Mary Richmond Design

Trudging Along....Taking Flight!

It was a busy weekend. There were boxes and bags full of paper to keep slogging through and things to arrange and rearrange. For a formerly organized person the scope of my recent disorganization is somewhat alarming and disheartening. In fact yesterday I just got sick. I couldn't breathe, couldn't cope, felt like a mower ran over me and decided to spend the day under blankets with a box of tissues. I went to bed early, slept about 11 hours and woke up with an anvil on my head. Or at least it felt like an anvil on my head.

The sun is shining, the house is feeling more organized and after hanging around and reading the morning paper I decided to get up and at least act like I was feeling good. So far it's working! I have a busy week at work this week and lots of projects at the house to catch up with. I also have a second round interview coming up with a job I would really like to have so it's important I feel my best and ready to go.

It always amazes me how much attitude has to do with feeling sick or well. It doesn't always work. I remember having the flu one year and not being able to get out of bed no matter how positive I tried to be. I just had to give in and sleep. But giving in and sleeping is sometimes the best thing we can do. Yesterday I gave in and rested. I stayed warm, I drank juice and tea, I took extra vitamin C and read my new book while wrapped in a soft blanket in front of a lovely warm fire. John puttered and watched football and it was a quiet, cozy day.

Today is another day. I'm up, I'm clean, I'm dressed and ready to get to work. I know enough to take it easy so I don't get sicker instead of better but I'm hoping that acting like I'm feeling good will translate into feeling good for real. I really could be one of those people they test sugar pills on. When I'm in pain and am given a pain killer (like after surgery) I feel better before the pill is even swallowed. Could be a broccoli pill for all I know or care. If I believe it's working, it's working! If anyone were to hypnotize me I'd probably be happily clucking up on some bridge right now.

Happy Monday, everyone!

Paper, Paper and more.....Paper!

I don't know about you but I have boxes of paper everywhere that need to be gone through, sorted and put away or thrown away. When I moved from my studio last April there were at least a dozen boxes just stuffed with paper that have been waiting for my attention in the studio where they have been sitting in haphazard and sort of dangerous looking piles. Yesterday I tackled them. I haven't been working in the studio because they have taken over all the extra floor space and I knew if I wanted to actually accomplish something in the studio I'd have to face them. Ugh.....

Last year a friend turned my on to Flylady.com and one of the best things I took away from this fun organizational site was to break things down into very small time increments, like 15 minutes. When I looked at this monumental task before me I felt totally overwhelmed. For months I've walked away from this job but yesterday I set the kitchen timer and picked up the first box. I ended up working all afternoon and got through almost all the boxes. It's amazing what I found buried in these boxes and even more amazing how much trash I moved because I wasn't organized enough to go through all the paper before I moved it!

It's very freeing to get rid of all these things I don't need, like about 4 bags of junk mail and old notes and scribbles. Today I'll take these over to the recycling place and start on the last few boxes.

What do you do about keeping and documenting inventory of your work? I have never done this. Old drawings and paintings are in big boxes or portfolios and few of them are dated or signed never mind photographed and logged. Alyson Stanfield suggests all artists need to have a good inventory system and as I look around at all my old work I think it's time to sift through it and see what is worth saving, what needs to go away and what needs to be photographed and recorded.

As I begin this new year and am thinking of a new body of work based on pastel paintings I did a few years ago I think it will be good to look at what has brought me to this point. I also think it will be good to finally have a portfolio of my paintings. I've always had one of my tile work but never took my paintings seriously enough to catalogue them.

It's a new year and I'm feeling newly inspired. What are you doing to celebrate the new? If you catalogue and document your work please leave a comment with what you do and how you do it! I'm curious to know what other artists are doing about this.

Happy New Year and a New Website Design!

Happy New Year, Everyone! I've already been busy at work playing with my website. I needed to take off all the pages showing my tilework and as I was doing so I changed the template, color, etc. Please stop by and let me know what you think. An update of images and the addition of an artist statement are way overdue but they are also in the works. You can see the new website design by clicking here.

While you're on the website you might read my latest Weekly Nature Watch column.

Get Ready for the Countdown....

On Alyson Stanfield's ArtBizBlog she has invited everyone to look at their successes from last year here and to look at their plans for this year. I decided to join with many of the other artists taking this challenge and publish my responses to the questions she asks.

This year I plan to stop making and painting tiles once and for all, market my cards and prints and find at least one gallery to sell my pastels and oil paintings. I am keeping my day job working as a naturalist/educator since I truly love it and because it also feeds my writing and painting right now. I am only planning a year. I have two opportunities to travel abroad this year, to Paris and Amsterdam in May and to the British Isles in the fall so with all that I should be busy and happy with lots to paint and write about. I am giving up my feature writing for local papers but will continue my weekly and monthly columns.

