section of a salmon tile
November, the economy seems to be teetering on the edge of some kind of dramatic implosion, and we moved back home to the island last spring to become artisans and sell what we make? How exactly is that going to work?
Etsy sales are slow, but then I’m not doing a lot of promotion for my Etsy shop. It seems that a lot of Etsy artists use their blogs as marketing tools to direct people to their shops, and I find that to be a terminally boring use for a perfectly good blog. The raku kiln is on hold til I have a place to spread out my clay, and I’m doggedly assembling Cedar Spirits in preparation for the one Christmas fair where they’re actually likely to sell.
So, when I’m not washing clothes (by hand, in the sink), or baking bread, or hacking through salmonberry canes, I’m mostly writing and oil painting. It’s what I like best anyway, and if I’m not going to be selling my art, I might as well do the kind of art I enjoy the most.
This fish tile is actually an old piece, because I’m not willing to put my new pieces out in front of the world yet. It’s a sculpted piece of bisqueware, experimentally painted with oil paint. Maybe I’ll post it on Etsy and see what happens…
2 Comments
I have had that conundrum with sales and blog too, and I haven’t wanted to use my blog as a tool for sales. I might redirect from there to a sales site (next year) so people can buy my work if they want, but my blog itself is my playground. I just dont’ want to get into the having to create to sell as I have found it crushing to my art spirit.
Yeah, I haven’t quite figured out how the create-to-sell process affects my artistic inspiration. The Cedar Spirits are kind of half-and-half: I like them, but I wouldn’t be doing them right now if it weren’t for the fact that I’m hoping to sell some at the holiday fair. On the other hand, I had previously been making some little drawings, and I stopped doing that even though they were selling – just because I didn’t feel like they were the kind of art I want to be identified with. It’s a puzzlement.