiveness. I can see clearly now that I really don't need half the stuff my neighbors have and I have lived on a LOT less before and been happier.

Well, we'll see what happens at the Coffee Klatch with Princess Bola Adelani. I have a feeling I'll be saying, "Well, she ain't no Deepak Chopra" or "She stole that whole thing from Eckart Tolle". I can't imagine learning anything new on the subject but apparently there is something I have yet to get since I still am not living my bliss making art all day, promoting artists and sipping Java at my very own Amphibian...an Artisan Cafe.

From here to Amphibian!

What does it all mean? why am I here? What's my purpose? Wah wah wAH! We all keep hearing these days "You need to follow your bliss". More and more people seem to be consciously looking for their purpose and something to bring meaning into their lives. That is me. That has always been me! I have always felt that I was meant for bigger things and creative work. But i've never been able to commit to just one medium. My biggest problem of all is that I have a taste for finer things in life. Don't ask me where I got it from. I was raised in a very blue collar family where nobody went to college. College was not encouraged. "just get yourself a job, dear. And stick with it!" that's my mother talking. That was her highest hope for each of us three kids. If you fell into a trade you were fortunate. Sigh.

I am 38 years old and this is the snapshot of my career life since my adult life began: Graphic arts silkscreen printer, Information Operator for the phone company, Interior House Painter, Waiter, Restaurant and Banquet Manager, Wall finish painter, Freelance Chalk pastel fine art artist, freelance painter / handyman / designer for a restuarant, Office Info center Clerk for a public park, Official salaried design floral and food design for a restaurant, Executive Director for a non-profit dedicated to preserving historic gardens in a public park. Basically in 2006 my income tripled when two jobs fell into my lap (while trying to follow my bliss) I went from starving freelance artist to Design guy and Executive Director for the non-profit. How the heck did THAT happen?! I think I partly made it happen. When you are doing things you really enjoy, the world seems to unfold at your feet. But then it stops. Maybe I cause that too. It certainly was nice not being poor anymore and i was confident in what I was doing. I think I have a dynamic quality and combination of skills that is both business and administrative savvy as well as creative. Actually i know this to be true because more than one psychic has told me so. But I'm not satisfied doing just one or the other. Well, I think I could be happy being creative each and every day, making 'stuff", as long as i still get to go out to restaurants to eat, pay all my bills without delay or worry, and go on at least 2 week-long vacations a year. Is that too much to ask? I don't want to be hungry or without medical insurance again. But isn't medical insurance only good for the very job thats causing you all the harmful illnesses?

Way off track. That's a little background about me. I am currently working that administrative job that provides me the lifestyle that I am comfortable with. It has also helped me to really dive into my long awaited passion for creating pottery...which is pricey. Making pottery gets me high and energized! While a day at the office sucks the life out of me. I have a few ideas of what I'd like to do. One vision is to have a little Artisan's Cafe that sells the work of various small town or regional artists works and a coffee shop with maybe some little sweet pastries or something. People will always stop for coffee! I don't expect to pull off some Jonathan Adler Home Design store (although it is an inspiration) and make millions just creating my own pottery in my own shop in New York. And I wouldn't want to. I love art and creative peoples and If I ever have the opprotunity to promote other artists, I do! Especially young talented people who don't have strong family support or educated backgrounds. I want to take my business savvy, restauranteur, designing spaces knowledge and experience and creative self (who really likes funky coffee shops) and open a store for artists and coffee lovers alike...preferably in a tourist town...by the sea..or in the mountains. Maybe a lake. It doesn't really matter. I'm still figuring it out. But i thought a great name for a funky artisan shop / design store / coffee shop would be...Amphibian! So begins my journey from basement potter (http://www.dwilsonart.com/) and ED of an NP to Amphibian! Please don't steal the name of my cafe but go ahead and steal the concept. We can't have enough of these places if you ask me.