Two years ago, July 14, 2022, nine participants showed up for the Clay Connections zoom, lured by this blurb: "The issue of pricing your work." Do you feel guilty about the prices you need to charge in order to make a living off of your art? Do you struggle to reconcile your feelings of disgust at rampant, unchecked consumerism with your desire to make and sell your art? Do you make your art to sell? If you do, how do you decide the price? NMPCA Slip Trail Editor, Cirrelda Snider-Bryan, plans to record this session to incorporate into an article in the Slip Trail about pricing. Join us for this lively Clay Connections to discuss this controversial topic. Co-Hosts: Sheila Miller and Judy Nelson-Moore
Originally, motivation for this discussion began with an email from NMPCA president, Andrea Pichaida, saying, “This article might be an interesting topic for a Slip Trail article: The Economics of Art (and Craft) and Why You Shouldn't Feel Guilty about the Prices You Need to Charge to Make a Living."
Another article mentioned in the discussion is: In the Studio: Pricing Artwork. And the article Leonard mentions here is called Pricing Your Artwork, published in Slip Trail.
The nine attendees, Sheila Miller, Leonard Baca, Steve Blakely, Elaine Biery, Merlene Walker (aka Mo), Judy Nelson-Moore, Adam Emery, SatShabad Khalsa, and Cirrelda Snider-Bryan, all agreed to have their spoken thoughts shared in an article.
The effectiveness of zoom platform and the small size of our Clay Connections group made this a success. Even taking into consideration the strange effects of meeting on a screen, the input from all created a fabulous and wide-ranging perspective on pricing. Thank you to these folks … for showing up, for being thoughtful about sharing their experiences and learnings, and … for waiting two years for this!
Clay Connections Zoom 7/14/2022
Judy: Okay we’re ready to go. Who wants to start?
Sheila Miller screenshot from the zoom.
Sheila: I’ll start. This came about from another project that Andrea had sent to Cirrelda. And then Cirrelda has forwarded a couple more, which, if you’re interested in reading, are in the chat area. I don’t have anything profound to say on this topic, more that I wanted to say what I find very interesting is that 2 of the 3 articles she supplied to us said that the importance of paying yourself a living wage. Two articles referred to that. I honestly hadn’t considered that before. Partly because I don’t keep track of the amount of time that I am spending on a piece. It seems a little tedious to me to do so when you start making the piece, bisquing, glazing, everything. So, I don’t keep track. But it’s interesting you know because our time is valuable. So, I’m going to take that into account moving forward and try and determine that. There are other factors that are there in the article too, like I said, two of them, the importance of keeping ourselves in business and paying ourselves a living wage and not undervaluing ourselves, that was really valuable for me to hear and a tool I had never considered before. I think I tried to do an assessment of other pieces were similar to mine to get my pricing, and once I got into it, I had an idea of what pieces what people were willing to pay. I think that’s a very important component that I myself hadn’t considered.
Leonard Baca - screenshot from the zoom.
Leonard: A few years back, the lady that’s in the white shop up in Taos did article on that. Betsy Williams. She did an article about that in the Slip Trail years ago. She talks about that, about how you price your work. Give yourself a raise, and that type of information. And I took an Etsy class they said the same thing again. I was starting to develop a cost because I mix my own glazes. And then, if you know how much glaze you’re using on a particular piece. Anybody here customizing, mixing glazes or just using commercial glazes? Steve? Yes. Adam? Yes. Elaine? Do you? Elaine: No, I use Desert Sand glazes. Leonard: I can share that with you. It works out kinda nice. You can set it up for what chemicals you use for a particular glaze and then that gives you your cost. Maybe I should share it on the website for tools and information.
Sheila: Leonard can I ask you, what about if you’re buying equipment? Like I bought a new Shimpo wheel last year, I bought a used kiln. I bought a slab roller. I guess I never think about re-couping the cost for those things.
Leonard: It’s just like any business, you depreciate that information, if that’s your sole income. But even if it’s not … I just kind of set it up. If you’re making let’s say, if it’s under $1000, it’s more like a hobby, right? If it’s over that amount, then it’s a business, and you’re gonna have to pay taxes on it. But you can write all those off. You write off all your expenses, you write off your equipment, it’s depreciated --- just like you do any other business. And that’s the way things work. You start with your bookkeeper. You just keep track of it. That way you’ll have it available, or, you’re leading up to that point.
