Rachel Campbell on tue 28 mar 06
Hi all!
I promised an update on my little workshop/presentation for the
Mother/Daughter Brunch at my church last weekend... It came off really
well, though not w/o some last minute panicking. The 110 I was told to
expect grew in the last day or so to 130, and they moved us from the
fellowship hall into the sanctuary...
I was really worried that no one would be able to see anything. But my
husband, the techie geek, ROCKS! He picked up 100 ft. of video cabling at
Radio Shack and set up a live video feed from his digital camcorder that
projected what he filmed onto a big screen behind us (a'la the NCECA
convention hall demos). He zoomed in close on what I was doing when
appropriate, and it worked out really well.
I took Gayle Bair's offline advice and took a bunch of seconds (mugs,
mostly), as well as my "demo" examples so that if/when the bottles ran out,
I had something to give everyone who wanted something. (I even had enough
to be able to give something to the kids that were really into it-- the ones
that were hanging around wanting to see what I was doing, etc.)
Sadly, however, with the last-minute changes, etc., I really dropped the
ball as far as "selling myself" was concerned... There was no good place to
set up a display (other than the display of sample pots I used in part of
the presentation), and I even ran off w/o my business cards. So I basically
did nothing other than show up and do the presentation. But would you
believe I managed to sell a couple pieces in spite of myself? As part of
the presentation I showed one of my African violet pots as an example of
low-fired ware (in talking about the potter choosing the clay for the
purpose intended)... at the end one of the ladies came up and asked if she
could buy it. And a couple of minutes later another lady was bummed that
the pot was gone and asked if I had more at home, so I brought two to church
on Sunday (so she could choose which glaze she liked best) and she bought
both of them.
So, of course, I spent my midnight-throwing hours the last couple of days
making more African violet pots, since they were in such demand. (I just
wish I could do them at cone 6-- I just don't like making the low-fire stuff
as much.)
Oh, and my other "lesson learned" is that I have GOT to get on the stick and
do a website. Several people asked what my web address was, and it's VERY
sad to have to tell them I haven't gotten to it, esp. when I develop
websites for my day job (the one that pays for all my pottery obsessiveness,
since I'm so clearly BAD at making my pottery pay for itself)!
So anyway, it went really well and my mom and I had a blast. (Did I mention
I had my 10 yr. old daughter being my "assistant? Three generations, just
too sweet for words, ha!)
:-) Back to lurking,
Rachel in Odenton, MD.
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