The Christmas Show

[morgaina]

at Coeur d' Alene this weekend was disappointing. I made about half of what I had made in previous years, some people didn't do that well. There were quite a few factors which may have accounted for this decline. One booth did extremely well. It appears that strictly functional, with no funky, detailed, strong colors, or unique aspects on the pottery are what was selling. Well, it's good that someone did as well as in past years. I had a lot of interest & compliments and gave out a lot of business cards, so there are future possibilities.

I still had a very good time. Wonderful live music (for the most part). Good company among the other potters and a place where if you say "Bless Alumina Hydrate!" everyone says "Amen".

And note to other merchants: I got a lead from another potter on a better place to host credit card acceptance. I will be getting the information soon and will share.


View of my booth. The building we used this time was decidedly not as pretty & classy as the previous building. Possibly one of the factors.


A Turkish Phoenix done in underglazes.


Another view. Green this time.


I bought some work of other potters. This guy's work cracked me up. He's fairly new to the craft, some craftsmanship issues yet. But those are learnable.

"Conversation" by Kyle Patterson

Comments

[doll-paparazzi.livejournal.com]

Wait, so you are saying boring pottery sells? Who the hell knew? :(

[copper-oxide.livejournal.com]

Boring to one person may be simple elegance to another. ;-)
Her work was quite well crafted. And the simplest handmade shape I still like better than the highly decorated machine made.

[doll-paparazzi.livejournal.com]

Well, there is that. I agree with simple. It's just... how you described it, that's what came to my mind.

[copper-oxide.livejournal.com]

My view was colored by some of the gorgeous pottery in various booths. There is a lady who is an absolute master at maiolica and she made only two sales all weekend. The potter who was next to me did naked raku, sagger-firing, & fuming, in other words all decorative. Her work is fabulous her shapes are strong and elegant. She made some sales, but not many and I could go on & on about the excellent artistry in other booths.

There was one beginning potter, a lovely person but the craftsmanship was first semester, so her prices reflected that $4.00, etc. she made a number of sales.

[loup_noir]

The phoenix is gorgeous! Great colors.

I think the economy is really tightening people's purses. While there's still a lot of money out there, the flow has dwindled. Meh, as they say.

[copper-oxide.livejournal.com]

Thanks, those underglazes are great.

And it seems to have changed outlook. The Ladies who run "Shop the Frontier" site said functional pottery was selling better than any other craft.
I had the feeling people were saying on some unconscious level: "functional is more economic than unique" although the prices were similar.

[not-justagirl.livejournal.com]

stunning work as usual! I'm in love with the colors.

unfortunately I think that people idea of how things should look are very skewed by machine-made, mass produced garbage... between that and the "but I can get 12 for that price at wal-mart" kills me... my heart breaks for artisans...

I too would rather have a simple piece of hand made pottery than some floofy over the top mass produced work... I've actually vowed that I'm not buying any more wal-mart type dishes... hand made pottery from my amazingly talented friends is where it's at...

[copper-oxide.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that attitude.

In a similar vein, I can't bring myself to buy woven-looking trim from JoAn's either. It's just too "not real".