I began promoting the idea of A Great American Ceramic Designer Craftsmen Network around 2007. About that same time in Oregon, Bret Binford started making ceramic molds in his basement. Soon Mr Binford started receiving requests for slip casting and so he set up to do ceramic production in addition to mold making. Seven years later MudShark Studios has just moved into a 17000 sq foot space and Mr Binford's business is booming, so much so that he does not appear to have time for our project. That is understandable because Mt Binford is working with a list of clients far better capitalized than Andersen Studio. Currently Andersen Studio is the underdog- a ceramic studio existing since 1952, with a large and layered line of marketable designs but an entirerly inadequate production space and staff. We have a larger and more diversified line of designs than most but about every other ceramic company has a better production studio and a larger staff than Andersen Studio.
However Mr Binford 's company Mud Shark Studio's stands as a successful model of what I have envisioned as one type of element in The Great American Ceramic Designer Craftsmen Network , a concept that I attempted to communicate in my last KickStarter project.
My vision entails many different productions of many different sizes and types, which is the idea that emerged as I was working in our own slip casting shop and thinking about the best way to reproduce a line such as our own that is complex and varied with a potential to produce successful commercial table top items, one of a kind art work, limited editions, sculpture and functional forms. Mr Binford's operation, which is called MudShark Studio's seems ideal for a commercial line but some of our hand decorated techniques may be a better fit with a smaller more intimate production than MudShark studios appears to be producing, from my initial impression.
Fortunately I have recently discovered two other ceramic mold-making and production resources, one in Pennsylvania and the other in California, both of whom have expressed an interest in working on our project. It seems to me that there should be such a production facility on the East Coast and that Andersen Studio is an invaluable resource in getting such a production going being that we could supply a great deal of business to such a production, being that our marketing and name brand are still strong, but held back by our tiny production facility and staff. To my perspective there is not much support in the state of Maine for our project.
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| Tufted Titmouse in the works, sculpted by Susan Mackenzie Andersen |
Years later, after my mother passed away and my father suffered a brain injury, I went back to working on the kitchen table, this time with no objections, in fact this time having it welcomed that I was working on a new piece - the same Tufted Titmouse, which my sister, Christine, who does our mold work, had surprised me by finally (years later) creating a wax model of my original sculpture done in Plasticine. Wax has a stronger internal structure than plasticine and allows one to develop and retain the sculptural details to a greater degree.
The wax phase of the tufted titmouse was finished months ago and Christine promised I would have the first original plaster mould by the beginning of June so that I could develop the decoration and have the Tufted Titmouse ready for production by August, a promise I took with a grain of salt. My sister has since gone on her "infrequently around" mode, which she is periodically known to do. She has suggested that I learn mold making and make the mold myself, but with my sister, Elise and myself being the primary caretakers of our 91 year old father, Weston, it is not easy to have time spent in the basement where one has to be to work on mold making- the less so in the summer months, when being in the basement can cause one to miss customers walking in the door of our retail shop.
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| Ninety One year old Weston sitting in the sun light at the famous kitchen table while I take pictures of our Bob White Quail |
A few weeks ago a very pleasant individual dropped by to pick up a contribution from us for a fundraiser for the town to be featured in a television show about travel. The town must raise $55,000 and has already raised over $41000.00 so far with huge local support. Amazingly, they have even formed a non-profit organization, which must have been approved in record time compared to how long it takes for a conservative organization to be approved by the IRS these days, or for that matter by any standard.
A local artist made a video to promote the fundraising project as a KickStarter project, and much to the surprise of many, KickStarter rejected the project !
I was surprised neither by Kickstarter's rejection of the project nor the public mis-understanding of what KickStarter is. The nonprofit organization is raising money for a marketing project for the Boothbay Region. In other words the group is raising money to purchase a creative project. For a KickStarter project, the entity running the project should be the film production company and the film itself should be one of the rewards offered. The organization should be contributing to the filmaker's project, because the filmaker's are the creative business, KickStarter is for creative businesses - structured either as a private enterprises or a non-profit organizations. The non-profit organization in this case is not creating the film, it is purchasing a marketing service.
