How to Know When to Go Fulltime | Shawna Pincus | Episode 573

Shawna Pincus | Episode 573

Shawna Pincus is a ceramic artist living in Baltimore Maryland with her husband Michael, daughter Amelia, and their cat Bowie. Shawna grew up right outside of Philadelphia and attended school at the Maryland Institute College of Art where she earned a BFA in sculptural studies then continued on to Towson University earning her certification in Art Education. Shawna has taught as an art teacher in the public school system, as an adjunct Professor of Art Education for Towson University, instructs adult pottery classes at the Baltimore Clayworks and has led various workshops with adults, children and art teachers. Shawna spends most of her time working in her basement studio creating hand built functional pottery and perfecting her unique style of screen-printing on clay.

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How were you able to know that it was not just an idea that it was a good idea?

You mean going full time?

Yes.

I think for me I always knew that that is where I was headed. I think from college when I was first in clay, that was what I wanted to do. And everything along the way was just sort of holding me up until I got there. So I think for me it was really just a matter of, I am going to do it, and if I fail then I will go back to teaching or find something else to do. But this is what I have always wanted so I might as well jump in.

Was it important for you to have a support net so if you crashed and burned you would have something to land on?

Yeah, definitely. It is important to me to know that I have another option. I have another place that I can go and I think that for me having my teaching background

I can always teach wherever or whatever and I can still be in the arts. I think it is also important to me that I have my family as a huge support system. My husband is incredibly supportive and I don’t think I would have been able to take this kind of a leap without him there. It is definitely important to have multiple kinds of support.

Do you have an exit strategy in case things don’t work?

I’m not planning on them not working. (laughter) Like I said, I think because I have the teaching background and I have a lot of connections there So yeah, it’s always in the back of my mind, if this doesn’t work, what am I going to to do with my life. But you know, I have not burned any bridges along the way so of all the jobs that I have had I have kept in contact with a lot of people. The nice thing about working with the University is I was still really involved in the schools and I know a lot of art teachers and a lot of art programs and I think I have a pretty good working knowledge of what I would do if this didn’t work out.

How do you define success?

Other than being able to support yourself and being a functioning person in society, I think success is just being happy with what you have to do every day. Being able to wake up and enjoy what lies ahead. So I think if you can do that no matter what your path is you are going to be a successful person.

Is it critical to have a strong work ethic?

Yeah, I think so. I think with anything you need to have a strong work ethic. I don’t know, I started working when I was about 14, so I’ve never stopped.

What does your typical day schedule look like?

So I wake up around 7 and I get my daughter ready for school. My husband is usually long gone. he leaves around 7. We take the drive down to school. The school that she is going to now is actually quite far. It is about a 45 to an hour drive. So we drive out to her school and drop her off. Her school is backed up to a YMCA so I usually will go over there and I will run and do some weight machines or something for about a half hour or forty-five minutes. Then I get back into the car and drive home and that is when I usually listen to your podcast or a book on tape or something. And I get home probably by eleven. Sometimes I have to stop at the post office on the way home. Then I am in the studio until I have to stop and make dinner which is usually around 4:30 ish. My husband always picks up my daughter after work and he takes her home. So I only have to do the trip one way. Then they come home and we will have dinner. Depending on the day of the week, he’ll taker her out, they like to go golfing or roller skating. I will take her out one day a week and we will go to the Y and go swimming. Until about 7:30 is usually our family time and she goes to bed and depending on what season it is I usually go back down to the studio until about ten o’clock. My husband has his studio, we are both in the basement so a lot of evenings we are down there together. He screen prints and I make pots.

There is a saying for Entrepreneurs: Start before you are ready. How do you feel about that saying? And how did it apply to you?

Well, I have never heard that before and I also did not follow that. I think I tried to make sure I was pretty ready before I started. But I think, I don’t know, I guess to me that sort of means I think you should go for it. I don’t think you should hold yourself back from trying something new because of fear or you are afraid it’s not going to work. I think you should always have that safety net or at least I do. Not everybody is the same but I have students in my clay works class who I think are ready to start selling their work, Just put something out there. You don’t have to wait until everything is perfect. Just jump in and see how it goes. List a few things and see how it works out.