NYIGF vs. BMAC: Comparing the Shows

Feltware Cups.  Photo copyright Blackbird Photography

Last year, I tried the New York International Gift Fair in January and again in August. This year, I decided to try the Buyer's Market of American Craft. My reasons were twofold: most of my buyers from the NYIGF also went to the BMAC, and the BMAC is significantly cheaper. So how do the shows compare? Here's my thoughts:

- BMAC is less expensive. Significantly. my booth in NY was $4000. in Philly, $2250. But I did notice that the costs for everything else was comparable. Electrical fees in Philly were higher, and I got slammed with a "material handling fee" of  $350 for choosing someone other than the official show carrier to deliver my crate to the show. That sucked. I also had to have floor covering in my booth which was unnecessary in NY. This wasn't something that I had in my crate, which had been stored in New Jersey since the August NYIGF, and I didn't feel like dragging a carpet across the border with me so I had to rent one for the show. It was way overpriced and they didn't even install it properly so buyers were tripping in my booth.

- BMAC is ONLY handmade. Which is awesome. This means the buyers that show up know all about handmade, know that it's pricier, know that we can't crank out 10000 widgets in 4 days. I didn't have to deal with complaints about pricing which is a huge bonus. It gets tiresome defending my right to make a living wage.

- NYIGF is MUCH larger, because there's so much more at the show. There's suppliers and products and designers from all over the world. The show is MASSIVE. which means there's more buyers there. But that's not to say they are all there for the handmade. The handmade section is actually much smaller than what's available at the BMAC.

- I didn't see as many of the big buyers at the BMAC. If you're goal is to get picked up by Anthropologie or somewhere like that, your chances would probably be better at NYIGF. And I didn't see as much of the media in Philly that I saw in NY. There was no House and Home, no Martha Stewart Living, no Country Living. So if you're looking to hook up with media, NY would be a better option. And none if this is to say that these people weren't at BMAC, but I didn't see them, so maybe they just didn't stop by my booth (which is entirely possible).

- Both shows are very well organized and staff communicate regularly and easily with vendors. I had no problems with set up or tear down, or getting questions answered before, during or after either show. Now I have my entire booth packed into a 3x3x5' crate which gets delivered right to my booth, becomes part of my display and gets picked up there after the show, so I don't have to deal with move-in, move-out or waiting for my crate to be delivered to me at the end of the show.

So down to the nitty gritty, how did the shows compare?

- I picked up as many buyers in Philadelphia as I did at BOTH NY shows, as well as re-orders from buyers I met in NY. BUT, the orders were smaller.

- I had a lot more follow up to deal with after NY, buyers who left their cards but weren't interested in placing orders at the show. This tripled my sales from what I wrote on the show floor and I got orders as a direct result of the NY show right into January of this year.

So what are my plans moving forward?

- I haven't decided if I will do NYIGF in August again or not. I guess I need to get on that and make a decision.

- originally I was hoping to do both the BMAC AND the NYIGF next winter but I heard some nasty rumors about the superbowl being in NY the same weekend as the gift fair. This does not bode well for hotel rooms and I have a hard time believing buyers will come to the show when hotel room prices are hugely inflated. I'll look into this further so see what's going on, but if it is the case, count me out.

- I'll definitely be back to BMAC. It was a great show: more affordable, fun to do, wonderful buyers, amazing vendors. BUT, due to the auto show booking the convention center the same weekend that the buyer's market is usually there, they had to move the show dates for next year. Waaaaaaaay up - to mid January, which is early for buyers. It means weather is more unpredictable, it's the same weekend as another wholesale show (Orlando) and the week before NY. We'll see how this plays out. It's entirely possible that it will have a negative effect on the BMAC next year but only time will tell.

So if you've been thinking about either show, there's my 2 cents. I had two bodies of work with me at the show, my Classic Collection, and my Feltware line. So have a peek and see how it may compare to what you'd like to take to the show. If you were at either show, feel free to share your thoughts!

The Long and Short of It All: I'm Terrified

Tea Set - Classic Collection. Photograph by Blackbird Photography

Tomorrow I leave for Philadelphia for the Buyer's Market of American Craft.
This is a wholesale trade show where retailers and gallery owners come and have a look at my work and (hopefully) place orders for their shops. I have been doing this type of trade show since 2006. This will be my first time in Philly.

Despite the fact that I've done this for years, despite the fact that I'm very comfortable talking to retailers about my work, despite the fact that I literally know my work inside and out, despite the fact that I know how these things go and should have nothing to worry about...

 I'm terrified.

Each show is the same, actually. Whether it's a wholesale trade show, or a retail craft show, the terror is the same. It sets in sometimes up to a week before the actual event. All rational thought seems to be jettisoned, and I become overwhelmed with anxiety; trouble breathing, panic, upset stomach, short nerves, trouble sleeping...

