The Maker's Playbook

Send us Fan Mail Our work as artists can feel disconnected with the immediate needs of the world. On this week’s solo episode, I’m peeling back the curtain on how I process that for myself. Alongside my originally planned episode of discussing a few of the various business models you can choose in order to create a business that serves your life and not the other way around. Listen to The Launch s...

Send us Fan Mail How do you go from a farm with a woodfire kiln and two potters to an industrial warehouse that already feels too small? Vision. And a bit of luck. At least, that's what worked for Alex Matisse, founder of the one and only Eastfork Pottery. On this episode, Alex shares insights into the pros and cons of growing such a large, successful business and how taking the time to get c...

Send us Fan Mail We’re taking a quick season break but in the meantime, enjoy this chat from way back in Season 1 that I had with Katie Meili. We chat about the difficulties of mental health and how it feels when life takes unexpected turns that throw you off a path everyone else around you is on, the silver linings that brought us to clay, and the importance of having a community that supports an...

Send us Fan Mail Leap and you’ll learn to fly… The key to success is action… The best way to predict the future is to create it… How many of these tropes have you heard? They are usually associated with that scary first step of making a change in your life to go after something you are dreaming about. And while yes, sure, there is often a moment where, regardless of preparation or planning, making...

Send us Fan Mail Thinking about becoming a full time artist is a dream that lingers in the back of many people’s minds. And my assumption is, whenever any of us are dreaming about a change, we mostly think that if we took this leap, if we didn’t have to be bothered with showing up to an office for someone else Monday through Friday, we’d have more time to do the thing we love - to make. But is tha...

Send us Fan Mail So what does it mean if the work we’re making isn’t as impermanent as we think? Does it have to be in order to have value? Is there still value when it breaks?  Today, I’m thrilled to partner with the one and only Metropolitan Museum of Art to feature an episode from their own podcast - Immaterial: 5,000 Years of Art, One Material at a Time . Each episode examines a material of ar...

Send us Fan Mail As I reflected on what we're doing differently for this market season compared to last year's, I realized a trend that I've also seen after teaching over 200 makers inside our MPSS photography course and journeying along side nearly 100 makers inside of The Community for the past 3 years. And while I don't really believe in magic silver bullets to assured succe...

Send us Fan Mail What does it even mean to “ be an artist?” Does it mean you are making work you like to make? Is that art? Does it mean someone else considers you to be whatever their definition of “artist” is? Does it mean not having another job? Or can you be an artist and do something else? Does doing something else actually better allow you to be an artist? Putting it more succinctly, how do...

Send us Fan Mail If you’re side-hustling your ceramics, are you anxiously awaiting the day you can quit the day job? But what if the day job was actually providing you with the chance to learn to be better at your craft? And no, I’m not talking about a job associated with what you make. I mean a day job totally different than what you dream about making, a job in an office, in a “traditional” empl...

Send us Fan Mail Do you ever think about completely changing your life? Like literally, everything - Your job, where you live, what your day to day looks like, maybe even your identity in a way… Or maybe you have done that already, and you are living the dream you had 5 or 10 years ago, but now, as it turns out, it’s not actually the dream? Just even thinking about saying that out loud feels crazy...

Send us Fan Mail I thought John & I were going to talk mostly about burnout. How it “happened” to him, how he got through it, and perhaps, what he’s doing differently now. But (perhaps rather obviously) it can’t really be broken down that simply. Instead, John and I wound up not only talking about burnout, but also the pursuit of the impossible perfect cylinder, the responsibility we all have...

Send us Fan Mail In an internet world where there are seemingly endless “educators” available to learn from, what actually qualifies someone to teach a skill? Is it a traditional piece of paper, or diploma, saying that some institution has decided you can? Is it the number of years you’ve been doing the thing? Frankly, there’s really not a fixed formula we can say where x+ y = qualified educator!...

Send us Fan Mail There’s a new social media app in the virtual neighborhood. Will it solve all the frustrations we artists have? Maybe. Maybe not… In this week’s solo episode, I dive into all things social media marketing, why a new app probably won’t solve your problems (but it could!), and why maybe it’s a good thing that it’s hard to get attention on the internet. Plus how everything is changin...

