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Jenny Cartee | Episode 1126
Jenny Cartee is a potter living in the mountains of western North Carolina. Jenny makes mugs and other functional pots that she sells at our local farmers market and coffee shops. Jenny’s husband, Heath is a fly fishing guide and owns a guide service, Pisgah Outdoors. Jenny and Heath have two daughters, Annie and Molly. As a family they love the freedom that having their own businesses gives them to spend time with each other and their girls. Aside from pottery Jenny’s life passions are cooking, baking bread, hiking ,and identifying wildflowers.
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In order for pottery to be your lifestyle you need to know your life.
Yes, you have to know what’s important to you and what’s your priority. I love making but I also really love being free enough to drop what I am doing and go do something with the kids or go do something with my husband. He has his own business as well, like I said he is a fly fishing guy and so he runs a guide service so he works a lot of weekends and then randomly have a Friday off. So it’s nice that I have the freedom to be able to drop everything and spend time with him.
Know your limits.
Yes, I have definitely tested those throughout the years. The Christmas show is definitely very taxing every year. My girls were born during those years and I would take them to the show and carry them as infants at the show. It got us through those years but it’s nice now to know what I can produce comfortably and not be too taxing on my body.
Know your profit margins
Yeah, that’s an important piece to it, to know how much you are spending and all your expenses. A lot of that for me is by feel. When you are pricing stuff for the market and you start to put the price sticker on and it doesn’t feel quite right anymore then maybe I need to inch it up to where I feel good about it.
Know your sales outlets
Yeah, I think a lot of that is knowing the people that are coming to you. Coming to either the farmers market or to the coffee shop and the kinds of things they are into. Since we are in the mountains I do a mountain bike mug. I do a hiker mug. I do things that are sort of touristy but more a reflection of the area.
Know your failures and how to come back. What did you fail in and how did you come back?
That’s a tough one because failures are all the time. You have markets that don’t work out. Or you have a whole batch of mugs that messed up for one reason or another. Or something new you are trying that doesn’t work out. It’s a constant if you are trying something new it’s not going to be perfect. It’s not going to be consistently working. If you are experimenting and taking a risk then you are going to have mess ups and failures along the way. But you just get up and try again.
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Rosie Revere Engineer by Andrea Betty
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Instagram: @jennycarteepottery