Life is what Happens...

"I wonder if I have been worrying so much that the worry muscles in my brain are now broken, permanently sharpened to a point of attention that is useless now, an ambulance siren for no one."

Jill Kolongowski from the article "Tart" in the March 2025 issue of the Sun magazine

The last few years have been challenging to say the least. Now, I realize that for several of them I had been going through a major, years long depressive espisode with its accompanying anxiety.  Sometime during the winter, my head finally poked out of the hole in the ground it had been in. Trouble is, I came up in the middle of a war zone. Between the crap the current administration is pulling that will directly affect my life and the lives of those I love and a lot of personal stuff, it is very tempting to crawl back in the hole. But, that isn't possible this time. Or, maybe like the above quote, the part of my brain that incessantly over thinks, is worn out and broken. Good.

My husband has had a stroke. He is doing pretty well all things considered. His vision being the biggest issue. He can see, but not well enough to drive or do the things he needs/wants to do. So, my life will change dramatically (already has) and so my art and the way I sell it will also. I ask for your patience as I figure this all out. It would help if the medical system in the US wasn't such a mess. Our first order of business is to get therapies for him to help with his sight. Due to a simple paperwork issue (by the hosptial and it took me a week just to figure out that it was an actual problem) this is taking much longer than it should, time being of the essence with his vision. Once that is scheduled the rest of life can be set up around that.

I see my life online expanding and am pondering what that will look like and the steps to get there. In the meantime, I could use your help. If you are in Spokane, please think of me and Pottery Place Plus when picking out gifts. We are at 203 N Washington in Downtown, next to Aunties books. If you are in Moscow Idaho, I have restocked Essential Art Gallery and Fine Gifts with my work and it should be available soon. My Etsy shop is filled with handmade buttons and pendants, as well as eco printed paper and fabric-with more to come. Oh, and a few scarves, if that is what you were after. Remember that you can click on the item and "send the seller a message" if what you see is close but no quite-I am happy to send pictures of things that are waiting their turn to be out in public, one way or the other.

I can still do classes and events here in town, I just can't be gone for days at this point so I have cancelled the Richland Art in the Park for this year. It makes me sad because I like that show a lot. If my class at the Spokane Art School on August 9th fills, it will go on. As far as scheduling other classes goes, until I get his therapy appointments in place I can't do much right now.

Thanks in advance for your support, it means the world to me.

I have been getting some paper done, along with a few other things as time permits. This is for the paper sets I sell on Etsy as well as my own work.

Grrrr..... Rant Ahead

Ok, I have had it up to my eyeballs with this. I had to remove the "Contact Me" from this blog as it had turned into the Great Spam Blasting Machine. I am researching whether it is possible to put some sort of bot filter on that widget in order to bring it back, but that info is not easy to find. The crappy people of the world screw it up for the rest of us. On the other hand enough people must respond to that junk to make it worth it to them, but they are making my life difficult. So, if you would like to contact me you can either sign up to receive the posts by email (no, this is not a ploy to increase my following-I am p*ssed!) and reply to that with your requests to be on my mailing list etc., or sad to say, message the page on Facebook. Yes, Messenger is very spammy also, but I do respond to every legitimate message on Drye Goods Studio-the filters seem to be better on pages than profiles BTW. You can try Instagram direct message, but I get more junk through that than I can count and tend to ignore it as it is full of all kinds of idiots proposing that if I just pay them $9.99 a month I will be featured on their Instagram and I will be drowning in buckets of money by next Friday. If they were that big a star they would not need to DM me, I would be chasing after them, just sayin'.

I am so sorry about this, I know a lot of people don't want to deal with FB, but I don't know what else to do. If you have a business card my full contact is on that. Some of it was getting pretty creepy not to mention that when the influx is so bad gmail starts throwing it in the spam folder (this is a Google Blog, afterall) that tells you about the volume.

I haven't been eco printing much, just lots of sewing. While I love sewing, I think it is like watching paint dry and haven't come up with any interesting post ideas-but new posts will be coming soon-I promise!

This is demon kitty, and I am not afraid to use her! Changing the sheets is a three Band-aid job-she is ferocious! Too bad there isn't a digital way to let her respond to spam!!!

"Free" Shipping?

This is a bit of a rant, so I will counter that with some nice pictures, I promise. Recently Etsy announced that they will only let sellers rise in their search engine if they offer free shipping. They encourage sellers to "adjust" their pricing to cover the cost of the shipping. Meaning, the shipping is not free, but included in the price. 

New Work

This raises some questions and issues.

