This Saturday is the Taneytown Artisan Festival at the Taneytown Memorial Park from 10-4. I hope to see some of you there.

I have gotten into many of the juried shows that I have applied to, but there have been a handful that I applied and didn't get in. Unfortunately, most of the time when you don't get into a show there is no feedback. You don't know if they don't like your work, or if there was someone else in your category who was better, or.....

Well, I got rejected from a show recently and they share the feedback from the jury! What was interesting about this feedback is that 90% of the feedback was about my photographs and not about my actual work. I bought some photo board backgrounds on Amazon a while back that were inexpensive, but fit my taste. I feel like pictures I take with these are nice, but it doesn't take away from the pottery. All three jurors made comments about how hard it was to see my pottery with the backgrounds.

I started doing some research and found that there are standards for how ceramics should be photographed. The standard is a Flotone black to grey to white background. I purchased one of these and it's basically a fancy piece of paper. I don't know why a fancy piece of paper is $45, especially when it seems like it would scratch pretty easily. I used some butterfly clips to attach my fancy paper to my photo boards so it could stand up.




I definitely like this background, but I'm not going to lie the fact that it's defacto required irritates me. It also irritates me that they said they "can't see" my pottery. Maybe it's not to your aesthetic, but you can actually see the pottery.

The second big piece of feedback was about my booth shot. This was another rabbit hole to go down. There is a private Facebook group about this and I've definitely done everything wrong. I took a booth photo during a show - you know what my actual booth looks like when I do shows. This was not at all correct. I need to set it up in my yard on a bright, but cloudy day with all of the walls on it. It shouldn't have any identifying information (aka my sign) since most juries are done blind. I likely need to have fewer things in my booth so that things stand out more. There's more, but you get the picture.

More than a few people have noted by trying to conform to all of these norms that their jury picture will be significantly different from their actual booth. While some variation is ok, on the whole the expectation is that it is mostly representative. The thing that keeps running through my head is, in a world where art is meant to be unique and everyone strives to be different - why is the goal to make everyone look the same?

One juror actually gave me feedback on my work. She said that I should edit myself and narrow down what I make so that it's clear what my work is. I really struggled with this feedback. I've written blog posts previously about this. Aside from when I'm learning in a class, I do have a vision for what things will look like in my head. Does everything I make look like each other - absolutely not. I actually get a ton of compliments in the shows I do attend that they like how varied my work is and how boring so many pottery booths are.

I'm still struggling with what to do with this feedback. I will use the flotone for pictures I submit. I will also probably take a new booth photo, but I'm not going to stage it to the point where it feels dishonest. Finally, I think I'm going to throw out the feedback on editing my work. If that's what it takes to get into a show, then that's not where I belong. All in all I really do like that I was able to see the feedback even if it took me a bit to process it.

One of the advantages of keeping track of things is metrics!!

2023 Top 5 Sellers by Count:

1. Mugs
2. Small Plates
3. Trinket Diskes
4. Spoon Rests
5. Ornaments

2023 Top 5 Sellers by Percent of Sales:

1. Mugs - 27%
2. Small Plates - 12%
3. Long Platters - 6%
4. Spoon Rests - 6%
5. Platters - 6%

Something which shouldn't surprise anyone the top seller in categories - Crabs!! 25% of Mugs, 38% of Trinket Diskes, 35% of Small Plates, 35 % of the Long Platters...pretty much every category its Crabs.








I also did 18 shows which was a lot. This year I'm going to be pickier in my shows. I've also been tracking the fee ratio of my shows - 12% being the average. There were a couple of shows that were much higher than this. They were all multi-day shows that I thought were going to be better than they were. I likely won't be doing any of those again.

I do want to figure out how to drive more sales online. While I don't really like having to ship things, I think that this is an untapped resource.

Having all this data also helps me determine what things I've been making that aren't things I should continue selling. For example, I made a whole tea set this year plus an extra teapot. While I did really enjoy the experience - I still have all of it. I think eventually I will find the right buyer, but I haven't yet.

There are things that sold really well in 2022, but did not sell well in 2023 like my large decortative pumpkins. My theory is that people bought smaller this year due to the economy. Next year I have all of those in inventory so we will see, but I won't make any more.

I feel like at some point the market for crabs will be saturated, but I don't think it is just yet :).

There aren't really any shows in the first 3 months of the year so I will be spending the next couple of months building up inventory. I also have some new ideas for things that I'm going to be working on during this downtime. Stay tuned

Last year I bought a live tree to display my ornaments. It was great, but there were needles everywhere. I still have it, but it's gotten bigger and I wanted a less messy alternative. I bought these Manzanita trees on Etsy and then my husband mounted them to a board so they would stand up. I love how they turned out, but I'm debating spray painting them silver, thoughts?
Don't forget about the Howard County Holiday Mart this Saturday!

