Mary Richmond Design

Happy Halloween!

Halloween seems to bring out the little kid in all of us.

For years Halloween wasn't important to me at all. As a young teenager my mother and grandmother mortified me by making me dress as Raggedy Andy to my cute little sister's Raggedy Ann, something I didn't live down in my neighborhood for many years and I never enjoyed Halloween after that. I became a Halloween Humbug, in fact. Pui on Halloween and all that.

But then I had kids of my own. They looked forward to Halloween almost as much as Christmas.

They planned their costumes for weeks and then divvied up their candy for days afterward. They planned their routes and knew who gave the best candy in the neighborhood. They just had fun with the whole idea of it. We went to Halloween parties. We had Halloween parties where even the dolls came in costumes. Yes, I made little costumes for dolls every year for awhile.

My kids are all grown up now but I still play with other kids and this year they made animal masks in my after school program.

I've got lots of candy waiting for kids to show up tonight and we always get lots of kids. Most of the kids that were here when my own kids were growing up are too old for trick or treating now but there are new kids, a whole new generation of ghouls and princesses out there to meet and greet.

So here's to a sweet day!

Just because.....

It's so beautiful here. This is one of my very favorite spots--High Head in Truro, almost in Provincetown. It is where the glacial moraine ends and the sand bar that is Truro and Provincetown begins. It is magnificent. And yesterday I got to lead several groups of school children through the dunes down to the old natural cranberry bog there.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. But first, a few lines from Patti Page. "If you're fond of sand dunes and salty air, quaint little villages here and there...you're sure to fall in love with olde Cape Cod...."

Reflections

We lost my father in law late last week. He had been very ill, having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last spring. Family had gathered and everyone was here, which was good.

He was 83.

It has been a busy and sad week and I don't really have much else to say. Just checking in.

I took some of the out of towners on a beach tour yesterday while my husband and his sisters met with the lawyer. Soon everyone will disperse. It's been nice having family meals and long talks together every night. It will seem much quieter here when everyone leaves.

The grandparents are all gone now. He was the last. Now it's us who are the grandparents. Now there's a scary thought....Are we ready for this? Most of the time I still feel like a kid who doesn't know what I'm doing.....

Moving Forward With Marketing

It's been a long time since I thought much about marketing. Since I closed my shop in April I haven't thought much about selling my work at all. In fact I've wanted to throw most of it out.

Recently, though, I've begun to putter in my studio again and think about what comes next. I am on several e-newsletter lists that send me good info and inspiring stories every week but to be honest I wasn't even reading those. Felt too much like cheerleading for the losing team if you know what I mean.

I get weekly emails from the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod and one of the recent ones had information about a series of marketing workshops they were running this fall. I went to one last year and it was great so I just decided to jump back in the saddle and signed up for one. I went this morning and it was the best thing I've done for myself in a business sense in a long while.

They didn't say a single thing I didn't already know. I did, however, have lots of ideas while there and I met some really terrific interesting people. Several I will meet with in the next few weeks and several I may write about for the local papers!

I am finally starting to feel some enthusiasm around selling my work again. As I look back over the last few months I realize I've been doing a little (ok, a lot of) wound licking. Sure, I've been busy working but I can also see how I've been moving through the grieving process for losing my business, too.

There's been denial (no, no, really it was time to move on, I'm fine!) and anger ( Who the @#$%^ wants to buy stupid tile anyway??? I'm sick of this #$%@ business), negotiation (maybe I'll just do this many tiles and not think of it as a business anymore...). I think I am finally moving into the acceptance phase. I feel ready to look at the mistakes I've made (which are many!) and use them to build a better, stronger business. I also am realizing there's a lot I know and a lot I've done right. I really don't need to throw the tile baby out with the bath water....I have also realized that althought it will never be a full time business for me I can enjoy what I do, make a little money doing it and maybe even create some good work. Actually, I'm pretty excited about the possibilities rolling around in my head.

Imagine, all that from a few hours in a marketing workshop. Or maybe it was just being back in the saddle again I realized I still know how to ride and that I've missed it! In November I'll be going to another workshop they're sponsoring, this one on photographing your art work with a digital camera. Can't wait!

