Another Side of Running a Pottery

The past month has been hectic.  I was getting ready for a big sale at the end of April which turned out to be not so big.  🙁

Crowded or not I paid my fee to be there so that involves showing up, but before I can show up there is a week of getting ready for the sale that involves many steps.

Of course I need salable pottery.  I’ve been working a lot in the studio since January so I had a lot of things to sell.  I must decide what to take.

I try to take some of this and some of that, but keep it grouped together by colour and/or style.

Spring sale 2010

Unfortunately I didn’t have very good lighting for my display.  The top shelf could have been lit if I’d made a well-thought out lighting plan.  Also I’d learned that I needed lighting just 2 weeks before the sale.  However, better 2 weeks than not learning at all.  Getting ALL the info well before any sale is crucial.  If I’d had a plan for great lighting maybe it would have drawn in more sales!

I love making the textured mugs featured here.  I made a couple just for me and JF and I loved them so much I decided to make them for everyone!  My friend Vera came by and treated herself to one.

Serving bowls and terracotta "no rot" garlic jars

These garlic jars are made from Terracotta clay.  Terracotta is porous clay and because these jars are not glazed, they remain porous, which means your garlic stays dry and won’t rot inside the jar.

Serving dishes

All set up and ready for action!

Getting ready for that action is a lengthy affair.  First I must dismantle my home gallery because my display boxes featured here are also my display boxes in my home gallery as well as the boxes in which I transport my pottery.

Everything that I’m not taking gets heaped onto the fixed shelves I have on the walls in my gallery and it all looks frightfully dreadful for about two weeks – a week before the sale and a week after.

The most difficult part is choosing pieces to take.  After I choose I have to cut price tags, write a code and stock number on each tag, tag the pots, complete my inventory and then I pack the pottery.  On Wednesday night I load the truck and on Thursday morning I head out to the sale for set up.

On Sunday at 5pm any unsold pots are removed from the display boxes, the boxes are unstacked and are ready to get packed with pottery again.  I wrap each piece and pack them away carefully for the drive home and then the boxes get unloaded back into my home gallery.

The next day I clean the entire shop while everything is still packed (and for those shelves that have heaped pottery well, I work around that) and then inventory starts.  I must unpack and unwrap each piece one at a time so I can check it off the inventory list. Afterwards I am able to get a rough estimate of what I made at the sale.

Then comes the setting up of the display boxes again and re-styling my shop.  I like to change it up and move things around about 4 – 6 times each year.

Next on my agenda:  My 5th Annual Summer Sale from June 24-26, 2011.