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| Meerkat made from Chronicle Herald newspaper |
This got me thinking.
Maybe Ian Thompson would be pleased to know that while folks have been arguing over mink, fracking, salmon pens, corporate handouts and all sorts of other things in the desperate search for job creation, this province has quietly been filling up with potters and other fine craftspeople.
Not only has NSCAD been producing talented grads, professional artists and craftspeople from across Canada and beyond have been moving here attracted by the beauty and relative affordability of land and housing in this province. I'm talking about people far more experienced and professional than myself. West Cote Bell Pottery, for example, comes to mind. This is a business owned by a couple who relocated to LaHave recently from New York State, enchanted by the opportunity to set up shop in a large building, right on the water, with spectacular views. Plus there is the legion of fantastic potters who have been here for varying lengths of time, many are listed on the Nova Scotia Potters Guild website however, there are many great ones that are not. This might be because young, or new, potters in Nova Scotia don't realize that any potter is welcome to be in the guild.
As for me, I set my sights on a move to Nova Scotia back in 2003, when I was living in my native Vancouver and figuring out an exit strategy from my 9-5 life as a conservation biologist. I finally arrived in 2008 to discover there are dozens of other creative types who had the same idea. As noted in Ian's letter, the young of Nova Scotia have had to leave to find work leaving us with an aging population. The result is, as the province fills with artists and craftspeople (a lot of us are "young" by the way), we're all scrabbling around and tripping over eachother trying to sell our stuff to a populace that is increasingly underemployed and/or broke.
I follow "Project Eve" on twitter. It is a great resource for women or really anyone in business. Recently they shared this article:
Ending Poverty One Purchase at a Time
Please check it out. While my husband warned me against comparing crafters in Nova Scotia to crafters in Afghanistan, and I agree, there is a parallel here. I am all for sustainable development, but instead of getting tempted to rush into resource exploitation that could prove unsustainable, how about we work with what we have? What we have is a tonne of amazing craftspeople.
I'm going to talk about pottery as that's my area of interest, though I'm mostly a sculptor. Since moving to this province and seeing how many great potters there are, it occurred to me that, perhaps Nova Scotia Pottery could be branded and promoted outside the province as something as delicious as New Zealand Lamb (bad analogy for vegetarians but hopefully I'm making my point).
I'm on the guild's mailing list, and so far this holiday season, I've counted dozens of potters participating in various group sales, gallery shows, home sales, pop-up galleries, craft fairs, sales from their shops, and more. I listed off a few such events in my last post "A New Venue and It's A Great Weekend for a Pottery Crawl". However this short list of events happening this weekend doesn't even scratch the surface of what else I've seen advertised; apologies to some potters I know and love whose sales this past weekend unintentionally got left off this list, eg Seastar Pottery, there are probably others, it's really a lot to keep track of!
It's a challenge for potters to make a living. The overhead for this craft is quite high, and increases in power bills and other expenses don't help. To get work into consignment shops downtown the consignment rates tend to be as high as 50% (an offshoot of their own high overhead expenses), and space is at a premium in the several small venues that are spread out. While there are great craft fairs in the city, the fees to participate in the more established ones can be expensive, making this a risky way for artists to make money. While many artists I've met seem to love doing markets and find them lucrative, they do involve considerable time for: getting to/from market, setting up, attending the table and tearing down. For potters that live far from Halifax, having to commute or stay over night someplace is an added expense. And, as mentioned above, the artists are all targeting the same dwindling customer base, while more potters seem to move here or graduate every year.
What is the solution exactly? I'm not sure, but I can think of a couple of ways to improve the situation:
Idea #1: Create more consumers of fine craft locally. Perhaps if more people realized that a lot of local fine craft is more durable and affordable than they thought, we would keep more money in the province. I listed off some reasons for 'buying local' in this blog post.
We are social creatures, so my hypothesis is that the more of us who visit each other and get served coffee or tea out of locally made mugs, the more of us who will be likely to seek out handmade pots. In a short time we could see an epidemic of pottery collecting.
No offense to my pottery friends but it seems to me that a lot of them promote their small events via the Potters Guild mailing list (which is mainly potters) and/or Facebook, and a lot of their Facebook friends are other potters. Or their friends and past customers of course, but unfortunately unlike cheese pottery doesn't go off so there's only so much a person with limited shelf space and/or a limited budget can buy.
Perhaps both print and televised media could help by picking up this story and getting the message out to a broader audience. After reading this weekend's paper I nominate John DeMont to write up something (I thought his articles were great), though there are plenty of great writers in town. Perhaps with more public awareness, more people would be inclined to serve those Honeycrisp apple slices and local cheeses on a Nova Scotia pottery plate.