Bird Tiles

An interesting and rather nice thing about my tiles seems to be that the people who love them really love them. When they do their kitchens over they want the tiles to remain. Personally, I'd probably be very ready for a change, myself, so it always surprises me when this happens. Very often the tiles get broken in the renovation or the size requirements change so the customer gets back in touch with me and we do a new design. Some clients want the very same design they had before. Guess if it's not broke, why fix it?

This client recently doubled the size of her kitchen, changed the layout and added a marble counter. She also changed the height of the counter relative to the window and the shelf so even though she wanted the tiles to remain the same as the ones she's had for years they had to be redone. The birds are all local birds she can either see out her window or on the way to the beach and all have a particular meaning for her.

It's always fun to work with such an enthusiastic client and then get to see the finished room to photograph.

This kitchen is so different from the one she had before and yet the tiles still fit in nicely. Of course the fact they are mostly neutral colors helps.

Over the next few weeks I'll be working on my portfolio and will be out and around photographing my work installed in people's homes.

So much of my work goes out in little cardboard boxes that it's nice to see it up and in use, the way it is meant to be.

It's always interesting to me to see the way people integrate my work into their homes. This part of the tile wall is obviously part of a much larger visual scheme and as the tile artist I have nothing to do or say about that. Often the client is so focused on the small picture they forget the larger, whole picture. Fortunately this installation works with what's going on behind it pretty well. The backdrop is pretty neutral and the views outdoors are all of trees and beautiful gardens. There are also a few bird feeders busy with birds so my birds will feel right at home.

Fall Cleaning

Much of our week here has been misty and gray with spectacular bursts of sunlight streaming through violet clouds that fill your heart to the point of overflowing.

I haven't written much this week. Am putting things in order, cleaning out, clearing out, organizing at last. We finally have everything out of my mother's house and all the various storage places and can now go through what we've brought home with the idea of keeping and see where it fits if it fits. I find myself filling boxes and baskets with things for my daughters and moving things around to squeeze in one more dish here, one more photo there. It seems like such an organic process and it's very bittersweet.

The dolls sold finally--for a lot less than we'd hoped. It's ironic that my mom thought all these things were so valuable. Between what we had to sell at the yard sale and the doll collection the total was less than $500. A sad financial legacy really, when you consider that we have spent the better part of the last six months going through all her things, sorting them out, giving them away and yes, throwing a lot away. In retrospect we probably should have just gotten a dumpster but we wanted to honor her life by honoring the things she had saved, at least for a minute or two. My mother left her share of the house and her investments to my stepdad who was to share it equally among us at his passing. He did not honor her wishes, however, and my stepsisters will reap all the financial rewards she worked so hard for. I know this is an old story told over and over by many people. He lied to them, he lied to us, he lied to my mother. The really sad thing was we really loved him, really trusted him. I don't know what he was thinking or why he did what he did. He just did it. My lesson from this is this--protect your loved ones. You never know what will happen after you're gone, who will step in, who will do or not do what. If there is something you want to go to a particular person you need to be sure it is arranged now. My mother did not expect to die when she did and lately I've been wondering if anyone ever does.

  In the end, money never matters. And we know for sure my mother didn't take any of her stuff with her! The money and the stuff are not what we hold in our hearts. The heart stuff, that's our real legacy and that just gets richer and richer.

Just look at this day, this lovely, beautiful day. My family brought me here to live when I was a child and I will be forever grateful for that. I can't imagine living anywhere else. It is just so beautiful here. I look around my home, into the eyes of my loved ones and friends and know this is the legacy that has been left me. Strong family ties, respect for creative endeavors, love of nature and the outdoors, an appreciation of education for education's sake, loyalty, compassion, love and a good work ethic, all learned at my mother's knee. Those are the things no one can ever take away from me.

As I settle into the fall and look at my work schedule I feel fortunate to have what I have, to live where I live and do what I do.