I was listening to a podcast on a long drive and it made me wonder what the ratio of show cost to sales is for my shows. Last year was my first year doing shows and I've done many more shows this year than I did last year. This is just some basic math which takes the cost for the show divided by the sales I had for that show.

Most of the shows I've done are in the 10-15% range. I've done two shows this year that cost significantly more. Both of those shows I felt like I wasn't getting my moneys worth. The first one was a 5 day show (over 2 weekends) that had a ton of foot traffic, that just wasn't buying. I've been told that show was good in the past, but all the vendors were saying that sales were way down. The second was a 3 day show that I had to travel for. It was significantly better last year, but this year they had a tent sale that competed with the vendors. These shows were well run, but ultimately I was struggling with the return. They are the highest % below too - 28% and 19%. The 28% doesn't account for the fact that it was 5 very long days and the 19% doesn't account for my travel fees. I'm going to add up the travel fees and add that in.

I see a lot on various threads that your sales should be 10x your booth fee. If I take out those two shows then I am getting that on average. I still have more shows to do this year and I'll keep looking at the numbers as I do. It's going to shape how I approach shows next year. I also want to figure out a way to figure out time as a factor into this measurement. My local market is 6 times a year and is only 5 hours. Other shows are much longer and it can feel like they drag.

I feel like artists often don't want to think about the business side of things, but having metrics and using them to improve is really important to growing your business.

This is last post in my 4 part series about how I do my inventory lists. This last post is about tallying what I sold after a fair or show.

This series is 4 parts:
Part 1 - To Do List
Part 2 - Master Price List
Part 3 - Packing for a Fair and Prep
Part 4 - Tallying after a Fair

This post uses the sample file that you can use for your own studio. Reminder, I recommend downloading and using Excel vs Google Sheets as some of the formulas may not work, or work differently, in Sheets.

As I'm at a show I keep the printed inventory list and a pen by my chair. As I make a sale I make a tick mark next to an item. I'll also make notes to myself. It might be that I want to change the price of something at the next show. Or it might be that I have an idea for a new item or that I need to make more of a particular item.


I go back to the tab for that fair in my workbook and I add how many I sold of each item in the sold column. This gives me a total sold for each individual item type as well as total sold for the show at the bottom.

The total sold should equal (or be really close) to the total of cash, credit card, and Venmo. I'm usually spot on, but when I have a really busy show I'm not concerned if I'm a few dollars off because I forgot to mark something when I was checking out a line of customers.

This is also when I look back over the last few fairs to see if there are items that aren't selling that I think should be or if something is selling really well. I start thinking about what price adjustments I might want to make up or down for particular items.

If I want to make an adjustment I would do so on the Master Price list. Since I want to keep a record of the actual dollars sold for each show, I don't want price changes to reflect in past shows. What I do once I've filled out the tally is copy all the rows in the table, right click, choose paste special - values. What this does is overwrite the formulas with the text that's in each cell. This means that if I change a price - it won't change the past. This step is optional, but it helps me when I look at the history.




That's it for this series on how I use Excel for my inventory lists. I do hope that it was useful.

This is part 3 in my series about how I do my inventory lists. The first two posts were about the To Do List and the Master Price list. Now we're going to get into the meat of what I use Excel for - packing and prepping for a fair or show.

This series is 4 parts:
Part 1 - To Do List
Part 2 - Master Price List
Part 3 - Packing for a Fair and Prep
Part 4 - Tallying after a Fair

This post uses the sample file that you can use for your own studio. Reminder, I recommend downloading and using Excel vs Google Sheets as some of the formulas may not work, or work differently, in Sheets.

The first worksheet or tab that we are going to look at in this post is Packing Count. This will look really familiar as the first 3 columns are the same as the ones in the Master Price List.


The big difference here is that the only thing that is typed in vs a formula is the Item. This is the magic of Excel. Since this list is also a table, you can paste or type in the items and it will use a formula to look up the Category and the Price. This means that if you change the price on the Master Price List tab - it will change it here (and everywhere else in the workbook). Are you feeling the magic yet? But wait, there's more! Since we're using a table Excel knows to apply the formula to all rows. So if you add a new row at the bottom, or in the middle, Excel will automatically apply the lookup formula to the Category and Price columns. MAGIC!

The new column in this file is count. The way that I use this is that every time when I'm packing for a show I print out this list and put it on my clipboard. As I am packing, I tally how many of each item I'm planning on bringing. I've done enough shows now that I know what to bring. However, you'll see in this post and the next one how you can use the data you collect to start packing better for shows.




