The Maker's Playbook

Send us Fan Mail The Big Announcement: We've added ONE MORE Free Webinar about the 4 Most Common Instagram Photography Mistakes (and how to avoid them. Yes, even with your cell phone). Click here to reserve your seat for this LIVE class on January 26th at 2:30pm CST. Today, my photography tips come directly from a recent email conversation I was having with another maker about how things “sho...

Send us Fan Mail Photography can be overwhelming if you don’t have an efficient system for it. But it is possible to have an efficient system for it! And if you don’t believe on that - because you’ve been totally exhausted and frustrated by the google search results so far... Well, I’ve asked a few past students to share their experiences today on the podcast. If you are a maker looking to create...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever thought, "If I only had a larger Instagram following then..." But have you thought about what it would really take to do that? How many hours it would take to create the content to grow that audience? There's no one that knows that reality much better than the one and only Curt Hammerly of Hammerly Ceramics. And as Curt mentioned at the end, crucial to...

Send us Fan Mail Our final new interview episode before a little holiday and end-of-year break is an insightful one. So often all of us can feel like we're behind... As if we could be so much farther along with our making practices or small business had we only known 10 years ago that this is what we were going to want to do. But what if all those disparate life experiences are actually creat...

Send us Fan Mail I've heard it said more than once by makers of many kinds: Being a self-employed artist isn't a job you turn off. It's more a way of life. There are certain choices we can make that can make life more stressful or more in tune with the kind of business (and making practice!) we want to have. This approach to building a life came up once again in my conversation this...

Send us Fan Mail It's the holiday season and makers around the world are hustling to get their listings online and take advantage of increased sales during this time of year. But what if your sales aren't going as planned? What if you haven't sold as much as you'd hoped? What if you haven't sold ANYTHING? What does it all mean? On this solo episode of the podcast, I'm...

Send us Fan Mail Is there a singular aspect of your craft that you love above every other step of the process? For the ceramicists that are listening, there are SO many steps to our process! Making clay, building or throwing, trimming, glazing, firing... And there's seemingly endless options within any given one of those steps. How are we supposed to become proficient in all of these things?!...

Send us Fan Mail When I first started this podcast I wanted to make sure that we had a diverse breadth of stories. In fact, it was paramount to the focus of what this podcast would be. I was looking out onto the internet for how other ceramicists and makers made a living from the things they make, and all I really saw was one example - people hustling on Instagram to grow an audience, push that au...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever thought to yourself, "well, if I had that many followers, than I could sell more and quit my full-time job. Getting more followers is the solution to all my small business dreams!" Or perhaps, you've been watching a bit of TV and thought, “Well, if I was on the Great Pottery Throw Down, I could quickly increase my audience size, sell loads of pots, qui...

Send us Fan Mail So often I hear makers talk about what they “should” be doing. How they “should” start posting on Instagram or “should” sell at markets, or “should” sell online. But how many of us have stopped to consider what we prefer? What suits us the best? What is the route in business that is most natural to our personalities and our personal lives? Greta Michelle is crafting a business tha...

Send us Fan Mail Season 2 is here! We are kicking things off with the one and only Sunshine Cobb. Sunshine and I dig right into it from the beginning. From sharing, oversharing, and the importance of boundaries as makers and educators, to diversifying income streams, to deciding what you are willing to give up to make these crazy full-time artist lives of ours work. We talk about moving cross coun...

Send us Fan Mail We're taking a quick Season 1 break here on the podcast. New episodes will be coming back at the start of October, but in the meantime, enjoy the top 4 most played episodes since the start of 2021! In the meantime, be sure you don't miss out on our free monthly photography tips! Click here to download our At-Home Photography Cheat Sheet and be added to our insider's...

Send us Fan Mail We're taking a quick Season 1 break here on the podcast. New episodes will be coming back at the start of October, but in the meantime, enjoy the top 4 most played episodes since the start of 2021! In the meantime, be sure you don't miss out on our free monthly photography tips! Click here to download our At-Home Photography Cheat Sheet and be added to our insider's...

Send us Fan Mail We're taking a quick Season 1 break here on the podcast. New episodes will be coming back at the start of October, but in the meantime, enjoy the top 4 most played episodes since the start of 2021! In the meantime, be sure you don't miss out on our free monthly photography tips! Click here to download our At-Home Photography Cheat Sheet and be added to our insider's...

Send us Fan Mail We're taking a quick Season 1 break here on the podcast. New episodes will be coming back at the start of October, but in the meantime, enjoy the top 4 most-played episodes since the start of 2021! In the meantime, be sure you don't miss out on our free monthly photography tips! Click here to download our At-Home Photography Cheat Sheet and be added to our insider's...

Send us Fan Mail Having it all…. Doing it all… it’s the elusive dream. And while I don't think I'm actually doing it all, running 2 photography studios, starting a podcast, and launching an online course all while moving and starting one of the busiest wedding seasons in the history of events, is a lot to manage. In this week's episode I'm sharing the hard-earned tools & tr...

Send us Fan Mail This week I’m chatting with Tamara Bryan, who you might know on Instagram as Tamara B Pottery. Tamara studied pottery in college and has been working out of her home studio on and off for the past 20 years. I say on and off because as the primary care giver for her kiddos, while it may look to some that Tamara had the freedoms of a full-time potter, living the dream, the reality f...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back to another episode of the Maker’s Playbook! If you’ve been following along real-time, you know this episode is launching a couple of days later than usual, because my friends… woof! It’s August, and I’m still a wedding photographer… life is a weeeee bit crazy. This week, I’m sharing an incredibly candid conversation I had with Katie Meili, who is a resident potter at...

Send us Fan Mail I thought about cutting this episode into 2 parts, but I just didn’t know where to pause this conversation, so settle on in because Sherrod and I just don’t stop. We’re two impassioned Scorpios who didn’t realize we were going to find such a fast connection so needless to say, we got a little carried away. And as two fire signs, we also get fired up, so there is a bit of cursing i...

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 and chief strategic officer 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...

Send us Fan Mail This week I'm catching up with one of my first ever potter friends, Angela Venarchik. As I was properly learning ceramics for the first time, Angela was preparing to quit her day job and go full-time with her pottery business. She taught me tricks to be more efficient with my throwing, and I shared business knowledge I'd learned over the last decade of entrepreneurship....

Send us Fan Mail When I first started learning photography, what made it so overwhelming was the number of variables. Not just stand-alone variables (like the effect humidity has on my hair) but intersecting variables. If I change my shutter speed, what does that do to the effects of the ISO or the aperture? But at the same time, if I start changing everything at once, then I really have no freaki...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever thought about WHY you're taking the photos you're taking of your pots? Do you pull out your camera and just start shooting because you feel obligated? Or do you start photographing knowing what the photos you're taking are specifically going to be used for? This week, week 3 (out of 4!) of the Photography Extravaganza, I'm talking about the 3 prim...

Send us Fan Mail “What camera should I buy to have better photos?” It's a question I get asked more times than I can count. And if it's not that question then it's a close version of it:  - “Can I take good photos without a real camera? Only with my cell phone?” - "But I don't have a swanky kitchen with marble countertops to make my photos look like that..." All of th...

Send us Fan Mail The other week I asked all of you to tell me what you struggle with the most with photography over on our Instagram stories. One brave person said - “I”m not sure I even know what a good photo is.” I had one of those smack your palm to your head moments as a teacher and coach where you realize after 11 years, there is so much I take for granted and don’t fully break down when teac...