Finding Inspiration

I had the chance this last week to spend some time with my brother, who is an artist currently living in Seattle. Over the past few years he's been able to shed the mainstream approach to life and focus completely on turning himself into a full time artist. He surrounds himself with other artists, curates the monthly art walk, and spends hours upon hours teaching himself new techniques. Every time we visit I'm left full of new inspirations.

He showed me a video of some amazing silkscreen artists and how they do layer upon layer of designs before they finish a print. It left me thinking of how one-dimensional some of my pottery was. While sometimes simplicity is beautiful, perhaps its time to kick things up a notch.

Most of the stuff I've been working on looks fine, but after talking with my brother I feel the need to push myself harder. I could post these pieces on Etsy and see what happens, but more likely than not it will probably not sell. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. But, instead of just junking the pottery I have, I think I'll try to layer some more designs and just see what happens. It might melt and drip all over, or maybe the colors will clash horribly and I wont know till after its been fired, but I think its time to take some chances and see what happens.

This is the only one that I really like that is left over from Christmas. I applied a silkscreen stencil of the two parakeets when the clay was leather hard, fired it, then applied the yellow and green underglaze, clear coat, and the crystal glaze on the inside and did the final firing. I think it turned out pretty good!

So, to sum things up, I'm going to be spending the next few weeks working on some totally new designs. I want to layer colors and stencils and silkscreens and glazes, and hope that something worthwhile comes out of the kiln. I'll take some pictures of the process and share what I can. In whatever other free time I can scrounge up I will be finishing the book Etsy-preneurship (by Jason Malinak) that I mentioned earlier and getting ready to open up shop.

If your interested in finding out more about this mysterious artist brother of mine, check out his blog http://kurlyamerica.blogspot.com/ .

Okay, time to get to work!

The Prelude to Etsy

    I've been doing a lot of research about Etsy this week, and it's really got me fired up. Well, I haven't fired anything yet, but I've been throwing a lot of cups and bowls, and I can't exactly say Etsy's got me throwing up, it just doesn't sound right.

    The book "Etsy-preneurship" by Jason Malinak has been a big help. This might be obvious to everyone else, but this book has me looking at an Etsy shop as a business, not just some social media outlet. By assessing it as a business storefront, I feel like I can wrap my head around it and approach things from a more professional standpoint. Maybe it's because so many people toss around the phrase "You should sell that on Etsy!" it seems like it should be that easy, but it's so much more.

    So I'm currently researching and pulling things together to start the new year by opening my shop. I'm a quarter of the way through the book, so I have much more reading to do, as well as writing out a business plan and figuring out how to do some basic bookkeeping. If I want pottery to be my source of income, then its time to treat it as a business!

    Here's a few mugs I put handles on earlier. These little guys will probably be the first things I put on Etsy! As well as whatever is left over after Christmas. I have a tendency to give away most of my inventory around the holidays.

    I hope to document my endeavors with opening up my first Etsy shop here on this blog in the hopes that others can see how it's done and see if they too have what it takes to start their own craft business. This will be a first hand account, with pretty pictures! It should at least be mildly interesting, right?

Beginnings

My kiln has been resurrected, just in time for me to bring a few things to my brothers' art cooperative house in Seattle. They were having a little craft fair and I was lucky enough to be involved with it! There wasn't a huge crowd, but it was fun and I got to sell a few things.

The silkscreen mugs were a big hit. The Muybridge inspired running horse mugs were quick to go. Nostalgic, organic movement keeps you turning the mug, and even when the screen smears a bit, the flecks of color seem like mud.

The beautiful signs were made by my friend Heather. I need to find some stands for them, but I feel like they really go with the feel of my display. I threw everything together pretty fast, the next time will look better.

This is my first blog entry, feedback, questions, and comments appreciated! Thanks!