These paragraphs are for anyone who cares how the formula works. If Magic is good enough for you then skip this and go below the next picture. I'm using two formulas to do a lookup - Index and Match. A lot of people have heard of vlookup, but since I learned the combo of Index and Match I've never looked back. The problems with vlookup is that it requires the column you're looking up to be in the first column, it requires your list to be sorted, and it uses a lot of memory.

Match looks for a match. It has options to look for things that are close, but since we are doing a text match we want to do an exact match. So what we're telling it to do is look up what is in B2 in the Inventory table in the column called Item and return an exact match (the 0). Match returns a number that is the row of the item that is the match.

Next we're using Index to tell Excel go find what's in the Inventory table in the column called Category where the row equals whatever the Match formula returns.

Really cool right? Also yes I am a giant Excel nerd.




So once I've packed all my stuff and I have my paper that tells me what I've packed now I can create a spreadsheet specific for that fair. The Prep for Fair workshseet can be copied over and over for fairs. Once I know that I'm doing a fair I'll create a tab for it.

When I packed I counted how many of each item I packed. Now I go into the tab for that fair and put in the tally. Since it knows what the price is from the Master Price List, it can calculate the total of what you have for that item.

What happens if you have a brand new item that you've never had before? You're going to first go to the Master Price List worksheet and add the Category, Item, and Price for that item. Then you're going to come back to the worksheet for this fair and add just the Item to the bottom of the table and once again - magic - the Category and Price will automatically be filled in.

Sometimes as I'm packing I remember th at I want to change the price of something. To do that I change the price on the Master Price List worksheet and it will change everywhere.

I have a few items that I sell as sets. I put in .01 for those because technically I don't have any specific items designated for sets, but when I filter I want to see them on my list. Filtering is actually the next step. Click on the arrow next to the count and unselect the checkbox next to 0 and blank. This will only show you the items that you have packed for this show.




At the bottom of the total column you will see the Total for all the inventory you're bringing to a particular show. If everything goes amazingly well and you sell everything in your booth - this is the maximum amount of money you're going to make. I have never actually sold everything, but fingers crossed one day that will happen. I tend to lean towards the thought that I can't sell what I don't have and over pack so it may never happen.




The last thing that I do is sort based on Item. I found that when I was doing shows I couldn't find what I was looking for when it was sorted on Category first. This may or may not be how you're brain works. Sort whatever way is going to make sense to you at the show. Once you have it the way that you want - print. I put the list on my clipboard and as I sell things I keep a running tally. I also make notes to myself like - make more crab mugs. Or if I have an idea of a new thing to make I'll write a note to myself on the bottom of the page.

This is part 2 in my series about how I do my inventory lists. Last week I started the series talking about To Do lists. In this post I am going to continue and start talking about my master price list and how it drives all the other sheets in the Excel file. This series is 4 parts:
Part 1 - To Do List
Part 2 - Master Price List
Part 3 - Packing for a Fair and Prep
Part 4 - Tallying after a Fair

We are going to continue along in the sample file that you can use for your own studio. Reminder, I recommend downloading and using Excel vs Google Sheets as some of the formulas may not work, or work differently, in Sheets. I use Square for my credit card transactions and my sale web site. In Square I have Categories and Items setup and they are repeated in Excel. I use excel in addition to Square because I can visualize the detailed data better in Excel. It's also easier for me to see the history of shows in Excel than in Square.
This blog post focuses on the Master Price List worksheet (or tab) at the bottom of the workbook.


This worksheet is really simple, but it drives the rest of the tabs. The first column is Category. This is just a grouping of items. Your categories can be anything that makes sense for you. They can also change over time as your work changes. I find that things which may start in my Misc category often end up as their own category. I try to not have more than 10 or so categories because for me it gets difficult to manage when it's more than that.

The next column is Item. You'll see that for some of my items I repeat the category. You don't have to do this, but in the next post in this series when we talk about prep for the fair when I sort on Items it will make more sense why I do this. When I first started out, I had a whole lot of individual items. As I've done more and more shows, I've found that I can condense a lot of items which makes it easier to find when I'm at a show.

The last column is price, which should be fairly self-explanatory. It is important to keep the price here and the price in your credit card tool in sync.

When I was first pricing my items, I really had no idea what I was doing. I read a lot of posts on Facebook, but I really didn't know how to price stuff. So I started by putting all my items in Excel and then putting a price that I thought made sense. I know that there are calculators out there for materials + labor, but this isn't my primary job. I'm not trying to get rich making pottery; my goal is to be able to enable my hobby to pay for itself and continue to use it as my way to de-stress. Once I had the prices in for everything I sorted on price and wanted to see if things made sense. I found that I had weird discrepancies. Why would someone pay $30 for a mug and $45 for a bowl? I adjusted the prices so that items that were like sized and like amounts of work were like priced.

