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I'm no expert at running a small business, but what I can tell you is I run my ceramics as a business and not as a hobby. I take into account my time, the cost of supplies, electricity to run the kiln and heat the studio, shipping, taxes, and more. It's certainly not always fun or straightforward, but it is obviously important to running a business and making it successful. While I do weekly bookkeeping, at the end of the year I sit down and look at how everything went. I ask myself what sold the most; where did I...

"Wow, that's a lot of birch. Do you every get tired making it?" This was once asked of me a while ago and the question has stuck around in the back of my mind. The short answer is yes. Yes, I do get tired and bored of it. But I don't let that get in my way. While I get bored of the repetition and familiarity of what the majority of my work has consisted of these past few years, I try to find ways to change things up enough so it is interesting to me, yet probably undetectable to...

I'm writing this having just finished my first artisan market of the year, organized by The Farmhouse Project and hosted at The Arnold House in Livingston Manor, NY, where I live. A lot of preparation goes into doing a sale, and while it is exciting, there is an emotional side to it I can't help but believe most makers experience, yet rarely talk about. As an artist, I spend months creating new work for an upcoming show. It's just me in my studio, head down in my work, and hands covered in clay. Then comes the time to make the...

While in college, I took a minor in photography. The camera I used was a Minolta SLR a friend's grandmother gave me when she found out I needed a camera. This was before digital cameras, and I learned the ins and outs of that camera and every feature became second nature. The camera lasted through a lot of abuse I threw at it, until one day in 2005 it stopped working. I debated for a while whether to get it fixed or go digital. Eventually, I decided to get a Canon Digital SLR. And that was the day I stopped...

If you have seen any of my stories on Instagram, you have seen that I usually have headphones on while in the studio. While I enjoy silence, I rarely work without some sort of noise, whether it's music, a podcast, or a show/movie. Whenever I appear with headphones, I get a number of messages asking what I'm listening to. The truth is, most of it is background noise and I rarely recall what it was. My interest in music is very eclectic and I usually let the music app suggest songs but I will say, it has learned to suggest...