the story behind handmade prices...

One of the biggest areas of struggle for me as a maker is pricing. I constantly feel pulled between the appropriate value for my work and meeting customers with an affordable price. I’m also guilty of comparing my work and product pricing to other makers, and when my prices seem lower, my mind falls into the comparison trap of assuming my work isn’t as good as others, which is why is should cost less.

The truth is handmade work just costs more, but you definitely pay for the product you get. When you buy handmade, you buy hours of the maker’s hands-on time. You pay for the years of learning and practicing that have allowed the maker time to hone and carefully craft their skills so that your handmade purchase is an item that has been perfected as much as human hands are able.

I promise this isn’t intended to be a rant on big business, discounts, and mass-manufactured items, as I can shop that way like you write home about! But this is my attempt at complete transparency behind the thoughts and the cost of h.made pieces. I especially felt the need to explain costs to those of you who’ve been with me from the beginning, as you’ve seen h.made costs change the most over the years.

So hear goes the breakdown (I’m using a platter in the floral collection as an example, see image below):

I use approximately 3-4 lbs of wet clay per platter at $2.25-$3 per pound of clay. The cost of clay depends on the distributer’s cost and shipping, so I have to adjust my prices when these costs change (for example, our current Covid climate has resulted in a big change in clay costs resulting in an adjustment in my prices). I factor in my hours of labor (making, smoothing, drying time, kiln loading/unloading, glazing, then repeat kiln process), which is usually 2-3 hours per piece (for example, at minimum wage, that’s $20-$30 per piece). The last costs I factor in are the original cost and time put into the linoleum block that I use to imprint the design, the various glaze colors, and materials to wrap and finalize each piece (some for shipping, some to just look pretty!), each totaling an additional $8-$10 for each piece. That all equals the following cost formula— clay $3 + time $38-$40 ish + block/glaze/wrapping $10 = h.made price of $52 per platter in the Floral Collection.

Hydrangea Platter in the Floral Collection.

You didn’t ask for it, and I’m not insisting you understand. I just felt that if you’re will willing to buy and support handmade work, you deserve the behind the cost info. I also want you to know just how much it means to me when you make a purchase from this little business of mine. Your support encourages me to keep making and affirms that there are those who value craft, personal gifts, and handmade work, and I’m forever grateful to you for your support and love.

an h.made update story

Last December, I promised myself that I would give creating and selling my work an honest try. I felt I had a clear idea of what I wanted to make and the why behind what I made, and so h.made studio was born. A little more than a year has gone by and my intent and purpose behind h.made is even clearer than when I began, but this clarity definitely came as the result of a steep learning curve.

I’ve known from the start that I wanted my work to portray images and details of the places I’ve experienced that have made me who I am and made my story full and mine. However, as my friend and fellow maker Bonnie Kaye Whitfield discussed in a recent post (click here to read—it’s empowering!), no one in art school prepares you to sell your work. I noticed when I began trying to make my work appeal to as many people as possible rather than stay true to what I wanted to create, my work was not as strong because I couldn’t clearly voice the “why” behind what I’d created. I was looking to how well my work sold to validate why I was making, rather than having confidence in my reasons for making. This misdirection led to lots of doubt over the last year and often wondering if I’d made a mistake to try to sell my work.

As my the first year of h.made studio wrapped up, I’d find myself word-vomiting when people would ask “how’s h.made studio going?!” Bless their hearts, they were usually considerate folks asking a rhetorical “how are you?!” type question, but what they got was an earful of literally how h.made was going. I would ramble on about how I’d learned a lot about what it was I enjoyed making and how I’d realized how important it was to me to be able to voice a purpose and story behind each piece to be able to feel proud of it and stamp it with the final “h.made.”

I realized these rambling responses to the “how’s h.made going?!” question were really me convincing myself that it was okay to stay true to the purpose behind h.made pieces, and to value those who share the same love of story and place. It’s like I was explaining my work to myself as if I were someone seeing it for the first time, like I needed to hear the reason I need to create and share my work over and over before it actually sank in for me. It’s these conversations that helped me clarify how I hope to move forward with h.made. I understand now that I don’t constantly need to create new things, that there is a loyal audience for the things I already make, and there are people who connect with my love of story and place. Is this to say I have it all figured out and everything will be awesome from now on? Nope, not even close, and I’ll probably need to reaffirm all of this by the end of the week!

I was talking to a friend while writing this post, and I loved what she said so much that I had to include it. She said she bought a piece of pottery while traveling in Romania because the piece had a story behind it, and things that have a story are more interesting and personal, which is why she doesn’t shop at Kirklands (just an example) because mass-produced pieces have no story (no offense Kirklands, but it’s true). I’m learning that people who purchase handmade pieces value authenticity and consistency of brand, and that is exactly what I hope to do—to stay true to communicating my story, creating work that others can relate to their story, and being proud of what and most importantly, why I make.