And it's all silly, when it comes right down to it. And ultimately I KNOW that. But that doesn't stop the deluge of evil thoughts: will people like my work? will I make any sales? will I be invisible at the show? will some catastrophic event blow the whole thing to smitherines? Will the global economy crumble the night before the show opens? What if none of my previous buyers come back to re-order? What if customers come and storm my booth to scream at me and tell me how much they hated my work and wished they never bought any?

See? Silly.

But I suspect I'm not alone in all this pre-show inner torment. And I wonder if all these negative thoughts are something that plague other artists as well.

Feltware Cups, photograph by Blackbird Photography

We embark on our 8 hour drive tomorrow morning, bright and early. When I get to the show, my crate with all my stuff will be sitting patiently in my booth, ready for me to unload. I'll set up my little space, retreat to the comfort of the hotel, endure a long, sleepless night, choke down some breakfast while trying not to gag, clean myself up, and trek down to stand in my allotted 100sq feet and wait. And the people will come. I'll chat up retailers and gallery owners, talk about my best sellers, share some laughs, meet some amazing people, and more likely than not write at least SOME orders. Repeat this for three whole days, pack up my stuff, and trek home again. And then I'll sit in the quiet solitude of my living room, surrounded by my cats, and cry. Even if I have a completely kick-ass, knock-my-socks-off, amazingly awesome show, I'll cry. It's a release of all the tension that I endure to get me to the show and through the show. It's the result of being an introvert, a deeply private person who has just displayed my heart and soul to be judged, mocked and loved by complete strangers. It's nothing bad at all. It's just the accumulation of emotion that needs to be cleansed.

And then I'll be back in my studio, making pots, sitting at my wheel where I'm happiest, and life will continue. Just like that.

So am I crazy? Probably.
Am I alone in all this? Probably not:)

Bracing Myself for What's Ahead

Well here it is. Day one of a new year.

I was hoping that this year, I would work less. Take some actual days off.... have a week that ends.... that sort of thing.

And yet here it is, January 1, 2013 and I'm in the studio working.

2012 was good to me. New York was good to me. I'm pleased I took some of the risks I did last year and I'm really feeling like I have turned a corner, and that momentum is starting to build upon itself, instead of me forcing it forward.

A giant order of mugs kept me busy for several months, and I also added an amazing wholesale client who reorders every 5 weeks. I make little dipping dishes and cruets for a specialty olive oil shop which has proven to be very lucrative for me. It's getting my work out there, which has all been decorated with a wee little stamp that says "the Raging Bowl". (I worked on "Branding" in 2012 and can honestly say I'm happy with the results!)

I have lots of new adventures planned for 2013. This February I'm heading to Philly for the Buyer's Market, another wholesale show. I'm hoping this one will be a better fit than the New York Gift Fair. While that show was good to me, I never really felt like my work fit in there. We shall see what Philly brings. And while I'm nervous about losing any momentum I may have started at the NY show, I'm throwing my all behind the Buyer's Market. I bought my first ad - in the guide that the show gives out to everyone that comes, and I also found out I'm going to be featured in the same guide. I have put together a mailing list of potential clients so that I can send out promotional material before the show. I've actually been doing homework! (I made a conscious decision to spend some time on marketing in 2013. We'll see if my efforts pay off.)

I've also go lots of new work coming down the pipes! I'm looking forward to learning some very new and different skills as well as building on and evolving my Arabesque collection and playing with new colors to add to my Classic collection.

Now I just have to work less.
Which probably also means working more efficiently.
So what do you say, 2013? Gonna help a gal out?

What are your plans for 2013? Taking some new risks? Heading on new adventures? Let's hear all about it!

Meditating on Mugs

For the last few weeks I have been plugging away at the largest wholesale order I have had to date.

400 mugs.

While I was excited to GET this order, I was kind of dreading MAKING this order. That's a LOT of freaking mugs. Some potters don't even MAKE mugs. Truth be told, they're a bit of a pain in the ass. They are fussy. And time consuming. And it's hard to get what they are worth when selling them.

When asked up front if I could make that many if I were to get an order for them, I made sure to think long and hard about what I was potentially getting into. Prior to this, my largest wholesale order had been for 100 teapots. That was a complete nightmare. Everything about that order was difficult and I was not eager to go there again. EVER. But having had that experience under my belt, I was better able to work out what would be involved in making so many mugs. I have plenty of time to work on the order, and I'm getting a very fair price for them. Really my only concern boiled down to all that repetitive throwing.

