Susan Paczek's Studio: Trade War with China: The Battle of Debbie Travis. Plus some photos.

So last Thursday I stopped in for my appointment at the Canadian Tire in Bridgewater to get my snow tires put on. With an hour to kill I figured it was a good opportunity to see what sort of Christmas ornaments they have these days. It turns out I'm up against very very very cheap ornaments made in China, including an entire line endorsed by the Debbie Travis brand. One resin reindeer hung forlornly on a rack, with an antler and leg snapped off (though I can't recall if that was a Debbie Travis one or not). Why, Debbie? Why put your good name on this sad, cheap, albeit cute stuff that seems to make a mockery of Canada and Canadian Christmas.

Back to what I was saying about being sensitive to the energy of objects, the collective suffering I could feel pulsing from the racks of ornaments made me sad. I know from personal experience I can't do finicky little tasks with my hands day in, day out for hours of the day, it makes my wrists and forearms burn with pain. These people probably didn't have a choice. And who knows, maybe the Debbbie Travis Ornament Factory is one of the better places to work where these factories are. Maybe Debbie oversees it for herself that employees therein are treated with dignity and respect. Maybe she visits them regularly with gifts of hot organic cider and nutritious Christmas treats, and I'm just full of it for doubting in the cheerfulness of her brand. I just don't know.

But I wish that Canadian Tire would take me up on my concept of putting the "Canadian" back into "Canadian Tire". You'd think with all the doom and gloom about our economy, and unemployment in this country there would be a market for Canadian-made Christmas Tree Ornaments, and, given a choice, Canadians would pay an extra buck or two for Canadian-made. Maybe someone with more bucks than me could actually open an ornament factory on our native land. Maybe someone could harness the creative energy and technical skill of freshly minted NSCAD grads in Halifax to create a powerhouse of afforable, stylish, Canadian Christmas Craft.

I don't have anything against Debbie Travis personally, good for her and her branding empire, I just went through her twitter feed and she sounds like a nice person. I just wish people in that sort of position of power could get behind the 'buy local' movement and affect some real change. And "Trade War with China: The Battle of Debbie Travis" sounded like a catchy title for a blog post.

But, alas, what people do is out of my control.

I did come home, armed with the information from my reconnaissance, and it led me to come up with a new mantra: "Faster, Cheaper, Cuter".

If I want to compete for market share in the Ornament trade, I'm dealing with consumers that are accustomed to finding inexpensive foreign ornaments. While I'm super happy with how my last firing went, I realize, realistically, $18 - $22 is a steep price to pay for one ornament, even if I did spend a tonne of time sculpting it, carving it, hollowing it out and painting it with glazes.

So I went back to my clay-bag thinking about how I could cut down on my time while still coming up with a quality product.    My goal is to come up with ornaments that could retail for less.   I've done it before, 3 years ago I was selling stoneware doves for $10 each that were really quick to make. The advantage of the stoneware ornaments is instead of getting handpainted, they just need a quick dip in a glaze bucket.

Here's a pic of a couple older doves I still have, that would have retailed for $10 each:

And here's a pic of ornaments I used to make, that were more basic than this years. Like the suffolk sheep, these would retail for $15. Where these were quicker to do than my last batch, I was paying myself a better hourly rate with these ones:

So here are some new designs I'm working on. With my new "Faster, Cheaper, Cuter" motto, I'm working on blending elements of the improved detail I've gotten in my last firing, with the quickness with which I'd make the older ornaments. Each ornament starts as a pinch pot, but now I'm pinching them thinner (less clay to hollow out), and making them smaller, like my older ornaments were, but still adding some quick detail with my carving tool. My hope is that this will allow me to wind up with ornaments in the $8 - $15 price point.