Window to Rome, an h.made tile inspired by the stained glass windows of my favorite place to stay in Rome, Italy.

the story of a new season and new things

I tend to forget the connection I have to the feeling of spring until it arrives again each year.  As soon as the days get longer, I feel a shift in energy all around from the excitement that the easy days of summer are so close.  This time of year reminds me that there are specific sights, places, smells, sounds, and emotions we relate with each season. The scent of new flowers blooming, neighbors beginning to cut their grass, and warm potting soil combined with the sounds of my girls playing outside longer each day, lawnmowers, birds, and breezes that create the unmistakable feel of spring.  It's these ties to spring that gave me the idea to try out a new process combining the carving element of printmaking on a new series of floral clay tiles.

If you've read earlier blog posts, you know that the tiles I create share little parts of the places that make my story.  The new tiles I've been working on are just the same in that they are sweet, little parts of places that are very special to me.  Each floral tile depicts a flower that I identify with the homes where I grew up, where we first lived as a family, and where we live and visit now. 

The first flower in this series is the pink camellia that grows outside my aunt Polly's kitchen window, and this flower is first because it reminds me so much of this exact time of year.  Growing up, the first full April weekend meant I'd be at my aunt Polly's because my parents would head down to Augusta for the Masters.  I'd spend the weekend outside for hours on a four-wheeler making lap after lap around her house where I'd pass by her camellia bush full of huge, pink camellias.  I can't picture these flowers without seeing her waving at me from the kitchen sink window just next to the camellia bush because she always seemed to be right there, watching and washing dishes (now that I'm a mom, I'm pretty sure she was using the dishes as a reason to stand at the window and make sure I behaved on the four-wheeler).  Now, whenever I see a full camellia bush, I remember the exact feel of those weekends--the sound of the Masters on in the living room, the sun setting later, and my aunt Polly at the kitchen window.  I made sure that when we moved to our house in the spring of 2012, a camellia bush was the first thing I planted. 

I'm so excited to share more about the people and places that have inspired this series, and I've loved talking to friends who already have a connection to other flowers to come.  Those conversations are my exact hope for h.made studio--that others will recognize bits of their story in my work and want to make my tiles a part of their home.  

Pink camellias in full bloom.

---

the story behind the process

Over twentyish years have gone by since I first took an art class, and a lot of things have been painted, carved, printed, collaged, thrown, slabbed, coiled, water colored, photographed, developed, sketched, and drawn before arriving at the processes I use now.   Being an art education major allowed me the freedom to take classes in painting, drawing, ceramics, printmaking, photography, even fabric design, and now a current high school art teacher, I still work in many of these processes.  I've always loved little bits of each method, but never the full process of any. 

Clay has been my favorite since college.  I love the meticulous hand building processes and even throwing on the wheel (even though I'm not very good at the latter mentioned). The first tile I made was a product of playing around with left over slab scraps from a demonstration I'd just had for my pottery students.  I began assembling sides to a square slab and once complete, it reminded me of a little painting canvas.  I ordered white clay suited for tile work, and I became hooked to the process.  Confession:  I really like to be in control in all situations, so there's something very gratifying to me to be able to hand make the entire surface I will eventually carve and paint.  As I carved and glazed the first tile, I knew I'd found the exact process I wanted to work in.  I've always enjoyed the tediousness and texture found in carved linoleum or wood, and color is what I love about painting, so why not use my clay as my surface to carve into and play with color? 

As people have asked me why I don't sell my art, I've always used the excuse of "well, I don't really feel like I've found my "thing."  The beginning of h.made studio was a result of not being able to use that excuse anymore.  After years of making, it's become clear to me that the clay tiles that I create are a coming together of parts of the processes that I love, while sharing images of little parts of places that make up my story.  

---

the story of place

I've always felt a connection to place.  When I think back on times that have been special to me, there's always a specific place associated with these moments.  Almost like a flip book of quick glimpses of all I've experienced, these places have created what is my home, as in the definition of home as "a place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originates."  Every place is made special by a person, people, or experience; basically, the place tells a story of me.  

And it's not just places I've grown up or lived in, but also new places I come across as I travel.  I'm always hesitant to share pictures from trips I've taken because they all seem to be of the exteriors of old buildings, old doors, windows, or even the floors where I've stood which would probably bore most.  But to me, they're visual reminders of that place, how I felt at that moment, the conversation I was having, even the sounds around me.  These little parts of the bigger whole--the doors, the windows, the walls, the floors--all help tell the history and story of that place.  

The "h" in h.made doesn't just mean "Hudson," (which is why it's not a capital H).  h.made also means homemade, handmade, even history made, and the clay tiles that I make are a way I can share stories.  There's a quote from a Garden & Gun article (May 2016) that completely resonates with me, and the writer says, "It's such a southern thing to wretch beauty out of age, to resuscitate ruin, to long for pretty like oxygen, and to want to share that pretty with as many people as possible."  If I knew the author of this article, I would ask them if they would loan me this quote to be my mission statement!  Basically, I have these images of places, they tell my story, I need to make and paint them, and I want to share them with you.      

Exterior wall of Canterbury Cathedral, June 2016

---