The Age of Pandemic
Anxiety is the subheading of the day.
Years ago when the Internet was wee, I started writing a diary of sorts online, before they called it “blogging.” In fact, I had to do all the links manually and create my own list of past entries in reverse date order. It was a clunky time. My writing then was mostly personal musings, what was in my head, me whining about New York City and the day-to-day shit I had to deal with. I was a graphic designer and production artist back then. I wrote on different platforms and under different domain names even as I made the move to Kentucky in 1998.
Right about the time I finished my BFA in 2009 and launched Tea Horse Studio, I changed my online presence a bit and opted to try and keep things more “professional,” meaning I started to cut out the personal and clean up my writing. I narrowed my subject matter to just pottery and clay. I “marketed” myself. And that’s fine but now we’re in the midst of a global pandemic and things are changing again. I’m here still in Irvine where my home and studio have been for the past twenty years but I’m facing extreme uncertainty. Sure I can continue producing like I have but for whom? While I have an online presence with a standalone shop and an Etsy shop, most of my sales come from in-person sales, outdoor shows and local galleries. The outdoor shows have been cancelled, probably for a while. The galleries that carried my work are closed to traffic. The people who came into Kentucky from other parts of the world to visit those shops are no longer traveling.
So. Adapt. Adjust. Think of water finding a path. I will slowly be fixing my online shop, taking new photos of work, being more organized… Then I’m reminded, with 3.3 million new unemployment claims just last week, at some point, who will have disposable income to buy my work? Maybe my customers won’t really feel that bad of a pinch. But maybe they will. And even if they don’t, how many people will really be thinking of buying pottery in these times? Well, consider this: I hope when people need a normal thing, when they need a thing with human touch at a time when we must keep separate, they will look to the handmade object to give them that satisfaction.
I actually carved this back in 2019 before this nCOVID-19 nonsense began. I’m psychic, obviously.
Small footed dish, white stoneware, 3.75” diameter
I’ve been trying to grow this studio since 2009 bit by bit. My strategy has never been a wholesale marketing splash mostly because I have been a caregiver for my parents as they aged over the past 10+ years. If I wasn’t running back and forth to NY when Dad was alive and drifting into dementia and he and Mom lived in Westchester, I was building a cabin behind my studio and moving Mom out here after Dad passed so I could take care of her on my farm. My studio work and promotion has always had to happen on a less-than-full-time basis. This has never been the all-out, full-time gig that other artists and potters do. I’m not in my twenties, either. I started this career in my 40’s. I’m just trying to scratch my mark into the wall of humanity and say “I was here.” I don’t need to be on the cover of a magazine or a “top influencer” on social media. I just want to keep on keeping on until I’m done. I expect not to be able to retire and if that’s the case, I’d rather keep working at doing something I love, creating art, be it painting or functional pottery.
Anyway, I sense now that the planet has ground to a halt abruptly, that my writing and blogging will shift from just “What’s up in the studio today!” to the more personal musings that inform my work. Maybe that’s not what my customers expect but it’s what’s happening right now here at the farm so hang on while I put my writing helmet back on.
And go wash your hands.