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| This photo was likely taken from our porch outside our kitchen window, a view that we cherish. At age 91, Weston spends many hours sitting on the porch taking in the beautiful view. |
The other week the pleasant fundraising woman returned. I took the occasion to ask her how one goes about getting evangelists to promote one's project, mentioning that we wanted to run another KickStarter project. She misinterpreted what I was asking and said "We can't do KickStarter" - meaning the marketing film fundraiser project. I said- No We can ! and to my impression, she seemed a bit taken back by that idea. She then proceeded to question me, rather than to answer my question. She asked me if I could do a drawing of my idea. Assuming she meant my idea for a new product, I said "Absolutely not- a new product development is a process , the idea emerges from the process. Even if I could draw my original concept, the finished work would never resemble what I originally conceived. The process always evolves from the original idea into something of its own." ( not in those exact words- but that's the gist of what I said)
She then stated that we had inherited the business from our parents in a manner that came across to me as implying that our generation are not creative participants in our family business- all the credit belongs to our parents, or so her spontaneous reaction came across to my ears. I understand that she was trying to make a compliment when she went into rhapsody about the advertisement run decades ago in national magazines portraying our seagull on a reflective surface- once again coming across as praise of past glory, attributable to our parents generation and not to our own,. It is granted that our generations of a family business have made some serious management mistakes, beginning with how our parents handled the transference of the Portland production when they no longer wanted to be burdened with traveling so far to Portland , Maine. I was still living in NYC at the time.
The fundraising woman then went into rhapsody about that Portland space, and I said it was too bad that Dad decided to move to Portland after the historical community battle in which the side opposing the building of a production space, won the debate over those that supported our desire to construct on the pond side property that we then owned. Granted, it is a beautiful view, one that we see every day outside our kitchen window and my father did not intend to change it. The building was designed to be built into the slope so that it would not obstruct the view. My father had a vision of locating the retail production space in the environs of a park, which is the height of destination shipping. I understand my father's emotional reaction to the opposition he received from the community and why he then decided to create a new production elsewhere, but it is a decision that has impacted us ever since. And so I said to the pleasant fundraising woman, that if Dad had decided to find a local location, instead of in Portland, we would probably still retain the production facility.
I never did get an answer to my question about how one finds evangelists to help promote a project. I felt that I was being interrogated, instructed and informed that we do not qualify. I was told the film project didn't cost much money to promote. Elise insists that all the evangelists for the non-profit organization are not paid to promote the project but I don't know how Elise knows that. Non-profit organizations are permitted to hire people. The pleasant woman never directly answered that question.
The fundraising woman came across so emphatically as implying that our generation were not creative actors in our own business that I brought out my Tufted Titmouse sculpture, to which she showed no reaction what so ever. She told me of an artist she knew that was making his own mold. In frustration I said that I suppose we should sell or otherwise dispose of what our parents started so we can have time to be our own artists- but in fact, the point that she could not see, is that the best thing to do is to insure that what our parents started is passed on and in tact by either establishing an appropriatly capitalized production and organization locally or by out sourcing production , preferably to one of the few American ceramic productions in existence. Then we can have the time , energy and financial resources to retire from running Andersen Studio ourselves and become ceramic designers with our own dedicated ceramic studios. This not only benefits us but the larger community and American made manufacturing as well. As a philosopher, since an early age, when I went out into the field and contemplated the world in terms of increasingly larger circles, starting with myself and my family, and ending with a world that had just created an atomic bomb, this is the only ethical way I can look at my own role in the world. We didn't just inherit an opportunity, we inherited a responsibility, which has to come first.
We were also told that there had to be ONE person with a vision- which one of us will it be? That was, in my opinion, a very politically insane statement to be making in front of two sisters running a mutual buisiness concern.
Many in our local community were impressed by Andersen Studio having a facility in Portland, which ultimately was non-sustainable, and also impressed by our advertisement in a national publication. I have heard hints that our generation are privileged off spring who merely inherited the business, and make no significant contribution in our own right. Perhaps it is taken for granted that our website emerged out of thin air, or maybe that our privileged generation has the financial resources to hire a professional website designer, copy writer and photographer, which would quite frankly be a considerable sum of money to create the portfolio style website , which I have single handedly created in a process that has been evolving since 1998. I taught myself html, xml, css, and other web oriented skills, I wrote all the copy and I took all of the photographs. It is ironic that the same world view which does not understand why a marketing project does not qualify for KickStarter, is impressed by hiring a professional photographer to take a photograph to be used in an advertisement in a national magazine, but no credit is due to the creative process of doing it all yourself. Money talks
Not to take all credit, of course, but rather talking from my own experience. Elise has also spent many devoted years keeping this business going, and our generation has contributed designs the the Andersen Studio line.
Perhaps revealing the hidden story behind the myth is controversial, but I believe that truth is ultimately the most effective way to get to where ever one goes. These thoughts have been spinning around my head for the last couple of weeks until today when I decided to release them in my own version of a country song -The Second Generational Blues.
Also posted as an update on our Kickstarter Project blog, which I keep going in between projects. If you like this blog post, please like it on KickStarter HERE
