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Em Piscopo | Episode 835
Em Piscopo stumbled into ceramics nearly 2.5 years ago in an attempt to discover my creative side after letting my analytical side take the reigns for too long. The connection was instantaneous, and Em fell in love hard and fast with the medium of clay. Em could never in her wildest dreams have anticipated making pieces that would someday be passed from her hands to those of family and friends, old and new, all over the map. The heart of Nightshade is, and in some ways has always been, finding the intersections between art and science, style and function, and to bring a bit of magic into everyday life.
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When was the Ah ha moment when you thought, This could be it! ?
I don’t really know if there was an Ah ha moment. I have terrible anxiety a lot of the time and it took me forever to really just say, I am going to do this. I am going to pull the trigger and just see where it takes me. I feel like life is too short and we are in a moment right now where why not go for it? You know? And that’s sort of where I was. It’s a privilege to be able to say that but I really just knew that if I didn’t try it now I wasn’t going to try it.
Are you a goal setter?
Again, that’s something I would like to work on.
I am wondering how planning works for you as a creative?
I think you definitely need it. It helps for sure but I don’t want to set these big lofty goals because I don’t want to set myself up to think I am failing or to really beat up on myself. I want to have manageable goals and I guess more milestones.
How do you go about pricing your work?
I started to look at so many different potters who inspire me and who I aspire to be like and I started seeing how they priced their work and what constituted them pricing their work as such. And just really learning and deep diving into that and trying to emulate that. And also just being really considerate of my time, the time it’s taken me to get to a point where I can convey these ideas.
Do you ever feel awkward in promoting your work?
Yes. Very much so. (laughter)
Why is that?
I couldn’t tell you. I don’t ever want any one to feel like I am trying to sell them something. Obviously I am trying to sell you something, you know, Please buy my pottery. But I really do just want it to be an exchange, you like something so you want to get it, I don’t want to feel like I am driving you there.
Was it a game changer setting up your website?
Yes.
Out of the gate what was the first you thing you considered a win for having a website?
Being able to see where all the pots were going. I loved that. I Loved being able to write little hand-written notes to people and just feel that connection to people buying pottery from me. It felt really human and I enjoyed that a lot .
How do you figure out how much of your work is profit versus cost of doing business?
QuickBooks. Yeah, that’s been a game-changer for sure.
How so?
Just being able to itemize everything and see what I am spending money on glazing and clay and things like that. Taking an account of my time, all of that. It’s just very, very helpful to see the hard data.
BOOK
We Have always lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Contact
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