As for promoting my paintings and drawings this year? Here are my answers to Alyson's questions.

How will you promote your art consistently? I will make up a calendar to refer to each day, week and month with my promotional plans on it. I like the idea of doing 3-5 things a day to promote my work and had success with that in my tile business so will do it again to promote my drawings and paintings. I will use postcards and an email newsletter to get my new work out there.

What new ideas or tools will you try? I will look into some of the websites and other online tools available to artists.

What will you do to amplify your online presence? I know I want to upgrade and change my website and will also be making my blog and Flickr site more artist and gallery friendly. I'm not really sure what that means but will be doing a lot of homework and exploring.

What technological skills do you need to learn or improve? I need to improve my framing and photography skills.

How many people would you like to add to your mailing list? I have a good mailing list but would like to add at least a hundred active and interested people to my mailing list this year. I would happily double or triple that number as well.

What cool or influential people in your community would you like to meet? There are a lot of really interesting artists and business people in my community. Some I have met but never followed up on and this year I would like to learn more about them and maybe work with them on some projects, etc. I am joining several art groups and a chamber of commerce to help meet more of these people.

What printed marketing piece do you need to create or revamp? I need to create a good portfolio of past work and have it printed and bound.

What medium or skill will you attempt or master? I would like to improve my oil painting skills and reacquaint myself with woodblock printing which I used to do a lot of and loved.

What will you try that is completely new? I will try to join artist groups and actually go to openings, etc. and talk with people.

What have you been procrastinating because it's uncomfortable, but you know it will be good for you? Trying to get my work in a gallery.

What art events, galleries, and museums will you plan to visit? I will go to Boston at least once a season to see what's there and go to art openings and exhibits at all the museums and galleries on the Cape at least once this year. I will also be going to Paris and Amsterdam this spring and plan to take in as much art as I can there!

How will you improve your studio habits? I will be in the studio at least an hour every day. Since I've closed my shop I have been neglecting my studio and want to get back in there no matter how busy my day job keeps me.

What books do you need to read to help your career? I'll be reading Alyson's "I'd Rather Be in the Studio!" and any other books that I come across that will be helpful.

What seminars/workshops/lectures will you attend? I don't know yet but I often attend at least one or more art workshops and several marketing/business related workshops each year.

What organizations will you join or become involved with? I would like to join the local pastel organization and would like to be more involved with the Arts Foundation here.

What grants/honors/awards will you apply for or receive? Getting the application completed is a win in itself. Right now this doesn't feel like it applies to me and my work.

What articles would you like to see written about your work? In the past I've had a lot of articles written about my tiles and right now I would like to take more time to develop more paintings before having anything written about me or my work.

What galleries, exhibits, or other venues will you submit your art to? I have several galleries in mind that are here on the Cape and also am planning to enter my work in at least one juried exhibit a month. I hope to enter the Yawkey Birds in Art this year.

Where can you save a wad of money? I have a lot of art and supplies as well as frames, envelopes, old portfolio sheets, etc. I plan to go through all of them to see what can be reused and recycled before ordering new supplies, etc.

What is the single thing you can do in 2008 that will move your career ahead the fastest? have an actual plan written down and spread out over the year on my calendar.

Setting Goals for the New Year!

I don't know about you but I'm always excited to look at the new year as a blank canvas or blank page. I love the fact that there is all that openness before me, all that wide open space waiting to be filled up. Will I fill it with doodles or drawings of substance? Will I write a shopping list or a list of new goals? Will I write that story that hums around in my head, dig out the old woodcuts I found while cleaning out my mom's basement and do some prints with them? Will I finally go through all the rest of the photos and other memorabilia and clear space in my life for all the new adventures I want to embark on? Will this year be the year I finally find a good gallery? Will this be the year I go through all my old work and either catalogue it or throw it out? It's all so exciting!

I have lots of ideas and lots of possibilities on my horizon. I am working on several projects and a year's worth of goals and plans. They'll be listed here soon.

In the meantime, what are your goals? Your plans? I would love to have an online community of artists, writers, creative folks who are interested in an ongoing goal setting, goal reaching sort of group. Any ideas?

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?

Setting Goals, Artistic and Otherwise....