1. A brief explanation of how Etsy works. In addition to taking a percentage of the sale of the item, they also take a percentage of the shipping charge as well. Due to the increase in postage in the last few years the amount I charge is usually about on the nose for what the post office charges me and doesn't include the price of packing materials (in my case not that big a deal since I use recycled whenever possible) or the time it takes to pack it up and take it to the post office. I could go on some tirad about what my time is worth-but that aside, look at it this way. If I had to hire somebody to help in the studio I would be paying them, so their wage would be going toward packing up your order. I decided that I was better off to make the shipping charge look reasonable than to actually account for the all expenses involved, so I am not charging what it really costs to get an item to a customer as it is.

Taking pictures in the garden and fiddling around with the filters on the phone.

2. Let's say for the sake of argument that I just go ahead and raise the price of each item the amount I am charging for postage now which is about $3.95. So, a customer orders one button or pendant. No biggie, they are paying the same they would have anyway. But, if a customer buys several items they would be paying that added cost on each item, way more than they would have since up to this point I do a flat fee. The boxes I had to buy for the ceramics to ensure they reach you in one piece hold several pieces and the added weight is minor, so it is a way to encourage people to stuff that pup full! Why not keep the price of everything clear? To have "free shipping" all the time also doesn't allow me to use it as a marketing tool, instead my only options are to do some sort of discount on the already over priced item. Again, why not just be clear that there is a value for the item and a value for the shipping?

Here are some of the students of the eco printing on paper class I taught at Art Salvage.

3. Speaking of pricing. I started up this version of my shop in February and after a fair amount of research came up with a pricing plan that covered the cost of expenses and labor and was competitive. So when you search "ceramic buttons" or whatever you type into your browser you will see similar pricing for similar work not only on Etsy, but out on the web in general. Adding to the price only makes me look like I am charging too much or think a whole lot more of myself than I should! My inclination as a shopper is to not click on the Google listing for the higher priced item, meaning, I may never see that the shipping is included. Then there is the whole matter of refunds. It may seem like semantics but there are actual laws regarding what you call things in advertising. When something is called free, it is supposed to be free. If a customer wanted to return something in the past then the normal procedure is to refund the price of the item, not the shipping, as it was shipped after all. But if you call it free shipping than technically speaking you weren't charging them for it to begin with so they get the entire purchase price back regardless of the fact that the money was spent at the post office and the item delivered.

This studio helper gets paid in cat food and treats. That being said with non-opposable thumbs she isn't much help in the shipping department.

I tend to be an over thinker, so I will close this by saying a few things and be done. When I put scarves or other higher priced items in the shop it is truly, honestly, free shipping. You hate the thing when you open it up, you can send it back (following my return policy) and you get the price (all of it) back. It is just cost prohibitive for me to do that on $6-15 buttons. Etsy's new policy applies to things over $35.00 so it shouldn't make that much difference items priced under that amount, in theory. I guess my problem is that it is just another way that people don't understand the actual value of an item or person. People working in the small studios are not the same as Amazon. We don't have those resources. If somebody paid me a hundred bucks a year for no other reason than to pay me a hundred bucks a year, then yes I would give them free shipping. Hey-now there's idea! I will let you know where to mail that check. It is one thing to have the rest of the world devalue your education and skill, but then to have an organization that is supposed to be supporting the arts devalue you, it is very disheartening. Etsy should quit worrying about trying to compete with Amazon and go on education campaign about how things are made, along with the time and skill it takes to make them,  and why it is better for the economy and the environment to shop small.

Arrrrggghhh!

"When you are up to your ass in alligators, it is hard to remember your main objective was to drain the swamp!" Unknown

Zen Books

I read Cheryl Stayed's Wild last year and then read it or parts of it over and over. I can see why they are making a movie out of it, the story is astounding. Hope they don't screw it up, the book is incredible. It gives new meaning to "walking the path".

Ready for My Close Up!