Now it's time for me to geek out on Excel for a bit. Excel tables are one of the most powerful tools you can use. This sheet is a table that is named Inventory. You can see the name by clicking anywhere in the table then selecting Table at the top and then the name will be on the left. Tables are powerful because now anywhere in this workbook I can use the name Inventory in a formula, and it knows that I mean this table. You can name your tables anything you want as long as it starts with a letter, has no spaces, and isn't an Excel reserved word (e.g., you wouldn't want to name it something like Sum since sum is a formula to sum numbers).




This is an example of a formula on another worksheet where I am referencing the Inventory table. We'll talk more about this formula in the next post in this series Part 3 - Packing for a Fair and Prep.

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow August 13th is the second Sunday of the month and that means it's time for the Belle Aire Market from 9-2. I am going to try out a way of doing a Seconds Sale this weekend. I have some pieces that just aren't what I envisioned for various reasons. They will be out on a table and I'm asking people to pay what they think they're worth. Minimum price is $1 only because I don't want to do anything with change.

A couple of weeks ago I responded to a post on Facebook where someone was asking how you don't let ADD take over in the studio and get intentional about making. I briefly described my process, but now I'm going to share with you how I use Excel to manage the process.

I love Excel. I don't really know when I learned it, it was just something that always made sense to me. I've ended up teaching basic Excel skills first at college and then at work. There are people who I haven't worked with in years who will text me when they have an Excel problem. I don't feel like I do anything all that fancy, but it is a really helpful tool.

I use Excel a lot when I prep for shows and when I am deciding what I need to make. This is only my second year of selling, but because I kept track of what I sold last year I had a good idea of what I needed to make the most of this year. I'm going to share with you how I use Excel to keep my prices, inventory, and pack for fairs. I absolutely know I could get more anal about this than I am. I could keep a lot of this in Square, but this way makes sense for me so it may make sense for others.

I've broken this down into 4 parts:
Part 1 - To Do List
Part 2 - Master Price List
Part 3 - Packing for a Fair and Prep
Part 4 - Tallying after a Fair

I've also created a sample file that you can use for your own studio. I do recommend downloading and using Excel vs Google Sheets as some of the formulas may not work, or work differently, in Sheets. The images and descriptions for this blog post are in the ToDo worksheet (or tab) at the bottom of the workbook.

Last year was my first year doing shows so I started by collecting data. I kept a tally of what I sold at each show. I also paid attention to what was selling vs what wasn't. I adjusted prices show to show until I found what felt like the sweet spot for a particular item. At the end of the year I summed each item across all the shows I did and that's how I created my initial To Do list for this year.

Last year I tried to keep track of inventory as I made things, bisqued them, and then glazed them but it was just too complicated. This year I've simplified it to just look at how many do I intend to make (the count column) and how many have I made to date. This gives me my "to do" as Excel automatically does the math (yes it's simple subtraction but sometimes I really fail at that). As I have sold things at various shows I will make notes on my clip board about what I need to add to my To Do.

I made probably 6 crab mugs last year and sold them all. I made 12 to start with this year and I have found that they are one of my most popular items. I make those in batches of 6-12 now and just add to the count when I need more.




The priority column is there just to help me focus. I can filter on To Do and unselect the 0 then filter on Priorty = 1. This gives me my first to do list that I can write on my small whiteboard in my studio. When I make an item, I wipe it off the board and then update the Excel on my phone or later at my desk. Once all the priority 1 items are done, I can move onto priority 2, and so on.

As I've been getting more intentional about what I make and my time to make it I have found that by making the various styles that I do in groups that glazing goes faster. I will make a bunch of crab things together so that when it comes time to glaze, I do all the crabs at once. It can feel a little tedious at times, but I'm also finding that I'm getting better at making pots and at glazing them by doing things in bulk like that.




I use multiple clays in my studio because I like all the different looks. What I don't like is getting brown clay on my white clay. So I try in a given week to only be using a single clay body so that I can do a deep clean before I move onto the next clay. This helps limit cross contamination.

If I go into the studio and abandon my list and randomly make 5 soap dispensers with a new cutter I got from De La Designs then I will add that to my To Do list. It's like writing something on my list and immediately checking it off. If I make just one thing and I don't know if I'm going to like it or sell it, then it doesn't immediately go on the list.

In the next post in this series I'll talk about the Master Price List and what it drives in the rest of the spreadsheet.