Spotlight: Making It Work Robert Briscoe

Appears in the February 2015 issue of Ceramics Monthly.

Ceramics Monthly: What do you think it takes to make a living as a potter?

Robert Briscoe: Obviously, to make a living as a potter, you must first care passionately about making good pots. Developing the skills to make good pots is the prerequisite to making a living.

Once you have that, you need the same skills as any other entrepreneur if you want to support yourself through your art. You need to be efficient in the studio, identify and nurture your audience, manage your money, and, most importantly, preserve your passion.

Efficiency

• Understand the need to maintain the treacherous balance between efficiency and aesthetics.
• Continually invest in yourself as an artist—equipment, training, time, tools, space.
• Recognize when it makes sense to hire another person to get something done. (My example is photography.)
• Be disciplined in the studio (seasoned with fun as appropriate).

Identifying and Nurturing an Audience

• Acknowledge that you must sell your work to live.
• Explore different ways of marketing to find the mix that will work for you—wholesale, art fairs, Internet sales, galleries, studio events, workshops, teaching. Recognize that this will change over time as the world changes.
• Acknowledge the importance and the cost of marketing—you either embrace this role or you pay someone else to do it for you. Same as cleaning.

Managing Your Money

• Acknowledge that choosing to be a potter probably means accepting a lower-middle-class lifestyle. Most potters don’t make six-figure incomes.
• Understand the appropriate use of debt.
• Embrace the role of being an accountant or hire someone to do it. But, even if you hire it out, you must understand the numbers and how they impact your studio.

Preserving your Passion

• Do it for yourself. Recognize the joy in this choice.
• Take on projects that carry you forward. Learn to say no to opportunities that distract you from your path.
• Trust that it will work.
• Find or build a community that supports you.