GEP

This is an amazing accomplishment, Mark! A testament to consistency, quality, and hard work. You are making working potters proud!

My take on 3d printing in ceramics … when a tool is providing 100% of the construction, the process is only about the design and nothing else. So the design better be amazing! And if it is, then there’s a lot to admire about good design. And if it’s not, then there’s not much value to the finished item.

I regularly ask for feedback, mostly from my established customers. They are used to this, whenever I hold my holiday open studio, I usually have some new designs to unveil. I write about the new designs in a blast email to them, and how they react drives my decisions about them. To me, this is a resource of immeasurable value. At all times, I am paying attention to how customers react to everything I make, whether they are making purchases or not, gauging both the verbal and non-verbal messages. But I also maintain a strict boundary, which is that design and aesthetic decisions belong to me, and me only. Yes, I am factoring in the opinions of many people, but the final decisions are mine. This comes from my many years working as a graphic designer, where final decisions always belong to the client. From this perspective, I am sharply aware of what a privilege it is to own these decisions now. And I hold onto it tightly! Normal and respectful behavior at an art fair recognizes this boundary. A shopper might not want to buy my work, but they still give me the right to make what I want to make. The fact that I sell most of what I bring to every show tells me that I am not closed off to meaningful feedback. So when I get unsolicited advice, that blows past the boundary of “potter makes the final decisions,” I generally don’t like it. My reaction will depend on who’s giving it, and what their intentions are. Sometimes I have reacted “holy [bleep] that’s a great idea!” These suggestions usually come from people with enough experience to see great ideas, and enough accomplishments of their own to not inject their ego into their suggestion. However, at this point it is obvious to me when someone’s feedback is about feeding their own ego. Sometimes a person will try to put me down, for no reason other than envy. Again, it’s obvious. “I could run your business better than you can” is the intention. Sometimes, people will try to co-opt some of my success, by presenting an idea that they think is super original, even though I already considered and discarded it many years ago, along with 1000s of other similarly boring ideas. These people have no idea that professional creative work involves constant brain churning of ideas, discarding most of them. But they’ve come up with ONE idea and they are so proud of themselves, and since they have no wherewithal to execute the idea themselves, they want me to do it for them. In this case the intention is not malicious, but still, no thanks. I guess my answer to this question is that I rank all feedback for its validity. I happily take the meaningful feedback, and discard what’s superficial or malintended. (hmmm, this might make a good article for my blog.)

From the situation you have described, I think it’s totally fine for you to fire almost empty loads. My only concern is something Bill mentioned, which is that your kiln will cool rapidly and that might not be something you want. If needed, this can be controlled with a digital kiln controller. I’m a production potter with 7 cubic ft kilns, and of course I want them to be full, but on a regular basis I will fire half full, or nearly empty loads. Circumstances often don’t align for a full load!

Agree with everyone above that small, functional pots are the best sellers. Mugs, small bowls, small dishes. In my experience, cups do not sell nearly as well as mugs. In North America, people want handles. But making these forms does not automatically mean they will sell. Your pots also need to be well-designed, well-made, and correctly priced. If your work doesn’t meet these standards, it’s not going to sell no matter what forms you make. Originality really helps too! If your works looks like everybody else’s, that’s also tough to sell.

Absolutely. I see things as glaring flaws that other people don’t even see. I also have seen so much of my own work that I often don’t appreciate some of its better qualities anymore, because they have become mundane to me. It takes other people (usually customers at shows) to point them out to me, and then I say “oh wow, thanks!”

My answer is also the ACC Baltimore show, which I attended this past March. I did this show maybe 10 times, but stopped during the pandemic. Have not done it again since then, because ACC seemed to be struggling to figure out how to do shows again. They had a lot of staff turnover during the pandemic years, and reports from friends were that the show was not worth doing or attending. This year I went as a spectator just to see how it looked with my own eyes, to evaluate whether I should try it again. It actually looked pretty good. Lots of changes since I last did it, but there was a great crowd, and the artists I knew all seemed to be doing well.