Send us Fan Mail A rare non-potter conversation today on the podcast with Dave Conrey, graphic designer turned email newsletter educator. We talk about the realities of making art and trying to sell that art, approaches to marketing our work without needing to be a part of the hustle-bro culture, and eventually get around to the notion that really piqued my interest when I first met Dave online -...

Send us Fan Mail We’re back for part two! In this continued conversation with Joy Hanford - a Midwest gal, much like myself, who now lives in Portugal - we get into the topics of the complexities of learning about and navigating bureaucracies in other countries, art as a form of grieving and processing world events like the lockdown and the experience of a global pandemic in another country, start...

Send us Fan Mail Living abroad. Sometimes, it sounds like the solution to all of my problems. All I need to do is choose a country with national healthcare and town with relatively low cost of living, and TA DA! Making a living from the things we make is solved, right? Right? It can look incredibly romantic online - strolling through tiny streets seemingly too small for cars, surrounded by histori...

Send us Fan Mail Wholesale… The assumption is there’s no way to reasonably make a living, as a maker, by doing wholesale. But is that true? Since I’m generally pretty skeptical of any sweeping statement that says an entire concept doesn’t work for anyone, at all, I jumped at the opportunity chat with Steve Tubbs, an ex-retailer turned potter, when he mentioned his entire business is wholesale. Whi...

Send us Fan Mail You’ve taken a few classes at your local community studio and you know you want to make ceramics a larger part of your life. In fact, you want to build your own studio, but what does that even look like? And what might be all the tasks and overhead that community studio has been handling without you even realizing it? What is it actually like to start and run a community studio? W...

Send us Fan Mail Having a collector buy our work... It sounds… amazing! Awe-inspiring? Relieving? Luxurious. All of the above really. But how does it even happen? During the 2024 NCECA conference, Coalescence, held in Richmond, VA I sat down with Peter Beasecker and Louise Rosenfield to chat about their perspectives as maker and collector on how building relationships with collectors begins and ho...

Send us Fan Mail “Etsy vs. Your own website. Which is better?” It’s a question I see asked online endlessly. I see the responses fought over just as endlessly. But is it really an either/or? We dig into that on this next installment of our “The Launch” series - where I dig into the firsthand experiences Francesco & I are having in starting our own ceramics business. Spoiler - We’re using both...

Send us Fan Mail I know I'm not the only one who finds social media to be exhausting. The idea of keeping up with trends sounds equivalent to nails on a chalkboard to me. But at the same time, I know there is a huge opportunity on social media. After all, Instagram alone has 2 billion   users. Enter Allie Mason. A data-based marketing strategist who understands that us solo-preneurs and small...

Send us Fan Mail On this week’s episode I talk with founding Community member, Connie Cole, about her winding path to becoming a full-time potter. We discuss her battle with imposter syndrome, what finding a “gateway drug” has done for her business and the assault on creativity she’s experienced over time (and of course, how she’s battling against it!) Interested in joining other makers from all o...

Send us Fan Mail Feeling the FOMO because you aren't going to NCECA? Come hang out inside of The Community - Learn more & join for 1 month by clicking here . One of my favorite books: Deep Work by Cal Newport (purchasing the book through this link helps support the podcast!) Today’s episode is brought to you by the following sponsors: The Rosenfield Collection of Functional Ceramic Art Br...

Send us Fan Mail Do you get overwhelmed at the idea of making your studio practice environmentally friendly? It can seem impossible to figure out where to start and what actually makes an impact. The science of climate change is complicated at best, and more often than not confusing. Which is exactly why I’m so grateful for people like Yuliya Makliuk - a trained ecologist and potter. Yuliya recent...

Send us Fan Mail The internet can be amazing for connecting us all to resources we wouldn’t otherwise have access to. But it can also be absolutely overwhelming. With so many people teaching online, how can we tell who actually knows what they are doing? How do we know (especially if we decide to pay) that they are actually qualified to teach us? I’m not talking about formal qualifications and dip...