If you click on the picture to enlarge it you will see some of what I saw yesterday--part of a pod of at least 100 Atlantic white sided dolphins! We were out on the Naviator in Wellfleet Harbor with a group of high school marine biology students when we had this amazing sighting. In all the years I've done programs on this boat I've never seen anything like it. Dolphins are off the Cape in good numbers but they don't usually come into the harbor areas and when they do it is not always good news. We contacted the stranding network but fortunately the dolphins headed out to sea as the tide changed and all was well.

As I helped unload the nets and gear from the boat yesterday and prepared for my afternoon after school session with younger kids I realized my goals are becoming much clearer. I love being outside and I love being with kids, answering their questions, showing them things they've never seen before.

My problem has always been I seem to have too many choices, not the opposite. There are always too many things I want to do. When I opened my studio/gallery a few years ago it was after working more than full time as a naturalist/educator and I missed my creative work. When I focused on my creative work and selling that work I lost touch with the part of me that thrives outdoors. The story in my life has always been about balance, or lack thereof.

I love to paint, I love to write, I love to wander around in nature and I love kids. Actually, I love grownups, too. I love people and I love to teach, to share my own wonder of the world around me, both through nature and through art. So how to combine all those without working 40 hours a day as I've sometimes been known to try and do?

It suddenly came to me on a recent early morning walk on the beach. I can do it all. My goal became crystal clear. It is to help people, children especially, understand how important nature and creativity are to their own personal survival as well as the survival of our culture and history. That may seem like a grand goal but the way I see it, every child that understands and accepts their role in the natural world will be more likely to be a humane and compassionate steward of that world. Creativity is part of our better nature, in my humble opinion, and can be nurtured in all environments and activities so is easily included in science and natural history curriculums. Each child that learns to love the natural world is one more citizen that will help keep the natural world diverse and in balance which in turn nurtures us.

  As many of you know I have been sorting through boxes and boxes of my family's memorabilia as well as my own paintings, tiles and supplies from the shop I recently closed. I am literally overwhelmed with STUFF. Then I go to galleries and am bored silly, not just with the work but with the whole idea that art should be this idealized special thing.

I start to think maybe we should just all create just like we all eat and sleep and work. Maybe we should just integrate it into our daily lives like children do. I find I am no longer interested in creating paintings to frame and hang on a wall. At the moment I am much more interested in my art being functional, being used, whether as a tile installation or a book illustration. So much of what an artist saves (or what anyone saves) is worthless to anyone else. So much goes to waste. Something like 72 million Americans buy art supplies and aspire to be artists of one kind or another. And guess who buys art. Artists buy more art than any other group. We are selling our work to ourselves. So why not expand that thought and invite everyone to do it? Let's just enjoy the process and not worry about the bs that often attends the academic presentation of ART.

This girl knows what it's all about. She carries nothing, she spends nothing, she worries about nothing. For a while at least I'm going to take my cue from her.

My goal is to help nurture a love and understanding of nature and creativity, especially in children. This can be done in many ways; through teaching, walking outdoors, writing my columns, writing and illustrating small books about the world outside our doors.....

And it only took about a hundred walks on the beach and about 600 children to help me see the light....

Catching Up on Overdue Work

One thing that happened this summer was that my move got put on a big, big hold due to my working full time, writing 5 or 6 articles a week and doing a few tile jobs on top of all the usual family and friend commitments. I am still unpacking boxes and as I am finally getting around to setting up a studio once again I am finding all sorts of unfinished projects that need attending to.

In the plastic bag are tiles that were ripped out of a kitchen I worked on years ago. The house was destroyed by interior flooding and the owner would like the tiles redone. They dropped off the tiles but we have not communicated in months. I think there are blank tiles, too, but I don't have the tiles to paint on so we are at a standstill (these are on customer supplied tiles, not my hand made tiles).

In the tote are some unfinished little sculptures that should have been delivered to a shop back in May. The yellow bowls are color samples for wall tiles I was to do for someone's kitchen and the wooden sign was supposed to be finished back in May as well.

There are other unfinished projects as well. At the moment they are all lined up on my desk. I've been making calls and surprisingly everyone's pretty cool. I'm very lucky they are so patient. They all say they, too, have had a busy summer but if I could finish the work now, that would be great.

This is a great example of what NOT to do in business. Of course I lost some sales by not having my sculptures in a shop this summer and I will lose sales this fall since I can't take on more work until I've finished the work I'm already committed to.

Several weeks ago Alyson Stanfield suggested all artists should underpromise and overdeliver. She said many of us do exactly the opposite and I know I for one am one of those. I overpromise and underdeliver.

From now on everything goes on a calendar in the studio and gets done on the day assigned to it. As I mentioned yesterday, I have a tendency to over commit myself. I think it's time to get real, both with my time and my energy as well as my commitments.