A serious pursuit in ceramics, whether you do it as a business or not, is not something where you choose what type of potter you will be. “You don’t choose it. It chooses you.” Some people like the idea of being a potter, then find that the reality is not what they were expecting. Be careful about getting your impressions from Instagram or Reddit. In my experience of being part of the professional craft world (and not just seeing it on social media) is that the high volume functional pottery folks are the ones making a livable income. The low volume decorative folks are making a side income. That doesn’t mean that NONE of the decorative folks are making good money, some of them are. They have something in common, which is decades of experience and a long term steady growth of reputation and marketing. It takes a long time. The high volume functional folks who are making a good living have also been at it for decades. It takes that long to develop that kind of skill and speed. I have seen countless beginners try to start out making “expensive” pots thinking they can take a short path to being successful and making an income. It doesn’t work. Period. Anyone who says otherwise is pretending to be someone they’re not. Or trying to sell you something. (Pay me $$$$ for my secrets to craft business success! Or something like that. Again, be wary of social media messages.) Me personally, I am a high volume functional potter. I didn’t take this route because it was more profitable. It suits my personality and my artistic values.

I have never actually used Etsy, and have not been following its recent changes, so if Callie says to avoid it, then listen to her!

You’ve asked some very broad and generalized questions that are difficult to answer. The best way to answer these questions is through experience, so my best advice is to move forward with your plans and see where it takes you. I would start with Instagram and Facebook accounts, these are very easy to initiate. Start posting photos of your work on the regular basis. Consistency is really important. You don’t need an e-commerce website to start with. You can simply include in your captions “DM me to arrange a purchase” or something along those lines. An e-commerce website is a much more complicated project compared to a social media account. You can tackle this when the frequency of your sales makes it necessary to give your customers an easier purchase process. It doesn’t really matter what platform you build your online store (Etsy, WIX, Square, Shopify, etc). They all come with costs, in one form or another. What’s important is how effectively you can drive traffic to your store. Doing local in-person markets is also extremely important in terms of developing a following, so I encourage you to keep those plans! As for pricing, that’s a question that many sellers struggle with, including experienced pros. There is no quick formula. Basing your prices on the amount of time spent on your decorating techniques is not a valid method. This doesn’t have any correlation with market value and sellability. Figuring out the correct pricing for your work is a long term process. Start with prices that make sense to you, then adjust them up or down based on actual sales metrics. It will take a couple of years at least before you feel this out. Start small, be humble and flexible, and see where it takes you! Good luck, and congratulations for having the courage to start!

Just to add some more possibilities: You might have a failing relay, therefore one section of the kiln isn’t heating correctly, therefore it takes much longer to finish the firing. Have your recent kiln loads been different, ie more dense? A kiln load with 8 shelves will take much more energy to fire than a kiln load with 4 shelves. I usually get about 130 firings from a set of elements and TCs, but only half of them are cone 6 glaze firings. The other half are cone 04 bisque. So 60-ish glaze firings is a reasonable life span, especially if you are doing slow cools and holds.

After mugs, it’s small bowls that you can eat out of (as opposed to bowls large enough to serve things in). Cereal bowls, noodle bowls, salad bowls, etc.

It takes years for a ceramics business to get off the ground and to start to turn a profit, let alone a livable income. Don’t quit your day job! Do this new business on the side until you get a better handle on how to work it.

It varies, depending on the size and scope of the show. For a good 1-day show, maybe 50 items. For a good 4-day show, maybe 250. This answer does not apply to anyone but me. For everybody else, the answer will depend on your experience level. No. Attendance does not always correlate with sales. Attendees and serious buyers are not the same. Or sometimes a show will have great attendance, but your work does not fit in, for various reasons. The “other method” that works is to go back to shows that you have done before. You can estimate your sales based on past sales at the same event. If it’s a quality show, your sales should improve as you continue to do it. For some shows, after several years it might run its course, where you have saturated that market and your sales start to decline. There really isn’t another reliable way to do it. I wholly endorse what @Roberta12 said … for shows that you have not done before, it really helps to visit it in person before you apply. You can gain so much insight just by being there and observing everything.

I have been spending a lot of time and energy replacing my Gerstley Borate glazes. The new ones are coming along, but they just don’t have the same glow and magic. I am trying to push the limits of “how much boron can I get away with?” The good news is that switching to Fabi Talc in place of Texas Talc has been seamless.