As of Tuesday of this week, I am taking a break from crafting
for money. Why? Well, there’s a lot more crafting than money
it in, for one thing!
I was at Urban Legends, a little gallery which also offers
art classes. (I'd include a link to their website, but it has disappeared.) The owners are much more interested in the art classes than in the
gallery. It was still a good experience
but I made far more money with my freelance writing and editing last year, and
just a little bit more than I did at my last craft fair. The only reason I made any money at all is that I didn't have to pay the monthly fee due to a barter for services.
What I learned:
- Even if though my raw material was all pretty much free, I
made a profit only if I consider my time as not worth much.
- There are two ways to make money selling stuff.
The Grocery Store model = tiny markup, big volume
OR
The Boutique model =
huge markup, few sales.
Tiny markup and few sales does not work well! (I haven’t figured out how to get to huge
markup and big volume!)
- As an artist, you have to decide where you are on this
spectrum:
Work for 6 months on something you sell for $20,000 < ------------------------ > Make
thousands of items quickly and sell them for very little.
-I’m just not willing to be a factory. When you do something over and over again,
you get really good at it. And really
bored with it.
- I like sales. I
like meeting and chatting with who ever is buying my stuff.
- I like marketing.
- I like control.
- It’s hard to work when you don’t know if there will be any
return. During the second half of the
year I kept making things only because I said, “If this doesn’t sell, it will
go on the wall there.”
- Thinking about money too much makes me greedy, stingy, and
a bad conversationalist.
- Crafting for money makes me lean toward quickie art forms
and means that I resent it when mistakes (i.e. learning) takes too long.
Conclusion: I have
lots of things I want to make for our home and my friends. On deck: lamp stand, back-pack purse,
clothes for traveling in Europe this summer, cloth baby book, a coffee table,
denim picnic blanket, embellished storage boxes, and a painting for over the
fireplace. All without spending more
than say, $20. I might be able to do
them all for free. Stay tuned…
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