Merlene "Mo" Walker - screenshot from the zoom.
Mo: For me the best way was to set up Quicken. I did this 20 years ago, and designated the different categories. At the point that you decide that it’s a business. One of the things for me in pricing is considering I’m in a different place today than I was several years ago when I was actually wholesaling to galleries and shops. You have to be really cognizant of that, if you ever plan to go with a gallery. Now I’m doing the art tour in Eldorado, so it’s my studio, and I don’t have to worry about 20-50%. But I still keep my pricing the same as if I was going to sell to a gallery, and factor that in, because I would be thinking, “Oh well I’m selling out of my home so I can sell it for this amount.” But at that point, if you’re not willing to give up 50% I think it’s really important for all of us, and you probably all know that, when you’re figuring the difference between wholesale and retail, when you’re figuring up that pricing.
Leonard: Another thing that came up when I was doing a little research on it, is how you attempt to represent yourself with a gallery or a show, or how you’re marketing your piece. So, I create a little price tag that has my name on it, the piece’s name, a little description of what I’m making, more personal, and a little tear-off tag so that if it’s a gift they can tear off the tag, and save the label with the piece itself. The reason I did that, and the article I’m reading says, if you’re going into a gallery or a store, instead of just a price tag, it kind of represents the piece a little bit more. And I noticed when I restocked my area at the shop, and I didn’t put any labels on anything, it kind of cut back on some of the people that were just walking by pick it up and wanting to buy it, if it didn’t have a price on it. I thought that was kind of important. Something I did notice about that though if it was in the studio, or in the gallery and it had the price tag, then it looks really good. But if I package it, if I’m going to go to a trade fair, everything’s boxed up, then the tag does a little damage. Then it’s more about the label, the label on the piece, then the tag is if it’s on display. That really helps you market the piece. When I bought something on Etsy, and then when I got my product, I got this cool little envelope with a thank you card, my receipt, and a business card, and I think they put stickers in it, stuff like that. So, it’s little pieces that dressed up the piece. So, I do the same thing again for my when I ship something out, I typically pack it like a gift for them, re-marketing my store. Those are marketing tips that help show that you’re not just a home potter, but you’re trying to get it to the next level up.
Mo: I will say, Leonard, all those things figure into the cost of the piece, too.
Leonard: exactly.
Mo: at that point, that’s why to me Quicken is good, then I’ve got everything I spent as well as the marketing aspect as well as the product. So, I look back and go, wow, I didn’t realize I had this much money tied up, you know.
Leonard: Keeping up records really helps to show what you’re spending and where your profits coming in, and see what, you know, what your volume is, and then you can show that you’re at least covering your costs, and then try to recreate that again for the living wage. How much time am I spending, am I starting this for $5 an hour? Or am I selling this for $20 an hour? That makes a big difference.
Cirrelda: I’m curious for the 9 people that are here, how each of us sells. So, Leonard you sell at your place of business and you have an Etsy shop?
Leonard: When I first was doing it at the shop, I just did like an Open House at the shop. I had all my customers and friends over and family. It was more like a holiday-type event. I did a lot of sales, like in just one evening, started out in the $500 range, then the next time I did it, it was in the $1000 range. So, it worked out kinda nice. What I want to do now though, is I just want to do two events, and do it at home. So, I can invite people to the house, set up the work, have a little bbq, invite friends over and then do your selling that way. Get in a rhythm, come once in the summertime, and once towards the holiday season. And that’s kind of what my goal is planned to do.
Judy: You also do the Etsy shop, right?
Leonard: Yes, I do an Etsy shop. There are so many people on Etsy – if I try to search for somebody in Albuquerque who does ceramics, it’s going to be hard to find them. Cause it’s about self-promoting. So, you self-promote yourself on Facebook, you self-promote yourself on Instagram, then, word-of-mouth, friends. Then once I start doing that a little bit more, I get a little bit more sales. It does show you, just like what that we did on Facebook we show the results for the Celebration of Clay: how many people have gone, and how many have “liked.” Etsy has kind of the same thing. It tells you how many people have searched for a certain product or name. And it tells you the product name. also tells you how many people searched for your shop this week or this month and you can put any kind of resources in it. So, it looks like I had lots of people coming, but my sales really happen during the holiday season. And they pretty much drop off after that. Then there’s another gentleman who is on my Facebook page, and has an Etsy shop, but he empties it out, right? So, his stuff is gorgeous, and his stuff is not inexpensive, but he has a huge base. So, what he does instead of paying a fee every month (you pay like 20 cents for 90 days - it’s not that much) until you sell the product, then it’s a little bit more. So, what he does is he empties his shop and turns everything off. Then he does an announcement, “Hey, I’m having a show and I’ve restocked.” Everybody’s excited to go. Then he makes all his sales like in a month or couple weeks, everything’s sold! because everybody anticipates they can go and look at his work and buy his work. After that he turns everything off and he doesn’t have to deal with it during that time. So that’s a different way and one that works. Who else has an Etsy shop?