I turned on my photo lights this morning to let them warm up and when I came back from breakfast Gladys was ready for a photo shoot. I publish this not just because it is cute (and an opportunity to get her photo, usually I would have to glue her in place, so I want witnesses-she is there of her own free will) but to also point out that there is more to making art than one would imagine. I guess this has come up because sometimes when I am out at shows, or talking to people that don't do what I do, that they think I picked this life because some how it isn't like working. Or it is easier than getting a job or something. Or it is a hobby and I don't really "need" the money. Normally this doesn't get me worked up but lately I have been a bit touchy about it.
In this particular image you can see about half the equipment necessary to take pictures of my work. It is probably a given that there is fairly expensive camera there as well as more lights, mannequins and other necessary items. With out pictures I can not show others (clients, galleries, shows, organizations) what I do. It is essentially how I apply for a job. So I can either take them myself or pay some one else to do it. Since I must have images to put on Etsy which is a weekly sometimes daily project it would be cost prohibitive for me to pay some one every time I needed and image done. Then there has to be a computer for processing the images. I do between 15 to 20 shows a year and the various organizations that run these events have about that many different requirements for image formats and other application requirements. Most of the time one has to pay an application or jury fee to even apply. Imagine walking into Macy's to apply for a job and they said "Sure-just give us $35 and you can fill out an application that we may or may not accept".
Then you get to the studio itself. After the sewing machine if you take your mom's sewing basket and multiply that by about 1000 you might have enough stuff to make clothing for sale in volume.
To go to the show requires a reliable vehicle, items for displaying and marketing the work and a tent to protect it all outside in any kind of weather. You have to drive to the shows, set up, sell, take it all down, pack it away and drive home.
This makes it sounds like yards of no fun, when really that is not the case. I just read Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, which yes is kind of a dweeby topic for a book but never the less she does have some interesting points to make. One being that there is such a thing as "fog happiness" meaning, I guess, that some activities while on the surface don't sound fun, they actually add up to make you happy overall. Sometimes people say "Oh you must work all the time" and I say that no, really I only actually "work" the weekends when it is time to  sell my "work". Making it is the fun part, selling it is the work part. That being said, while this is probably the most satisfying thing I could do to make money, I am doing it to earn my living. I come home from the show and pay my bills, allowing the people that work for those companies to collect their paychecks. In addition to manufacturing a product that then generates sales tax for the local government I also pay taxes into the system just like anybody else that works.

I make stuff

I spent Sunday filling out show applications. It cracks me up that some shows want pages of information-including a dozen photographs and a reference from your 3rd grade teacher as to your honesty and character traits and others just want images ("Just the facts ma'am.")Which let's face it, is really what it comes down to. The work. My favorite applications are Zapplication as all one has to do with the pictures is pick out which ones from your stash you think the show organizers or jurors will like, fill in the questions they may or may not ask, pay your money and Presto! You are done. While I am currently making curtains out of my old jury slides and am truly grateful that KODAK quit making slide projectors I think we are still at the stage where digital images are making things a bit tough. If every show in the world would just go to ZAPP standards for images it would solve it all. One show only wanted images and an artists statement, which I think is great-short and to the point. The only problem was they only gave you 200 characters (including spaces). Some art business blog I was reading said you should have an "elevator speech" so that when somebody asks you what you do you have a pat answer. I guess I need to come up with one as while what I finally wrote down isn't quite as brief as the title of this post, it was almost that bad!

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!

I am supposed to be editing photos for my Etsy shop. But tonight's evening news has pretty much made the top of my head come off. Lucky you!
During KREM 2 news tonight they interviewed local high school football players about what college they were "signed" to. Don't they have to apply to college just like everybody else? Like, say, pre-med students?? They had these kids lined up at banquet tables like it was some kind news conference. As a proud parent of male offspring; HAVE YOU EVER ACTUALLY SPOKEN TO A 17 YEAR OLD BOY? Really? They gave them the same kind of time as if they had discovered the cure for cancer!
SPEAKING OF CANCER; did you see what good old Susan G. did? This is a prime example of why I can't stand this organization. This group of over achievers doesn't want to race to anything except their bottom line. As a former breast cancer patient the maudlin advertising for their "----- for the cure" events ( I am afraid to even use the phrase for fear they will sue me as they have others) has made me sick from the moment I found out I had the disease-ten years later it still does for many, many reasons. How dare some giant corporation presume that one kind of cancer is more tragic than another or that they know anything about how I feel about my experience and then use people's perceptions of the disease to raise millions; a lot of which pays large salaries and overhead and cures nothing. Then to have the audacity to sue people that are trying to raise money for the same sort of cancer!
                                                                                                                                                                                                Planned Parenthood provided my health care from the time I was in college until several years into my marriage. My early prenatal care was provided by them free of charge. It provides basic health care for thousands of women who would not receive care elsewhere. How many of them will be die FROM BREAST CANCER due to lack of a mammogram (which is what the money went for) because Susan G is alining themselves with the minority far right in this country?
Why aren't the kids with good grades given the same attention as those in sports? Why don't we celebrate some one that may actually discover the cure for all cancers?