Perhaps the thing to do is bring out Joel Plaskett again, it worked for the recent Herald Magazine cover. Have a close up of him on the front page, holding up a beautiful, colourful bowl (I'm thinking one of Andrew Langille's pieces) that he looks at seriously while above his head is a big bold headline: "The Nova Scotia Pottery Emergency". (For people unfamiliar with Joel Plaskett, "Joel Plaskett Emergency" is the name of his band).
This would be a great start, but I don't think this would be good enough. I'm talking about A LOT of potters. Honestly there are too many to list as I'd be bound to leave some out. I think my count is up to at least 90, many of them aren't part of the guild. And every day I seem to find out about another group of potters hosting an event.
So this brings me to:
Idea #2: Somehow potters and other craftspeople could use a hand-up with getting their wares to larger markets out of province (just like in that Project Eve Afghanistan article I give the link to above). Whether this hand should come from the government or private sector I'm not sure. I know there are some individual craftspeople with excellent business skills, partly due to mentoring from CEED, who are figuring out their way on their own, but wouldn't there be strength in numbers if we all banded and branded together? Perhaps there is a missing link here waiting to be filled?
I think Halifax would benefit greatly from the creation of a large Nova Scotia Pottery Gallery, downtown somewhere within walking distance of the cruise ships. Other provinces have commercial galleries dedicated to promoting and selling their pottery, it only makes sense here. However, unlike existing art venues that have consignment rates as high as 50%, perhaps the government could somehow step in and enable a lower rate, making such a venue more accessible both to the potters and customers?
Or, maybe there could be a venue for more than just pottery.
We could include Nova Scotian made food products, mittens, scarves, printed products, beauty products, furniture, tools, knives, shoes, whatever and call the place "Made-In-Nova-Scotia-Mart" or similar.
Since moving here I've been so impressed by the variety, quantity and quality of locally made goods. I have daydreamed about the evolution of a big-box-store type of 100% consignment venue where the mark up on all things Nova Scotian is only 20%. ( I call this daydream 'My 80/20 Vision'). I think a low mark-up is necessary, as it would keep retail prices low to allow more consumers to be able to afford to purchase items, while still allowing craftspeople to pay themselves decently. My other justification for this low rate is that, unlike other big box stores that deal in foreign imports, there would be no outlay of cash for purchasing stock, no worry about blowing out unsold stock, everything would be delivered to the door by the 'suppliers' rather than having to be tankered, trained and trucked here from far away.
Not only would this imaginary shop support dozens of Nova Scotian makers, it would create decent jobs in the retail sector. To reach markets out of province, it should include a professional online presence that would facilitate the promotion, sales and shipping of items out of province,and even out of country. Surely with all the talented IT people running around town it would be easy to evolve a kick-ass online shopping experience. Imagine the spin-off benefits for the NS economy, as "Made In Nova Scotia" becomes recognized around the globe as a brand that equals value and quality. Take that, China!
Perhaps, if necessary, government could step and greatly reduce the property taxes on this venue, in order to cut overhead expenses. With all the money the NS government has chucked at other privately owned businesses (*cough* *cough* *ahem* Irvings), maybe there's a bit of dough available for a building and a few salaries for this idea if it ends up being a good one.
Instead of having to learn about sales, marketing, promotion and a host of other business skills, crafters could just do what they do best. Make work, drop it off (or even have it picked up!), collect cheques, pay for stuff they need, and make more work. Aside from developing our own brands and web presence, we could leave everything else to the storekeepers, and stick this store someplace that would give everyone easy access to local craft year-round, not just at Christmas fairs.
I think there will always be a need and support for good markets, galleries and gift stores. Hopefully all this buzz about local spending would just help the entire industry, as more people who currently think, meh, art and craft whatever, would suddenly seek these venues out. Not only that, artists and crafters LOVE to buy the work of others, so as they earn more they'll be able to buy more!
But while we're at it, why not recognize and chuck some subsidies or some form of help at the small business owners who have already been slaving their guts out to try to provide good venues for local art and craft. Or, if they prefer, reward those currently on the retail side of things for their hard work with first dibs at good government jobs to do whichever bit of running their business they love the most/excel at.
If competition with existing local venues and markets ends up being an issue, or if the Nova Scotian consumer base is too small, maybe this is a concept that would be better be applied in a suburb of Toronto and/or other large Canadian centres where there are more people with more high paying jobs. Perhaps "Local-Mart" could be a good name for a national chain and they could set up shop right next to the Wal-Marts of the country.
Or not.
Perhaps the entire idea is ridiculous, or just bits of it, but hey, at least I've got my thinking hat on. You asked for it, Ian! Anyhow, it's a start, eh?
*Note, Dec 13 - I've come up with more ideas to build on to this post, in my following post Serenity Doves and Courage to Change*
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