Cirrelda: I do.
Leonard: Do you?
Cirrelda: I’ll talk more about my Etsy in a little bit. But I am curious to hear from Adam, Elaine, Steve. I want to hear how all the others sell.
Cirrelda – Elaine, you use the studio tour, right?
Elaine Biery - screenshot from the zoom.
Elaine Biery – Yeah, whenever they have them. For years I did the studio tour and it was really successful and in fact I think you came the last year that they had it, Cirrelda. But they haven’t had it for the last 2 or 3 years and I don’t know that anyone is going to pick it up. So that was always real successful. I sell from my home. I do the Contemporary Clay Fair, used to have it twice a year, now they’re just going to do it November, that always works really well. You know you build up the clientele. People come and look at your stuff because they’ve bought stuff previous years. And like I said, I sell at home. Really right now that’s about all. I’m not in any galleries right now. Thinking of maybe looking for one it but that’s all I’m doing is thinking about it!
Cirrelda: How about your pricing method?
Elaine: That’s always a hard one for me. Let’s say at the Contemporary Clay Fair, I have a piece and I really like it, and I don’t care if I sell it or not. Then I tend to put a higher price on it, and if it sells, good. If it doesn’t, I won’t be broken-hearted over it. It’s kind of a balancing act. At the Clay Fair you take quite a bit of inventory you want to sell. I don’t want to price my things so low that it’s like a giveaway. Nor do I want to sell rapidly. I want to sell a lot of the inventory that I take. So, yeah, it’s just a balancing act. I don’t worry too much except, it’s intuition.
Mo: Last year was my first year in the Eldorado art tour, and I loved it. I was surprised I did as well as I did. It was wonderful to have it here in my studio, to have everything set up, and at night I could go home and go to bed after it was over. I love that. And I actually lucked out because I’m involved in the Santa Fe Cactus Club, the president started carrying my cactus pots. He goes all over the US. He’s taking 15% to sell my pots. I mean it’s been wonderful. I don’t know how long he wants to continue doing that. I’ve been able to have that instead of doing an Etsy shop or something, to have you know to have a pretty constant income. Because he usually does a show at least two a month in CA and different places. So, people are starting to recognize my cactus pots. And I do the Cactus Show here in Santa Fe every year. I was selling jewelry up until 3 years ago, then I started doing my clay again. I know that my skill level is not where I want it to be to ask some of the prices that I would like to. That’s my goal is to work on finishing my work better and developing that. So, I look at that in pricing. Because I know in precious metal clay, I could sit down and do multiple pairs and finish them and do it in just a matter of hours. So, my time wasn’t what I was doing but it was the costs of the materials. I have wonderful little cost comparison for precious metal clay. But it’s measured in grams of materials. It’s much simpler because I have product costs, the real thing, right there. A lot of my friends that do Etsy and they call it “passive income.” Because they make big show pieces, but they have small pieces, ceramic art pieces, cups, whatever, one of my friends says, this is my passive income, I can make 4-500 a month without doing much of anything. But it’s a lot of work, because she really has to update her inventory and put it out there. These talks are great to help me to understand what other people are doing.
Steve Blakely - screenshot from the zoom.
