The Maker's Playbook

Send us Fan Mail Commissions… I feel like it’s a four letter word when I talk to some potters. You see them physically tense up and take a deep breath ready to do battle with a fire breathing dragon. And I’ve always been a little bit confused by this because I kind of like them. Just add it to the list of the ways that it makes me a bit of a black sheep in the art world. You can slot it right next...

Send us Fan Mail Do you feel like the time you spent in a previous career (or a current one) is just pulling you away from moving forward in clay? But have you ever considered that the “background knowledge” you have gained from other life experiences is actually part of creating your unique voice and style as an artist? In this week’s episode, Larissa Warren of Rat Bag Studios and I discuss how h...

Send us Fan Mail My chat this week with Gloria Han opens up so many bit and important conversations (spoiler: this means, there’s going to be a part two!). From getting into education because of a passion for teaching (rather than it being the automatic route after graduate school as it is for so many), to balancing contemporary work with traditional making practices, and encouraging new artists t...

Send us Fan Mail When I sat down with Paul Blais of the Potter's Cast and a packed room of fellow makers at NCECA, we hit upon a lot of business subjects. Frankly, just one of the questions he threw my way could have been its own entire episode. So today I’m expanding on a few of those subjects in this solo episode. If there are still questions you had from that chat, send me over an email at...

Send us Fan Mail When I say “making a living” what do you think I mean? Do you immediately think of income and how much money you make? Or do you think of how you spend your time? Do you think of the balance between working hours and leisure hours? I don’t think there is one particularly correct answer, but on this episode of The Maker’s Playbook, our guest, Danny Meisinger does put this phrase in...

Send us Fan Mail It’s our final replay week! Season 4 starts out next week, with someone who has been on my personal bucket list to interview for quite a long time. Before that though! Our final replay of one of the most popular conversations from last year - with someone who I have absolutely loved watch grow over the last two years. Jackie Wright was one of the inaugural members of my very first...

Send us Fan Mail While I take a long overdue break from the screens, we're replaying some of our most popular episodes! At the end of this original episode I reference The Community - our online home for makers. One of the coolest things about The Community (aside from being an amazingly supportive group of makers from all over the world rooting each other on and joining together to creativel...

Send us Fan Mail While I take a long overdue break from the screens, we're replaying some of our most popular episodes! And it’s no wonder these 4 episodes are some of our most listened to over the last year, because as I compiled them, I realized they are all on topics that really never end… Just as I mentioned in our Live taping at NCECA (episode 335 in case you were curious), one of the mo...

Send us Fan Mail While I take a long overdue break from the screens, we're replaying some of our most popular episodes! In the original episode, I referenced our 6-week photography course specifically for potters: The Maker's Photography Styling System. I'll be hosting this course again this year, but I don't quite know the exact dates just yet. If you are curious about it and...

Send us Fan Mail LIVE from NCECA! Our recording of the joint (but mostly Paul interviewing me ) episode with the Potter’s Cast is here! We touched the surface on a lot of business topics in this one hour. Anything from the importance of finding your own work before market research, how business is mostly just the scientific process on repeat, and a lot lot more, including direct questions from the...

Send us Fan Mail How often do you remember the name of someone’s Instagram account before you actually learn their real name? It’s a little weird. But it can also be freeing for some people, because it means you can choose how much of yourself you want to share. You can create an alter-ego of sorts. Not a dishonest representation of yourself - I’m not suggesting we start “catfishing” - but instead...

Send us Fan Mail If there was a store that was only open for 10 minutes out of the year, would you go to it? Do you think it would even stay in business? What would the business model even look like for such a store? This sounds crazy to describe doesn’t it... Every business advisor out there would tell you that a store needs to be available to people when the people are ready to purchase. Random...

Send us Fan Mail Building a business as an independent maker can be hard. And when you add on top of that the financial realities of doing it in an urban center… well, it takes a special level of drive, determination, work ethic and grit to make that happen. All of which, I can safely say Sarah Hussaini undoubtedly has. Sarah (owner of Not Work Related) and I connect on a lot business topics. So m...

