The Teacher That Quit to Become a Full-Time Potter | Andrew Linderman | Episode 528

Andrew Linderman | Episode 528

Andrew Linderman is a studio potter and former high school chemistry teacher. Originally from the Twin Cities, Andrew currently living and working in Milwaukee, WI. Andrew makes functional pots to make the best moments in life better, to make the mundane moments more enjoyable, and to make the difficult moments more bearable. Andrew uses his background in chemistry to create glazes that are enhanced by the firing process in which he produces his pots. Recently, Andrew has also explored how the wood-firing process affects the surfaces of his pots. Andrew continually strives to create work in which the functionality of a piece is enhanced by its aesthetic and tactile qualities. Andrew graduated from Luther College (Decorah, IA) in 2012 with a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry. Andrew has learned his art and craft primarily from George Lowe during his undergraduate studies, S.C. Rolf post-graduation and wood firing from Simon Levin.. Linderman also teaches classes at Cream City Clay in Milwaukee, WI.

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How do you go about making a change and leave a relatively secure job? What kind of thorns in life are making you want to make a change?

So my wife has been super supportive through all of it. She is in grad school. She is getting her MD-Phd, so she is way smarter and better looking than I am. I just make dishes. But the big thing we were thinking about was that we would like to start a family in the next five years and with her schedule in grad school and eventually she will go to residency and be a doctor, we want to be more hands on with our kids, we don’t want to send them to a day care all day and say, Oh hey, here’s some dinner, and tuck them in. So one of us was going to have to be home more. Which she will end up being the primary bread winner at that point, so that leaves me. Teachers are a little under paid so we are definitely looking at the financial end of it to be able to provide when we have kids. So finding something that I can do from my house was important and I liked pottery and I knew I could sell pots and make some money. Teaching is pretty stressful and I need to be doing something that when I get home at night I can be attentive to my family.

How important is it to look down the road 5 years to make good decisions to be happy then?

I think that is hugely important. My wife and I talk about how 5 years from now we might not live in Milwaukee because where ever she gets matched for her residency it may take us gosh knows where. We like the upper Midwest. We would like to stay in Wisconsin or Minnesota but that might not happen. So we are making sure we are making sound decisions now to be prepared for then or in case something happens. Setting some long term goals or at least knowing where you want to be and what sort of lifestyle you want to have and making the best decisions that you can at the time with the information that you have to set yourself up for success or to meet that goal is huge.

How do you go about crunching the numbers and to make sure it is a good decision also?

So ultimately what happened was my last full year teaching, spring into fall, and I had to do taxes so I was looking through everything and I looked at how much money I had sold worth of pots. It was my first art fair again right after college and I had done some farmer’s markets and sold a couple of things online and a number of other things and said, Hey, I am doing this part-time and out of all of my time I am maybe spending a fifth of it on pottery, so if I can spend all of that on my pottery business theoretically the money that I would be making would be quadruple that, right? And that put us at a number where we said, Hey, my wife gets a stipend through grad school that covers our mortgage and other things that have to get paid, and then my income covers all the other stuff like food, which is important or buying some more pots at NCECA. We figure it is enough for us to live off of and we might as well do something that is going to make me a little happier so then when we are together we can be happier.

How do you keep track of the sales and all the money going out to able to know how to do your taxes properly and to know how much you actually make?

So this spring another local potter in Milwaukee, Jean Wells who does really nice colorful sgraffito work and I had just found out we had switched to using the same accountant who is just starting a book-keeping coaching program. So we have been kind of working together. We use quickbooks and square at all of our sales. And basically try to automate all of our money movements, so money in from selling work or I teach at a community clay center making sure everything is accounted for. So I know how much I make and next year I can say, I made two thousand dollars during January and February because quarter one of retail is not so much fun, but during the summer I paid x amount of dollars, so how do I budget that throughout the whole year.

How do you cope with the dry times because there are some times of the year where there are no a lot of sales going on?

So my wife and I try to have a savings account that we can draw from if that is the case. This is my first year of going at it and it hasn’t quite gone as smoothly as I wanted it to but obviously we are doing fine. I am hoping that next year we can keep track of how much I need in my business to pay for new clay, or my firings and that sort of thing and then this is how much money that can go back to our family as income and making sure we are putting that into a savings account so there is something there for January and February. Also making our own opportunities, so that is why I did the pop up at the mall I was talking about, I don’t have any other sales the whole month of February, I want to do something so I am going to try this.

Does looking for those other streams of income, is that something you are putting in the mix to make the whole recipe work?

Definitely. I have been applying to a few galleries and have gotten some positive responses but not an actual commitment yet. Just to have an alternative income stream now we know that galleries takes fifty percent, which they definitely deserve, and they should be doing a lot of work marketing you, so I don’t have an issue with that. It is nice to get a little bit of money from that. I can send the pots off to them and they can sell them and I get a check eventually. I am trying to be more regular with online shop updates. I would like to do it monthly, I’m still working on that. And then a lot of in-person sales at art fairs has worked for me in the past, and I am trying now to figure out how can I do less of them that are more lucrative.

What does the support of a spouse mean to you?

Well, I probably wouldn’t be dong this without her. So, she puts up with me which is super important. In turn I do my best to support what she is doing with her choices of going to school as much as she is, which I did not want to do. So it is really good to have someone to come home to to talk to and decompress and bounce ideas back and forth with and if things aren’t going well they are there to support you and if they are going really well they are there to celebrate with you. She’s my best friend, so that works out really well.