Steve: I have very much struggled with pricing over the years, usually I price for the type of show it is. Right now I am shuffling to the Corrales Bosque Gallery from my place, it’s actually it’s a cooperative gallery. I like a smaller gallery with other artists, I’m the only potter there. Anyway so, I have struggled a lot, as we all have, with pricing, and my most recent method was to do a spread sheet for the gallery. Basically, what I do with the spreadsheet is start with the size of the piece, because my pieces are mostly vases, and they range from 6 inches to 12 inches. They get higher but now 12 is the max. Then I just gave each size a price. So up to 6” is $80. Or up to 8” is $80. 8-10” is $160, 10 and 11 is $260. 11” and higher is $360. Then the next category is the design time, and if it was difficult, or if it was easy. And I just gave that a figure --$10, $20, $30, or $40 -- $40 being the most difficult. Next step is the glazing, I do all spraying, so whether I use one glaze or two glazes, or I do a lot of “faux bois” work, so doing the faux bois work is creating a wood-like look with different oxides. So, I just price those at 10 – 20 dollars. And then I gave the piece a “result,” if I was pleased with the aesthetics personally, and I gave that a price. And then I gave the whole aesthetics final piece a price that I felt was good, 10, 20, 30 or 40 dollars. It’s kind of a weird system, but it made sense for me at the time so I added those up and came up with the price, so for example an 8 ½” pot came out to a value of 270 dollars, and then I decided, does that make sense, or not? And then it gets adjusted. So that’s more or less the system I am using right now. I don’t know if it makes sense or not, to tell you the truth. Maybe you can give me some feedback.
Sheila: Is this for your gallery pieces that you’re basing?
Steve: Yes, gallery pieces.
Sheila: And then you’re paying a membership to be part of the gallery?
Steve: A monthly dues.
Sheila: And then a commission?
Steve: a 20% commission.
Sheila: That’s been what my experience was. You have to consider those “fees” as well.
Steve: Yeah, but, I really take the worth of those pieces into consideration. Not the cost of the show and everything, just the worth, and the size, so it kind of balanced out.
Cirrelda Snider-Bryan - screenshot from the zoom.
Cirrelda – I wanted to reply to your method, Steve, just to say it reminds me of the 1st article I put in the chat. It’s from Ceramics Arts Daily (CAD – part of Ceramics Monthly (CM). They do let you have 3 free articles a month, so you can probably access this article. I found it helpful after reading that first one Andrea shared with me. The CAD article talks about exactly what you’re doing, taking into account different aspects to make the price. It talks about creating a wholesale price and then creating a retail price. The whole idea of adding on. Kind of going back to what you were saying too, Elaine, and Mo. You’re adding on a bit of a chunk. That’s an important thing for us. Both articles talk about “burning out” if you’re producing to sell and being on a timeline, we want to give ourselves some compensation for that time. Thus, a retail price will give yourself a profit, not just covering your time, your product, your materials. But giving yourself “icing”!
Steve – So, I don’t even know if what I’m doing is good. When I first started at the gallery, I sold right away. But now I’ve had 2 months of no sales, and then all the other artists have said, well, none of us are having sales right now. We’re all working at getting more people in. It’s questionable even for me being in a gallery. Right now it’s a learning experience. I question the pricing in the gallery scenario…. I find that that’s the biggest problem with the gallery.
Cirrelda: You mean your prices are too high? Or too low?
Steve: I’ve been told they’re not too high. But, I wonder sometimes if they are too high. Then, we have a “sale.” And it’s not like a situation where you are selling your work at all times either, and that really helps. The downside of being in a gallery, you’re not there to talk about your own work and it’s where you’re coming from or how you made that piece, I find that that’s the biggest problem in a gallery, or any situation where you can’t talk to the people.
Sheila: You can do like Leonard does and give a little story on your pieces.
Steve: I wanted to do that, but the gallery kind of wants just a little card, with the title and the price. I have a card that tells about my work, but not each individual piece. It’s the individual piece that sometimes sells if you’re talking to someone … tell them how your inspiration for it was, where you’re coming from, that’s really the selling point.
Mo: Is anyone on here actually making a living from their pottery? Because I frankly don’t know but a few people that are able to actually do that. Their work is like high-selling stuff and they do shows like Main Street in Ft. Worth or Cherry Street and they sell big huge chunks at a time so they’re thousands of dollars. I quit my corporate job and I was in several galleries and shops about 25 years ago and I thought, “Oh I can do this” and my first year I made $12 thousand dollars, hahaha. And I realized, oh, my goodness! And I was working very hard and I was in ten galleries or shops, so it still you know.
Cirrelda: Wow.
Steve: Yeah, normally I’m selling just to supplement my social security. Which is what a lot of us do. So, I‘m not trying to make a living off of it. I’m just trying to make living a little easier.
End of Part 1. Go here for Part 2.