Send us Fan Mail One of the most surprising things for many makers pursuing self-employment is that the brainstorming, troubleshooting, and all-around scientific method of experimenting, testing, observing, and pivoting never really ends (unfortunately or fortunately, depending on the day). The strategy you had for selling your pots 10 years ago might not work today, and it can feel like you are b...

Send us Fan Mail What if there was a way to grow your audience or broaden your reach without hustling on social media? What if you could focus on fostering a handful of really close relationships with people who understood and appreciated your work, and then in turn, spent their own time working to promote that work and get it out to a curated audience of people interested in possibly purchasing t...

Send us Fan Mail My chat this week with Virgil Ortiz is packed with insights. From pragmatic business advice, like protecting your intellectual property, to the less tangible topics of manifestation and trusting that things have a way of working out. The history of clay for the Cochiti people and how Virgil’s work, truly almost accidentally and yet oh so beautifully connects generations of storyte...

Send us Fan Mail “There’s only so much people can show you until you actually go and do it and fail and practice and practice until you get it….” This week on the podcast, I virtually sit down with Yairs Abraham who started his self-taught pottery journey in Buenos Aires, then moved to New Zealand, and now is potting away in his home studio in what spare time a baby and full-time job allows. But h...

Send us Fan Mail This week, my conversation with Page Kelly of Zephyr Valley Ceramics twists and turns, much like her career paths. A self-proclaimed “late bloomer,” there is this stunning moment in this conversation at about the 46-ish minute marker when Page discusses the narrative body of work she is currently producing, where I hear literally every experience she has had in the last 2 decades...

Send us Fan Mail For all of you out there who have been listening to the podcast and thinking, “It’s too late for me to make a career move… I’m too far into this corporate job with the 401ks and the healthcare and all the stuff…” Well, this episode, my friends, is for you.  Rebecca of GravesCo sheds light on the decades of experience she had before she “magically”created an “overnight success.” We...

Send us Fan Mail Ceramics is not exactly an easily mobile art form. And depending on what you are making, it can take up a fair bit of space. So what the heck do you do when you move to New York City, but you know you are only going to be there for 2-4 years? And yet, you are fresh in the beginning stages of getting your business off the ground? Well, that’s exactly what Alex Olson is working on f...

Send us Fan Mail In order to have kept my small business afloat for the last 12+ years, I had to learn a LOT of other skills that have absolutely nothing to do with crafting a photo. In fact, as you’ve heard from many past guests here on the podcast, once you go full-time with your craft, more often than not, you aren’t spending 100% of your time IN that craft. Instead, there’s admin and website u...

Send us Fan Mail How often do you find yourself listening to another maker or hearing about another artist’s story to get to where they are now and saying, “Well that worked for them but I…” But I’m not in my 20s. But I’m married. But I have a dog, but I… It can be really easy for any of us (myself included) to come up with all the reasons we can not do something. Until, you hear about someone who...

Send us Fan Mail The irony of publishing this episode on Black Friday isn't lost on me. But here's the thing: Your emails are NOT the same as the big box stores. At least, not if you are actually (regularly) engaging with the people who have trusted you enough to give you their email address... The true irony is that oftentimes, thanks to our nerves around feeling like we might be spammi...

Send us Fan Mail Dream with me for a minute - What if instead of stressing out over figuring out everything , you simply take the next step? This week on the podcast, I’m interviewing Horacio Casillas, who is currently a resident at Companion Gallery. And he’s spending this unique time as a resident artist doing just that - taking the time to slow down and think . He doesn’t have the next 5 years...

Send us Fan Mail You’ve just walked into a new gallery exhibition, and immediately you start thinking about the artist who created these amazing works in front of you. You dream of working in the arts and what that would be like. But have you ever thought about all the other ways you could also work in the arts? To put on that one exhibit there is also a gallery, and thus, a gallery owner (not to...