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Taylor Sijan | Episode 736
Taylor Sijan is an artist and craftswoman from Catawba Island, Ohio. Taylor is known for her richly decorated, functional pottery that has been exhibited widely throughout the US. Taylor earned a BFA from Bowling Green State University in 2016 and an MFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2021.
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How did you pursue the ability to sell your work in grad school?
I would say it was separate from my thesis but I pursued it through self-marketing using social media, namely Instagram. And also there is a very large collector base here in Lincoln. We used to have, pre-pandemic, a very successful pottery sales as a group and so when I came here I knew I would be really slinging loads of pots all the time, I would have a lot of visual information to pull from to create really nice photographs for self-promotion using Instagram as a business tool.
Did the school or the program help you in learning the sales aspect of it?
No, I am completely self taught. And it did take some convincing with my faculty to let me focus on that to a good extent because they worry that sometimes that can be a distraction if people are not able to focus on really exploring different techniques and ideas while they are here if they are focused so much on making really resolved sellable work. So I had to prove that I could do both.
Why was the faculty resistant?
Just what I had just mentioned. Sometimes if a person is too focused on external opinions of others they have a hard time really pulling some crazy and experimental ideas out of themselves and into the work. So for me it was I had a part time job doing the marketing and the sales and building my business on the side. My main focus while I was here was definitely cultivating personal expression and taking risks.
Was it a distraction?
No, I don’t think so because there were so many changes that I made when I came here. I switched from cone ten soda firing in a pretty monochromatic pallet to really colorful electric fired work knowing that one day I would need to have my own kiln. I wanted these really lush and atmospheric surfaces with loads of layers and so the work that I was selling, they weren’t test tiles but they were giving me information that I could then use towards the thesis pieces. So each were kind of informing the other.
Did emphasizing that give you a runway that you could launch now that school is done?
The emphasis on self marketing?
Yes.
Yes, definitely. I got some really good advice before I went into school from somebody who had a strong social media presence and they said the most important thing you should cultivate would be your own email list. And so every event that we had at school I would have a piece of paper where people could sign up. Any time if someone asked me if I had work available, and normally I did not because I was in school and I had to save things for critiques, I would tell them to sign up for the list. So now I have built this really large following of people who are excited to see the work and collect something.
What is your next step to make sure the sales ramp up?
Oh my. As far as business strategy that I am gong to be implementing after things settle down a bit. I have to move and set up a studio and hopefully by fall I am planning on having a sale every Christmas that is just through my website. I have a coupled of solo exhibitions coming up as well through galleries. I also have a waitlist of people that have signed up a while ago in November for specific type of objects that I am still working through the waitlist. Folks that have been very patient with me. So I do have a couple of different avenues in which I am going to be presenting and hopefully selling some work.
Did your professors give you any tips on how to be a full-time potter living off of your work?
I haven’t really sat down with them to have a lengthy discussion on how to switch into that quite yet. But I have asked them for advice along the way whenever I was dealing with a strange gallery situation or pricing my work. I have gotten a lot of feedback about that from them. They are very encouraging about my choice to pursue that path. And now that I am staying in Lincoln I think we will be working together more on that.
Book
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Contact
taylorsijan.com
Instagram: @taylorsijan