Well, I started 2020 making the friends in the photo above and I had no idea what was about to happen to the world. I was only concerned about how the translucent glaze I was using was turning milky and what were other options. Of course life got much more serious and stressful beginning in March. The one upside to my lockdown and social distancing experience is that I made a lot of art. It was a nice way to keep my mind distracted and my hands busy. I created a ton of gnomes at home and with precautions in place, I did some throwing at my studio. I did commissioned pieces for local friends. These pieces involved doing a large amount of carving and underglaze painting to make them unique. I really loved the experience of carving, painting, and playing with different media to present the gnomes on social media. I used a stop motion app to create silly little vignettes with my gnomes. I didn’t realize at the time that the media I was playing with would become helpful during my 2020-2021 school year of virtual teaching.
During the summer of 2020, I set up an Etsy account and had moderate success with that. Ultimately selling ceramic pieces online was too stressful for me. I don’t enjoy pricing my items (I want things to be affordable yet materials and shipping can get costly) and shipping clay through the post office is precarious at best. I never had any of the items I shipped break – I used a ton of bubble wrap – but the fear was always there and replacing a unique, one-of-a-kind item is a bit scary for me. It was a big experiment for me and I will stick to selling local.