Showing this picture of forgotten and unfinished work is embarrassing but maybe it will help someone else take a good long look at their own work habits and then it will at least have been useful as well.

Paying Attention to Promotional Materials is Key

Just before I closed my shop in April I had been hard at work designing new promotional materials for my custom ceramic tile business. This is a picture of the latest brochure which I am using to send to designers and tile shops. It has photos of installations and murals and invites people to my website. It is sent in a package with small sample tiles and several other brochures showing more photos of murals and individual tiles.

If you read this blog regularly you know I took a full time job as I was closing my shop in April. This meant I spent very little time on my tile business at all and actually spent very little time thinking about it. As of last week my job became part time and I can once again focus on the tile business. Although I closed my shop I never intended to shut down the business. I just needed some time to reconsider what direction I was going to head in next.

I have had a ceramic tile design business since 1979 and it's a funny thing. It has a life of its own. I tried to leave the business in 1995 but people still found me. When I opened my shop in Mashpee Commons three years ago I thought I would give the tile business another shot at going full time, especially since it seemed to be picking up some speed again. The truth is that it is not a full time business. It's a dribble here and a dribble there, enough to qualify as a very small business, maybe even a micro micro business. It's fun, it's simple, it's interesting and I always think it could do better. And I always wonder if I want it to do better. Making tile is very labor intensive and hard on my arms, wrists and shoulders. I can hire people to do it but they never do it with the same attention I do and it's discouraging.

What's encouraging is that the tile business just keeps on humming, even without me. With virtually no attention, no marketing, no thought whatsoever, the tile business hummed along this summer even while I was doing other things. People find me. They find me through word of mouth, an old ad or through the internet. Some, like the last two calls I had, were former clients who are either building new homes or renovating that wanted to incorporate more of my tile. None of these are big jobs. None will pay my mortgage. But they do pay for themselves and for some other things so I keep on going. I'm not sure how big or small I want this business to be and I think that's always been my problem.

Although all my work is custom my clients have always wanted to see a brochure. This little black and white one was the first I ever designed in 1980 or thereabouts. It was before the computer was commonly being used and was drawn with black ink on blue graph paper (because the blue ink didn't show in the printing process!) It was hand written and believe it or not, I sold a lot of tiles with this little brochure.

I had (and still have) a separate price list and information sheet. I also have portfolios that go out to the tile stores that represent me and one I carry around with me.

   This next brochure was huge step for me. It was done with a printing company in Rhode Island and my husband and I schlepped all the tiles down there for a day long shoot. It took weeks to get printed and I think I paid about $1000 for about 1000 copies, a pretty good price in those days. This was probably done around 1984.

There were two others in between, both of which I still use but they are packed up somewhere. I'll put them up when I find them.

This was the last brochure I had professionally printed and I still use it. It is a 4 page brochure and has been very useful over the years I've had it.

I also had a postcard done at the same time which has been very convenient to use as a handout.

The next few shots are of the same brochure, different pages.

This is the center panel, showing the border designs I offer as well as the different color palettes. The color printing was not what I hoped for on these pages but was close enough to work well. The tile business is one that uses actual samples way more than pictures so clients use these as introductory materials as they plan their projects.

This last page has always gotten a lot of interest from lookers but very few actual sales. It has occasioned a lot of talk, however, that has lead to other interesting work over the years.

As I look back at all these brochures I know it is time to upgrade and update my materials.

Yet, these still work. They are something the client takes home. At the shop they look at the portfolio, the actual tile panels and samples or go to my website for more information.

Right now I am putting most of my attention into updating my portfolio. Up to now my portfolio has been a big looseleaf notebook with lots of photos from jobs I've done over my 28 years in business. My new portfolio is being put together on the computer and I am hoping to have it bound as a book. I know there are places out there that do this with photos so I just need to do a little homework. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to suggest away!

These are the first pages of the portfolio I am putting together. They include some basic information about me, the business and the tile making process.

This is just a beginning but I had to start somewhere. It's interesting blogging about this but I am open to comments, suggestions, etc.

Last year I redesigned the package I sent out to designers and when I was doing that I took a bunch of idea samples to my goal setting group meeting and we looked at all of them, talked it over and I ended up having a great sample package to send out that brought in some really great business.

I'm still working on my goal setting for the end of the year. As someone who juggles a custom tile business with freelance writing, illustration and painting as well as working partime as a naturalist/educator, planning and goal setting are more than a little interesting. Sometimes putting my day together is like putting together a giant floor puzzle.....on too small a floor! And I wouldn't trade any of it for anything!