Mary Richmond Design

New Year's Resolutions

 

Do you make them? Some years I do, some I don't. This year I am not making resolutions per se, but am making a map of the coming year. I'm collecting my thoughts and goals into a large pile of index cards, each with a separate idea or goal written on it. I have printed out full page calendars of each month and have written in all the usual things that happen every year such as conferences I attend, workshops I know I'm teaching, etc.

My pile of index cards is already quite thick and it isn't even complete!

I am making several piles once I get done listing my random and planned goals. I will have a personal goals pile and then piles for each of my business ventures. Those include my free lance writing, my art, my note cards and Cape Cod Art and Nature. I have decided to make the latter a non-profit organization and have to map out my plans and time for that so it doesn't take over my life. I also hope to schedule my online time so it is more effective and gratifying. All this will go onto my map which will go onto my studio/office wall where I can see it every day. Hopefully this will help me stay on task.

For some all this may seem overwhelming and certainly not very free flowing or spontaneous but for me, who tends to over do the free flowing spontaneous stuff to the detriment of both my bank account and my health....I am hoping that a map or plan of some sort for the whole year will help me be a bit clearer and more committed. If I'm going to stay afloat financially without getting a job cashiering in a supermarket, I need to be committed to my own work.

2009 was a bust year for me. I lost more money than in any other year since I have been an adult. My businesses tanked and I responded by stepping back and shutting down. I basically just stopped working, creating and marketing. I got caught up in my own history of failures. But now I'm back. I've done a lot of thinking, looking, listening and learning. I have many plans and many hopes and I think I have good reason to expect success in putting forth my best efforts. Bring it on, as they say.

Over the next few days I will outline some of my plans, more to keep myself honest and committed than anything else.

How about you? Do you make resolutions?

Finally!

It has only taken about four months or so but I have finally begun to list my custom caricatures of kids over at my Etsy shop!

I am using my own templates and will use the info, pics, etc. that people send to customize them. I've only listed a few so far but will continue to add them over the next few weeks. I have all sorts of wedding, anniversary, sport, kid, pet, and other fun themes to list.

Here's what the first ones look like.

 

You can see the full listings here. 
 

Communication Overload?

My newest pet peeve is people not returning phone calls, texts or emails. I'm not talking about casual calls here. I'm talking business. At the moment I have several custom jobs going on and getting these folks to answer back is like pulling teeth. And it isn't just people I'm doing business for, it's people I want to do business with, too. I may email with a question and days go by before I get a response. Or not. What's up? I can't even tell you how many businesses have lost my business in the last few months because they didn't respond. Other companies were happy to pick up the slack and not only answered right away but gave awesome customer service. 

Are we just overwhelmed with communications, both on the phone and on the computer? Because I am self employed I always try to answer emails and phone calls as soon as possible. Otherwise I lose work. As a free lance writer an editor often sends out several emails on a prospective job and the first responder often gets the job. The same with other free lance and custom work. So why don't other businesses answer their calls and emails? 

We all understand that emails add up quickly. One woman I'm working with has such an intense spam filter on her email that all my emails with attachments go to spam, which she doesn't check. This means the drawings and work I've done for her isn't being approved or disapproved in a timely manner, we are way behind schedule and now she is upset that it is taking longer than she wanted. It took her 2 weeks to answer my last email and today she hasn't returned a phone call to confirm an appointment that will be taking place in about an hour. It is very frustrating. I first contacted her per her request in July and we have yet to begin a project that she now needs in a week or so.

She is not alone. There are several people I am working with that are not answering their emails, texts or calls and then they want to know why things are taking so long. I'm at the point where I'm no longer working on jobs that I'm getting no response for. If someone can't be bothered to answer their phone or email then I'm not going to worry about it. And when they get hysterical that something is late, well, that's really their problem, not mine. And it totally stresses me out.

I've also noticed that this is happening on a personal level as well and lots of people are talking about it. People are shutting down. There is too much communication, too quickly and too frequently in many cases. So, filter it, but please, respond, even if it is to say, sorry, can't deal with that right now....

....it only takes a minute or two and will move your projects along!

Creating a Think Tank

 

I really am giving up the tile business. I was never in love with it to begin with and the last few jobs I did reminded me of all the reasons why I left it once before. This time I'm going to sell off my equipment, sell off all remaining tiles at bargain basement prices (I will announce the sale here, too) and concentrate on the business I've always loved, my card business. I've been selling cards since 1979 in one way or another. I know people communicate by email, texting, etc. but I also know the best selling items in my shop were my cards and they are definitely my best sellers online.

But can I make a living with my cards? Should I sell my designs and let someone else do the marketing? Should I continue to use Mary Richmond Design as my business name or change it up? Should I start small and grow cautiously? Should I just dive in and hope for the best?

 

So far my business decisions have not been really good ones. I've lost a lot of money and a lot of time. People say they love my work but they don't buy it. I begin to market but I can't afford to advertise so I lose momentum. I can't afford the presentation packages I want to make. I'm always running a few steps behind myself. So what makes me think I can succeed with this?

 

I don't know. But this time I'm going to do things differently. This time I'm putting together a think tank. I've contacted people I know and trust to speak their minds. I'm not looking for soft pedaling here. I want hard honest critiques and comments and already I've gotten a few. I haven't even asked any questions yet ;-)

My goal with this group is to send emails every few days with specific questions about my plans, name of business, card designs and groupings, possible outlets, etc. So far I have about a dozen people signed up so I'm pretty psyched.

I've read that big businesses use Think Tanks all the time when they are thinking about new marketing campaigns, new products, etc. so thought maybe it would be a good idea to try it for myself, especially since I don't quite dare trust my own intuition straight out on this one. I've been wrong too many times before...