When I first started potting full time, the most I could make of one thing at a time was 8 pieces. Anything after that and my attention span was shot. Without being able to focus on what I was doing, the quality of the pieces would very quickly deteriorate, and along with it, my mood. Fast forward 7 years to the beginning of this year, and I was able to do anywhere from 12 to 18 pieces of the same thing before the inevitable boredom came crashing in.

Really, the best thing about production work is  being able to chart your progress. So far, I have 360 mugs thrown. And I have really seen a change in my ability not only to make them, but to focus as I go. I can now throw 48 mugs in a row, and the 48th mug looks pretty much like the first mug. I have found that within the first dozen, I slip into a bit of a meditation. Time seems to become irrelevant and everything around me is gone. It's just me and my wheel, and a small spinning lump of clay. My hands seem to have figured out what they're doing and I can almost remove myself from the process and let them do what they need to do. It's much the same sensation one gets when running. You reach a certain point where everything flashing around your brain is just gone. A point where you're not thinking, you're not worrying about the banalities of daily life, you're not stewing over what happened yesterday, you're not thinking ahead to tomorrow, you're just here. Now. In the moment, in every moment. It's incredibly liberating. It's incredibly refreshing.

In all honesty, I am really enjoying this order. I thought for sure I'd be having nightmares about mug after mug after mug, but they haven't (yet) made their way into my sleep. We'll see what happens after I start all that packing!

How about you? How's your endurance for production? Is there something that becomes a meditation within your own studio? Tips or tricks you'd like to share, feel free!

Seeing Red

My husband has been bitten with the glaze chemistry bug! Which is exciting because this means I have someone to get nerdy with in the glaze kitchen;)

We've been working together to create some electric fired, cone six, copper reds and are getting great results.

This is something we have both been toying with off and on (but mostly off) for the past 10 years. Iron reds always seemed too muddy and the copper reds in the electric kiln always seemed so elusive. We decided to try again on a whim, and it was one of those "what the hell" kind of moments in the glaze kitchen that led to the first results:

 

While this one came out mostly greenish (as one would expect from copper) we started getting some purples on the top, and where the three test glazes pooled in the center there was some shocking red.

 

The second test piece from that first firing, while turquoise on one side, the other side was definitely leaning towards red.  I honestly didn't think we'd get ANY interesting results out of our first coordinated attempt hunting copper red in an electric kiln so to say I was surprised is perhaps an understatement.

So next came how to smooth out that red colour from our second test piece. We needed to get rid of the blotches and push the red more to real red, and less pink. Here's what came out of the next firing:

The red COMPLETELY disappeared in the glaze test on the right, and the one on the top left went matte and was an interesting shade of dark wine. The bottom left was definitely getting closer. This gave us an idea of the direction we needed to focus in on. So...

Onwards and upwards! Here's the next batch of tests: 

 There's three different base glazes on this test piece. While they all came out red-ish, we decided to narrow our search down to one glaze recipe. We picked the red-est glaze and continued to play. At this point, we had narrowed down our testing to four different things within our glaze formula that seemed to be affecting our red. Here's what came out next:

Now I realize the images may be very difficult to discern on a computer screen, but I can assure you we were pleased with where things are headed. Here's some close ups of where we will focus our fine tuning even more:

The nerd in me loves this aspect of pottery! My background in science certainly comes in handy. And I'm not gonna lie, it's nice to have a partner in crime!

Wait A Minute! It's The End of March?!?

Last time I checked, it was sometime around August, or thereabouts. I can't believe it's already the end of March!

This year has started out with a bang for me. I pretty much haven't had any time off since I started getting ready for my Christmas shows. After losing my wholesale show in Toronto, I decided to throw myself into the deep end and applied to show at the New York International Gift Fair the end of January. This meant spending my "holidays" getting samples together, and figuring out a booth configuration that would pack into a 3'x3'x5' crate. I was a complete disaster leading up to the show, and thanks to my doctor and some pharmaceuticals, I managed to hold it together for the five days of the show.

What an incredible experience!

The New York show made Toronto feel like kindergarten. I had definitely graduated to the big kids sand box, exhibiting at a show where companies like Umbra and the official merchandise for the Beatles had booths. There's about three thousand exhibitors at this show, and I was in a section dedicated to handmade. There was a LOT of incredibly stunning work there. I made some incredible contacts, and got some orders. Maybe not as many as I would have liked, but given that it was my first time showing, I consider myself fortunate to have come away in the black.
 

Orders for my Feltware have already started rolling out - two made it safely to California, and last week I sent out boxes to Vermont and Wisconsin! But by far, the coolest order I got at the show was for a boutique in Tokyo. Given the stunning porcelain that comes from that side of the world, it's incredibly flattering and humbling to have my work represented there.

It will be a few weeks yet before I get any "me" time, and I'm already planning my next trip to New York for their August show. Until then, I'll keep making, packing and sending my Feltware to some pretty cool shops in places I've never heard of before!

