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.
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!
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