Have you ever used a Think Tank or put together a group of people so you could ask serious questions and get their feedback?

Etsy Update

As many of you know I sell my cards, tiles and ornaments on Etsy.com. I had a very slow start there but last spring decided to give it one last chance. I explored the site a bit and discovered the forums and that is when my 'luck' changed as a seller. I met other sellers, learned lots of little tricks of the online trade and began to have sales. Each month my sales increased and now I have two shops there. One of my shops is Mary Richmond Design which focuses on cards, prints and other works on paper. The other shop Mary Richmond Tile Etc. has my ceramic work including tiles, clay jewelry, etc.

Selling my work online has been an interesting process. I began with my own website about 8 or 9 years ago. The site was crude but I began to get work from around the country through it so I knew I was headed in the right direction. I went to lots of workshops and read all sorts of books and magazine articles to learn all I could about having an effective website and doing business online. I've done a lot of the things suggested but I still have a long, long way to go.

Do you sell online? And if you do, about how much of a percentage of your sales are from online? My online sales are still only a small percentage of my overall sales with my website serving more as a portfolio than anything else. I am in the process of really looking at all this and updating my look in each of these places to be more cohesive and interrelated.

Your thoughts and opinions are always appreciated!

These are a few of my newest items in my Etsy shops.

 

These cards are from watercolors I did sitting on the beach one fall. They and others like them are here.

 

These are some of my carved tiles, perfect for coasters or small trivets. You can find them here.

Are you selling online? Please feel free to share info and links in the comments.

The Zen of Repetition

Repetition gets to me. I have left jobs because I couldn't stand that the repetition never ended. Doing the same thing over and over and over is often enough to drive me mad....I want and need variety, creativity, activity.

And yet most of what I do is repetitious. I make tiles. Same size, same shape, over and over again. I draw birds and animals. Over and over again. When I teach I end up repeating myself. Over and over again. Working with kids I'm always repeating....well, you get the idea.

Lately I've been doing a lot of work that is especially repetitive and I've been more and more aware that the nature of most work, even of daily life, is repetitive. They say we need to see and hear something at least three times before we really see or hear it.That human learning depends on repetition. Little kids love to hear the same story over and over again. They love routine, sameness, dependability.

This order of 300 ornaments is daunting. The process is much more involved and time consumng than I thought it would be and I'm trying not to feel overwhelmed with it. Today I have to give the people who have ordered these a delivery schedule I know they will not be happy with and yet it is the best I can do.

Have I mentioned repetition is not my thing? I will be spending four hours a day for 15 days making these ornaments. I will spend another 2-3 hours a day painting them. This doesn't even include the hours spent doing my other work. I have to embrace the zen of repetition in order to complete this order in peace.

There is a certain calmness in repetition, a certain rhythm that is reassuring and that is what I will be concentrating on.

For someone who doesn't like repetition it sure seems to keep showing up in my life. Guess I'm supposed to be learning from this. Sometimes our lessons come in unexpected packages.

 

Whew!

I haven't been blogging because I've been working!

If you've been on my blog recently you know I had some difficulty with the first mold I made.

Once the ornament was approved I set about making the next mold. This time I had a trusy can of "Pam" to use and after making sure there were no undercuts on the clay I sprayed everything with a good coat of oil.

You will also notice I'm using a plastic container.

Here is the plaster mold. It is not perfect but it is functional and I've been making ornaments like crazy.

I know this picture is a bit blurry but it will give you an idea of what all the little ornaments look like getting ready for their bisque fire.

I have a hundred of these babies to do by Friday. Eek!

That wouldn't be so bad if I also didn't have 3 articles and illustrations due, a huge tile order to finish, two others to get started on, a custom card order to finish and get to the printers....

And did I mention I'm having a two day open house holiday sale at my house Saturday and Sunday?

Yeah...I am nuts and it's busy as all get out around here!

Scrambling....

Making tiles, cleaning tiles, baking tiles, glazing tiles, baking tiles again. Oh yeah, and some get painted, some get corners, all get stacked, and all get packed....and round and round it goes.

My clay troubles continue. It has slowed my studio down beyond the point of ridiculousness. I am losing time, money and my patience. Yuck.

And all I can do is smile and keep on keeping on. I can only bisque half of what I used to and only glaze fire half of what I used to. And, the firings have to take twice as long. This works MOST of the time...but not all the time and it has slowed my production down to a crawl.

I'm so far behind....sigh.....I can't really stop to think about this too much...I have to go get a kiln load of tile ready to fire and then I'll be up most of the night firing it. Lucky me!

Custom Ornaments

I'm still working on the prototype for the custom ornament I've been commissioned to do.

These two are the latest I've pulled from the kiln and are getting closer to what the client wants. I have to deliver these this morning and I know the baskets aren't as deep or rich a color as what they want but we are getting closer.

I've been painting on these green (unfired) so the colors are pretty washed out, especially the one I use for the baskets.

Back to the drawing board tonight!

Success!

This is still far from perfect but is the prototype I took to the client to be approved. We chatted about changes and I am finishing the new prototype today.

The big question was whether or not I landed the job...

and I did!

This ornament will not be available through me. Once the final version is approved I will post the shop and web address of the folks that commissioned it. I'm sure they would be happy to fill your order!

I cut and carved this piece on Sunday morning, dried it in the kiln, painted it with underglazes while it was still "green" and even added some touches of clear glaze, which you can't really see in this photo.

The basket shape needs to be cleaned up, the colors deepened and once approved, I'll make the new molds and we'll be in production.

Speaking of production, the first of my new holiday cards is done and already out in a few shops. I will be listing it here in my Etsy shop later this morning. It comes with three variations of greeting or just plain and blank for your own greeting or use as a thank you card, invitation or whatever.