Functional or Sculptural- She Loves Them Both | Toni Losey | Episode 570

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Toni Losey | Episode 570

Toni Losey ceramicist from Dartmouth, NS, received her BFA from NSCAD, 2018. While there, Toni’s 15 years as a studio potter helped develop a body of sculptural work. Toni has shown at SOFA Chicago, NCECA, and many private and public galleries. Tony was published in Ceramics Monthly and teaches at NSCAD.

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When you go to sell your work in general do you tend to sell directly to the customer or through boutiques or through galleries?

I really utilize a range of those options at this point. I definitely still do a fair bit of direct sales. I find that customer connection, specifically with the functional work works quite nicely, a little bit with the sculptural. I definitely use quite a few boutique type store locally and across Canada at this point. There are a few galleries but the galleries tend to be more specific to sculptural work.

When you are selling directly to your customers is that more of an online or is it face to face in a booth or at a fair?

It is actually a combination of those. I really started to love Instagram. It is just so convenient and easy for people to see your work and connect with you there. So I have made tons of relationships there as well as connections for sales. So that has been a really good tool for me as far as online goes. I don’t actually have an online store, it’s just primarily made through connections made there. But then I do do quite a few craft shows as well, primarily through the local area here.

With boutiques, do you see that as wholesale? 

I do a combination actually. I moved to wholesale primarily because I was finding it was very difficult to manage consignment when I was moving further and further away geographically from  my location. Just managing inventories and all that kind of fun day to day stuff. So I found there was a huge benefit to me in the store just by sending it, once it is out my door it is theirs and paid for. It’s done. It just means we have one transaction instead on one after another, after another and I found that worked far better for me. I still try to maintain a few boutique-type shops locally which allows me to do the consignment model and it allows me to experiment a little more and not just fit in with that framework of wholesale. So it lets me push my forms a bit more, surfaces a bit more, it allows me to have that opportunity to put that out into the marketplace.

Do you consider that wholesale work when you are working with galleries?

No galleries, at least from my experience, have always worked on a consignment base. So I don’t know if they are out there where they are more of a wholesale option but at least as far as my experience it has always been consignment based.

How did you go about finding the stores that you sell in?

Well, I think, I will put myself in the potter category, and I’m really talking functional because that is where I started, I started out with a few little stores that were basically just down the road from me and we started off as consignment. They were little stores that were opening up and they were figuring out their thing, I was figuring out my thing, and we really got to learn and grow together. And through developing those relationships my work and ability to satisfy the needs of those stores grew and as that grew other stores take notice. I have been really lucky actually. I am not too sure that I really had to seek out representation for my functional work at this point typically the stores come to me. I take a look at what the stores are like and if I feel like we are a good fit for each other then we move forward. So it just has something that has grown over the years really.

How do you go about pricing your work?

Pricing is just that never ending battle. I know there are people that map out exactly what their costs are, what all their hours are, what all their time is, part of me really questions that approach. Primarily because the better you get the less time it takes so as soon as you start paying for your time you are actually going to be making less as an experienced maker than as a new maker, because you are more efficient. So I kind of throw a lot of that stuff out and I really try to take a look at what is in the marketplace, try to dig up who I feel are my peers, whether just looking at their work or reaching out to them directly, but really trying to share that conversation, because I think pricing in a bubble is a tricky thing to do. So it is really trying to be aware of what else is out there and working within that framework.

So does that mean your prices change from location to location?

No, I really try once I have gathered that information and I decide on a price, I stay true to that. Whether you are buying from me direct or whether it is online or whether it is in a store, that price is consistent.

How do you justify as an artist being directed by the market for your making and still be a person who follows her muse?

It is a very good question. I think at this point in my life, I am a little bit blessed in that the work that I am making for the market, I am nit making for the market, I actually love making functional work. It is very inspiring to me and it just happens that it coincides with what the market I found is looking for. So I don’t feel that I have to compromise by making that type of work, and again just feel very blessed that I have had the opportunity to make this sculptural body of work without that need , not that I wouldn’t want it, without that need for big sales on all of that. Because it certainly is catering to something in me that I need to be working through and I want to continue doing that. I am thankful that I have the opportunity to do that.

Book

All the Fishes come Home to Roost 

Contact

toniloseypottery.com

Instagram: @tonilosey