Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Throwing Big Pots


I decided to try throwing some bigger pots again today.  The tallest is about 22 inches tall.  As usual, I did them in sections.  It's been a while since I've worked on this scale and I'm thinking of trying a couple more tomorrow.  I also played around with some thrown, cut and re-assembled forms.  I'll get some pictures of them up tomorrow after I get them cleaned up.  The slab bases for them are stiffening up overnight so that should be first on the agenda in the morning. 

Evangelina and I spent a good portion of the day truly getting ready to open.  Cleaning, vacuuming, making sure that the glass shelves are nice and clean.  I also have been playing around with our new computer system for the shop.  We are a Mac family here and in the fall I purchased a Mac based point-of-sale program.  Last year we had so many different artists in the gallery it got a little confusing keeping track of it all with just quickbooks and excel spreadsheets.  I'm still figuring the new program out but it does seem pretty great.  The only downside is I have spent an awful lot of time doing basic data entry so that we can inventory everything coming in.  

The strange thing is that I'm actually inventorying my work too.  As a potter, I've always made my work, fired it and sold it.  Using a nice little sales slip pack from Staples I would write down the date and whatever sold and that was it.  With this program I'm actually entering each piece in...it even has a picture of each piece...at least the ones that I've been photographed already. 
The program is great for carrying other people's work.  I'm really intrigued to follow specifically where my pieces are going.   

The other nice thing is I'm looking to upload all of these pieces to our website in an online store area.  Not just a click here to email me about the work like I have now but online with a shopping cart and checkout.  I've never been sure about selling work online but, I'm curious to try it out.   Anyone had any success selling pots online? Never seemed like an easy venture to try.  I've always thought that customers...especially new customers need to see the actual piece before they brought it into their home.  

Oh, and it took about 11 months to get the picture but here is Clara Isabella following in a long tradition of potters' children....


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