It’s a moneh, but I’m good enough at it to sell my work for non-negligible money. How do I do this without stepping on the toes of the many people I know who do it for a living? I’d love to hear from how to make money selling pottery who sell things they make professionally and otherwise! I make functional pottery. I’m very good at it. A few years ago people I gave pottery to as gifts started asking if they could buy things from me. This evolved into having an Etsy store and now tentatively, anxiously selling things to strangers in person.
How Much Money Do Potters Make?
Making pottery to sell is relatively inexpensive to make in terms of raw materials and tools and it is beautiful when done well. Now before you rush to put price tags on your pottery, keep in mind that selling pottery is work. You need to keep close track of costs and especially of your time as you make the stuff. The single largest cost of your pottery business will in fact be your own labor. You should keep track of your time so that you charge a fair price based on the amount of time it take to sell your pottery. Of course, alongside making pottery for sale there are any number of other activities you might take up. You could also paint or you could collaborate with someone else who makes pottery and offer to do the glazing and decorating while they make the actual material. For that matter, if you are not particularly artistic, you can also easily become a middle man, selling pottery on behalf of artists who would much rather be practicing their craft than pretending to be a business person. And that means more than making the misshapen lump of an ashtray that your mother proudly displayed when you brought it home from camp. If your stuff looks like it could easily be in a fancy shop selling handmade gifts, then you are ready to sell your pottery. If it looks like the sort of curiosity that someone might hold onto because their friend or relative made it for them, then you need more practice.
Mixing Art and Business
However, even if you have the minimum requirements to make professional quality pottery, you are only halfway there. You have to be able to think like a businessperson when selling your pottery or you will never be able to earn enough to make it worth your while. Start by taking an honest look at the pottery you are producing.
How Much Money Do Potters Make?
Until recently, I was working part time jobs to pay the bills and making pottery on the side. Then, this spring, I took the leap and successfully became part of the masses of the self-employed. First, I realized that the market for the type of pottery I was making was completely saturated, and I adapted. While I had initially been making traditional mid-range fired stoneware, I arranged an apprenticeship to learn crystalline glazing and eventually developed a line of functional and decorative work utilizing crystalline glazes. These glazes are tricky and time consuming with a high loss rate, but I stuck with the method and eventually learned to create consistent results. Second, I began applying to craft shows. I found out about different shows through word of mouth, and I took all the costs into consideration up front. The show in Blowing Rock was inexpensive and had a good reputation, but I would have to drive two hours to get there and do the show alone- was it worth it? I lined up six craft shows and sold at each one. None were terrible- some were so-so and others were great.
How Much Money can you make, Making Pottery To Sell?
I adore all the measuring devices that potters use; calipers, scales, hydrometers. This is such a great article! I realized that I knew how much I earned per hour as a designer, because my contracts are based on an hourly rate. I multiplied this by two, because my retail prices are double my wholesale prices. For years, Etsy has offered free photography workshops online and at its Brooklyn, N. You may also purchase these items online. But make no mistake — selling handmade items on Etsy is a business, and a big one at. Google Loading Within my wholesale line, I will shift further into the upscale market, without abandoning the everyday pots. I kept track of the time I spent to complete the work. Look for pottery shops in your area or craft stores. This is an even bigger list! Depending on your needs, a bowl might best be done on a pottery wheel, but a decorative clay piece is probably done best by hand. Name your shop.
Join the conversation
So she set out to track her hourly earnings. I first heard about this project on the Ceramic Arts Community Forumbut Mea also prepared an article that appeared in the Ceramics Monthly archives. How much money does a potter make? Find out below and then — Jennifer Poellot Harnetty, editor. I am obsessed with measuring. I adore all the measuring devices that potters use; calipers, scales, hydrometers.
My pottery business has grown considerably in the past two years, but my ambivalence to let go of my graphic design practice continued. I realized that I knew how much I earned per hour as a designer, because my contracts are based on an hourly rate.
How much am I really earning per hour by making pots? So I adopted the opposite point of view about the value of my time. Instead of pondering what I should sellingg per hour, and using that to determine the market value of my pots, I started with the current market value of my work, and used that to calculate what I did earn per hour.
I kept track of the time I spent to complete the work. I subtracted any applicable expenses from the sales amount, then divided that by the number of hours spent. Not only was I looking for the overall value of my time working as a potter, I was also comparing these different avenues of pottery sales, hoping to uncover the most profitable ways to spend my energy.
This first calculation is for a large wholesale order. It contains a good mix of low- medium- and high-priced items; therefore it should be a good measure of wholesaling in general. From the total dollar value of the order, I subtracted the following expenses that I could quantify:. The dollar amount that remained was divided by the total hours spent. This second calculation is also about the wholesale side of my pottery business.
I compared two different wholesale orders side-by-side. Their total sales amounts were nearly the. They were ;ottery on the same date, therefore they were going through my studio at the same time. But there was a significant difference between. I guess this is good news and bad news. On the positive side, these results verify the results of the first calculation.
Now I feel confident that I am doing a consistent job of tracking my time. And I am really proud of my fancy line of work. It took me a lot of time and thought to develop these pieces, they are honest reflections of my aesthetic values, and I am happy to see that the effort is paying off.
Everyday functional items are my reason for being in this business. I feel thoroughly requited when I look across a table full of identical pots. How many jobs can make you feel like that, after a long day of work? And now my inklings are being confirmed. Yow third calculation of my project is the first to analyze the retail side of my business.
