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Alison Warner | Episode 977

Alison Warner is a part-time potter going by @kithandkilnpottery in Northern British Columbia, Canada. Alison is currently applying for small exhibitions, doing collaborations, wholesale, and working on new bodies of work developed during a residency earlier this year.

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Is it important to use a venue that is ceramic friendly like a coffee shop?

I think it makes sense to do a place like a coffee shop, but I think that is more important to consider the aesthetic and vibe of your work and finding a store or business that lines up with that so your work fits in. It doesn’t all have to be mugs. Perhaps doing a popup with a lot of vases and doing it at a florist. See where you feel comfortable and ask if they’d be open to doing a popup with you.

How important is foot traffic for a popup?

This is pretty big and that is why a coffee shop is so nice because they have a lot of foot traffic. But if you have a significant enough online following, you can drive foot traffic to their store. You don’t necessarily rely on their foot traffic. I think you can find a balance between your following and foot traffic.

Is there a day of the week that works best for a pop up?

Saturdays. Saturdays! Always Saturdays… at least for me.

Do you ask the shop to partner with you for marketing the popup?

I don’t always ask them to, but once I post about it and tag the business, they usually repost it to their followers.

Do you ever partner with other makers to do popups together?

That is my next market that I have coming up. And it is the only holiday market that I am doing and it is all new work that has never been available for sale before. It started out a few years ago and I joined in with them and we are all local makers… illustrators, print makers, ceramicist, fiber artists, screen printers, indigenous bead makers… We all set up, we work together to rent a venue for the day and between all of us promoting it, it has become my biggest event of the year.

You mentioned about how you like to reinvest your profits into your learning. So what are the ideas that you would like to learn next?

I’ve applied to a few exhibitions at art galleries, so I would love to see one of those worked out and fell into my hands so I could dive into doing some more sculptural work. I also am going to re-apply for The Canadian Pottery Throwdown. I think that would be craziest learning experience.

Contact

Etsy: kithandkilnpottery

Instagram: @kith.and.kiln.pottery