I will continue to make tiles, draw, paint, write and teach kids about nature. While others sat in offices all week I spent my afternoons outside exploring coyote dens, wasp nests, fiddler crab holes, salt marsh creeks and a field full of crickets and purple asters. I watched chipmunks stuff their cheeks, hawks soar overhead and listened to blue jays make a huge racket while another hawk tried to hide in a tree.

Sometimes things just click and fall into place. This is one of those times for me. For the first time in about six months I feel I know what comes next.

I'll be posting some new drawings soon.

When Tiles Are Fun

It's been a while since I posted a picture of my tiles but today I went to deliver a few tiles to this home and had a chance to photograph the kitchen and fireplace I did there this summer. Tile commissions always seem to take a long time. There's the meeting with the client, the first stage of the design, the next meeting with the client, the approval of the design and then the tiles must be made, dried, cleaned and bisque fired before being painted and glazed and refired. Then they get delivered and approved, the tile installer must come to install them and then come back to grout them and well, you're starting to get the picture.

I'm always amazed at the two day projects accomplished on HGTV because my projects sure take longer than that!

These tiles are what I call my Cape Cod Fossil Tiles and have sea horses, shells and sea stars impressed in the wet clay. After the bisque firing I wash them with several colors of underglaze to give them a watercolor effect. After they are dry they get several coats of clear glaze and are fired again.

This kitchen is in a summer home and is almost completely white so the owner wanted something colorful and beachy and yes, a little Cape Coddy, so voila!

The reason I was at this home was to deliver 2 tiles to be fitted into the top row of the fireplace. You can see where they are missing in this photo. After several somewhat panicky calls from the homeowner I was able to work things out with the tile installer and all is well. I brought along a nice handpainted tile with a cork back she can use as a trivet as a little gift to help ease her unhappiness and I have to say all worked out quite nicely. She loves the tiles in both the kitchen and the living room and I will go back to photograph the finished piece in the next few weeks. These tiles are from my Cape Cod Delft series and have a somewhat floral corner design in cobalt blue.

Thanks to all who wrote comments and sent me emails about my decision (or lack thereof) about my tile business.

I've decided to not give it up but to not actively market and pursue it either. I'm just going to let it do its organic ongoing thing. Right now I have three tile orders on my order board and another on the way. None are big but all will make a nice contribution to my travel fund/ IRA. That's what I've decided to do with the money I make from my tiles so it's still a business but not what I expect to support me. This way it is fun and I can take the jobs I want. I have contracts in place to use for every order and I think this past year of errors has taught me alot about myself and my work habits. I've been overbooked and overwrought and it's been showing.

Most importantly, I've learned to not overpromise and underdeliver. By the way, the paper that gave up all its freelancers has just taken my column back so that's pretty cool too.

Goal Setting Time

I love the fall. It has always been a good time for me to pull back and get my act together. It is also a time I re-evaluate my goals and plans for the year and this year is no different.

Having made the realization that I am really happiest when I am working with kids and teaching about art and nature has really helped clear my head.

The big question I face at the moment is what to do about the tiles. I have had a love hate relationship with my tile business ever since it started. I was embarassed by it for many years since it seemed to me such a blatant use of my artistic talent to earn money. Not only that but I was drawing and painting easy subjects to make my buck. I have never really considered it a creative outlet and that is my own fault.

The shops I worked with over the years were tile shops, not galleries. They needed utilitarian work and stressed functionality and so that is the direction I went. I look at the work of artists that took tile in another direction and think, wow, I missed the boat big time. The truth is, I never wanted to be a ceramic artist. I did tiles because it was a way to continue my painting but I was never really interested in the visual effects of non-objective tiles. I love them but I didn't want to make them. Too restricting.

So now I have this tile business that sort of flip flops along and I wonder if I should just shut it down. Sell my slab roller, close my accounts, just do it. And someone always finds me and tells me a story about how much my tiles in their kitchen mean to their family and could I please, please just do a few more.....and so I have to ask, will it kill me?

I'm thinking I just do what comes up. Don't get rid of anything except maybe old inventory (watch for a big sale!) I won't promote the business but just let it have its own momentum. Concentrate on other areas. I'm really hoping to do more illustration and that's where I would like to put my energy for now.

Have any of you out there changed direction? Any advice? Ideas?