There are clear advantages and disadvantages to both, but is one superior to the other? Artscape Baltimore is my favorite art festival. It is a huge and multi-faceted urban spectacle, produced by the pottegy of Baltimore. However, in the context of mqke earnings, this show has a big disadvantage: crazy long hours. But on a different measuring scale, my income from this weekend now equals a busy month of graphic design work.
So regardless of how it ranks on the hourly earnings scale, this show is worth spending all those hours in the scorching city heat.
So to determine how many hours I spent on production, I used the data I collected from the three wholesale orders that I previously calculated. I multiplied this by two, pittery my retail prices are double my wholesale prices. Notice that I only counted my earnings for the pots I sold, not all the pots I brought to the. This is an important point about my whole project—making pots is not a normal job, where you are entitled to income in exchange for working hard.
There are lots of other hours required to do a festival, so I added the time spent on the following tasks:. So after analyzing one retail show, even despite its long hours, retail kicked wholesale in the backside. Arts in the Park is a small, locally minded, and thoroughly charming event, held in Towson, Maryland.
This is a good, quality show, regardless of its size. The art is good, the setting is postcard-perfect, and the event has a strong grasp of its own identity. My intention for this portion of the project is not to compare good shows with bad shows but to compare small shows with big shows. There ro many differences between the processes of a small show and a big. During the show, I often felt like I was just relaxing in a beautiful park. So is it better to spend more effort at a big show or less effort at a little show?
I added up moneyy hours I spent on all the same tasks as. I subtracted all the same expenses from my sales total as I did. Remember how I pottedy I felt like I was relaxing in a park? All the artists were baffled by the sparse attendance, because the attendance had been much higher in previous years. Some of them are overpriced and overproduced.
But if you put your brain into choosing carefully, a big show that is well established and expertly produced has more substantial qualities, such as credibility and momentum, which can attract a productive crowd. An open house is very different from an art festival on many, many fronts.
However, a good art festival spends your booth fee on marketing and infrastructure, and I had to do the same for. I printed and mailed a postcard invitation, and provided food for the event. The time and labor requirements ,oney very different. The middleman, known as my car, was eliminated. I only needed to move my display and pots from one room in my house to another room. But, and this is a big butI also had to remove the furniture from my living and dining rooms, and thoroughly clean the place.
Overall, setup and take down for an open house took more time than taking my display to a festival site. Unlike the casual browsers hkw must be seduced at an art festival, the attendees at an open house are already fans.
They have signed up for my mailing list, responded to an invitation, and gone out of their way potyery a private residence with the intention of buying. This means the selling can be condensed into much shorter hours. I was open for five hours on Saturday, and four hours on Sunday. Compare that to the 28—hour marathon that was Artscape Baltimore. These customers have more value than just sales. Those who already own your pots can provide the most relevant feedback.
It pays on many levels to maintain a customer list, and inviting them to an open house is a great way to stay in touch. Growing my customer base is best accomplished at retail shows.
For the first time, my gross sales at the open house were higher than any of the festivals. In other words, the open house blew away all other forums for selling. Standing Elephant, 11 in. Storage jar with herons, 8 in. Of course pottedy dollar amounts are specific to my business and every other pottery business yields different numbers. Here is my experience level in a nutshell, so you can prorate your comparisons based on your own experience: I made my first pot in ; sold my first amateurish pots in ; established my own pottery studio, part-time, in ; began wholesaling my work in ; and inthough I still did some design work, I made most of my income from my pottery business, and it was enough to support myself financially.
While the numbers may not apply to anyone else, I do think the correlations can sellung applied to many pottery businesses. Wholesaling can add stability to a pottery business, if you are willing to accept lower profits. And within the wholesale market, upscale oottery yields more value than everyday pots. Careful decision-making is essential, plus some seriously strenuous weekends.
For me, it makes sense to continue doing wholesale, retail, and an annual open house. However, I now plan to scale back my wholesale work in favor of one or two more large retail events per year. Within my wholesale line, I will shift further into the upscale market, without abandoning the everyday pots. And even though the open house was by far the most profitable, I will keep it to a once-yearly event, so as not to dilute its value.
And do I feel better after completing this exercise? Now I can make clear-headed choices about future business planning. And before I started this project, I feared that I was making less than minimum wage, but the real answers are nowhere close to.
The potterh fit my self-evaluation as an up-and-coming, but bona fide, professional potter. My time has a good value, but the value has room to grow, as do my work efficiencies, craft skill, and business development.
Have you ever asked yourself how much money do potters make? Then share the results in the comments below! To see more of her work, visit www. This is an excellent reminder of why I have always known I needed to be around other potters artists in general. We learn so much from each other and your offering is no exception.
Mugs — My Process for Selling Mugs from Start to Finish How I Make Money Selling Online
So How Much Money do Potters Make?
Anything and everything related to throwing, hand-building, sculpting, glazing, firing, and appreciating ceramic art. Please no Self-promoting posts that link directly to your store or sale items, we like to promote discussions of work without the veil of advertising. Trying to appraise your piece of pottery? Can you make a living as a potter? My question is for those of you that actually do this for a living.
Welcome to Reddit,
Walk us through your day. How many hours per week do you spend on your craft? If you don’t mind, share with us how potfery money you make per year. And anything else that you would like to share. Back story: It was a given that I would end up doing something with clay. Pottery was just my thing. I was fortunate to meet a lot of people in the industry. I saw that potters with immense talent were struggling to pay the bills. I came to the conclusion that it would be too difficult selllng make a living as a potter.
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