Reflections on the Year

Back from a grueling three weeks straight of craft shows, and on the mend from the inevitable sinus woes that resulted, it's time to look back on the year, figure out what went wrong, what went right, and where I'm headed from here.

Hanging out with Oscar Peterson in front of the National Arts Center in Ottawa

This past year has been an absolute roller coaster. I can't even begin to stress that enough. The loss of my wholesale show threw a wrench in the gears from go and I underestimated what kind of a toll that would take on my business. Without knowing what kind of money would be coming in early in the year, I was reluctant to spend what I had on supplies in case I needed it to pay the bills come spring. While the bills all got paid, pots did not get made, and this left me scrambling come early summer, when a flurry of orders came in at exactly the same time I needed to make stock for shows. Thankfully I had the guts to hire help when things got too crazy and I managed to get everything done and out in time, but I spent the rest of the year behind the eight ball, so to speak.

Just as quickly as the flurry arrived, it left and the next thing I knew things came grinding to a halt again. I had several large orders to work on, but shows weren't bringing in much money in the mean time. Once the end of September came swooping in things got out of control again very quickly. In getting ready for two large craft shows back to back for the holiday season, my work days quickly grew to 10 and 12 hour days, 7 days a week, for a good 6 week stretch. By the time my shows rolled around, I was already completely exhausted. And I'll just say it: it's hard to be friendly and cheery when all you want to do is crawl into bed with a good book and a bottle of wine and then stay there for days.

But ALAS! I survived and lived to tell the tale.

So what have I learned from all of this?

1. Well, for starters, MAKE POTS when it's slow! I need to do my best to stock up on what I can when I get some down time. This year I have LOTS of clay and glaze supplies so I don't need to worry about dipping into my savings in order to get work made and ready for the next round of shows and orders. While it's hard for me to think about working when I don't have specific deadlines lined up, it will save me enormous amounts of stress later on in the year if I can get ahead.

2. Since the loss of my wholesale show left such a crater in my finances, I decided to throw myself into the fire and signed up for the New York International Gift Fair. I'm utterly terrified, country girl that I am, and have NO idea what to expect. Could be boom, could be bust, could be somewhere in between. But since I need to do SOMETHING, and New York in January sounded better than Edmonton in February, I'll be heading to the big apple. When push comes to shove, I can throw myself in head first before I talk myself out of things. Sometimes it has worked out, and other times not so much, but if I don't try, then I'll never know. The one thing that every successful business owner has in common is that they have all, at some point or other, suffered failures. Where these people differ from the not-so-successful people, is that they pick themselves up, brush themselves off, and keep on ploughing ahead. So good or bad, whatever is to come, it'll be off to NY in January, where all I can do is the best I can do.

3. Hiring someone to help when things get crazy can really save your ass. I wasn't sure if this was the right move for me. I wasn't sure if it was something I could even afford to do. But in the end, my assistant paid for herself many times over. It's amazing what an extra pair of hands, one or two days a week can do to production levels. Even just having someone to do the mundane tasks of sieving glazes or reclaiming clay freed up MY time to get work made. It's far more important to bring in help when you need it, than to scale back your business because you alone can't keep up. With any luck, I'll be able to hire my assistant again in the new year when she's done her program. It's a win/win for both of us: valuable experience for her, like I was granted when I was starting out, and an extra pair of hands to help me keep things under control.

4. A variety of different income streams are CRUCIAL to the survival of a small, art/craft based business. Had it not been for etsy sales early in the year, things DEFINITELY would have been grim by spring time. And this also relates back to #2. If things get busy in one area, I can scale back in others. For example, if wholesale orders are coming in left, right and center, I can scale back the number of retail shows I do. But say the retail sales are a bust, I can work on the online aspect of my business to keep me afloat. Lots of work, but the safety nets are invaluable.


5. Stop working so damn much! This past fall took a definite toll on me. I signed up for two very large craft shows back to back. 17 days in total of being at a craft show, not including set up and tear down, with only one day "off" in between. This is bad; for my mental health, for my physical health, for my relationships, for my fur kids, for my drinking habits, pretty much everything that's important to me. I certainly won't be making that mistake again. (See #1.) Ironically, I like to tell people that my work is about slowing down, taking time to enjoy your morning coffee in a handmade mug, or cooking from scratch some awesome meal that's served up on a handmade platter. But in order to make that happen for others, I often miss those opportunities myself ... but then, that's a whole other post.

Despite the still-wobbly economy, I'm looking forward to the new year, with lots of exciting adventures and hopefully much less stress, if I can just get my shit together ;)


If you're a craftsperson, what have you learned from this past year? What has worked for you and what hasn't? Feel free to share your insights, I'd love to hear from you!


Cheers!