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Peter Jadoonath | Episdoe 965
Peter Jadoonath has been making pots in the Minnesota Clay Community for the last 23 years. Over the years I’ve set up multiple studios and making processes as I’ve moved around and evolved. Currently my family and I live just north of the Twin Cities where I have my pottery studio. My interest is in making pots that are drawings and drawings that are pots.
Before we go any further, if you are interested in supporting me and my family as I go through my eye restoration, then here is the link to the GoFundMe campaign that my good friend, Ben Carter of Tales of the Red Clay Rambler started for us:
gofundme.com/f/help-paul-blais-recover-from-eye-surgery
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For a backyard sale, why work with a group as opposed to just doing it yourself?
Well working with a group you are casting a broader net. Everyone has different amounts of customer base and also just because of the amount of work involved, physical, to put it on. Having extra hands to help you makes it easier for everybody.
Is it better to do it on a private property rather than renting something downtown for the weekend?
Well when you rent a space you are adding to your overhead, unless you are getting a space donated. And then the private property then you are dealing with people coming on wherever you are at. And part of that consideration, public vs private is parking. How can people park and have access? Do they have to go down stairs? Do they have to climb up a hill? That’s just what you want to present to your customer so that you can make it easy for them. You don’t want it to be difficult for them to be part of your event.
Do you tend to lean towards physical advertisements like postcards and mailers as opposed to e-marketing like email and Instagram or Facebook? Where do you find the best traction?
I don’t know what works the best berceuse I don’t know how to quantify. Maybe I have to have questionnaire for people but right now we do a hybrid of all of that. We still use a mailing list which I think we are going to phase out for the backyard sale. The tour will never phase that out. So we do Instagram and email and Facebook ads, postcards and brochures and all that stuff.
Why are you phasing out the postcards?
Most people are ingesting their information these days with their phone. And I think the post card it seems more like something like a business card. People pick it up at the sale you had previously so they know about your next sale. Or they pick up up because you left it at the coffee shop. Some people may get it in the mail and put it on the fridge but most information is on their phones and it’s a situation where it costs money. It costs money to print the cards, it costs money to mail the cards and is it still returning on that investment?
How long before the adventure do you start advertising?
About a month. So we started our social media stuff and then that will go all the way up to the event. We place postcards all around and brochures all around by now but as a far as sending out postcards and everyone sending out their email newsletter, I have always found that doing that two weeks before the event is ideal. Any more than two weeks it just gets lost.
Real practically, you’ve got multiple people there, how are you keeping track of sales?
We do one point of sale system. So somebody buys a pot of mine for fifty and a pot of Joe’s at seventy-five and it just all adds up in the end and then we prorate expenses.
How long before and after is set up and tear down?
Set up begins on the Monday or Tuesday before the event and then nobody can leave on Sunday until the whole thing is torn down, which sounds like a lot but we’ve been doing it long enough everybody just knows the routine. So we can usually be torn down in like an hour and half. It’s pretty amazing to be going to this big thing to a grass yard that just has a lot of goat paths in it.
Do you do a post show review with the artists?
Yes, we do do that. We do it kind of informally. I always reach out to the group in an email and let them know when I am sending their checks and money and I ask them if they have any thoughts for next year. And they are all welcome to give input and one friend of mine, Sarah, is really instrumental in helping with a lot of organizing of the functionality of things so her and I work together and figure out how we can improve the process.
Is there something I should ask about a backyard pottery sale that you know is critical?
I mean, I guess if you were to say why. Why would you do a backyard pottery sale? And for me, the way I look at it especially nowadays with social media and the abliilty to broadcast on the internet, it used to be that you had to run through a middle-man as an artist, you had to get into an art fair., you had to get into a gallery, and get invited to this thing. And those invitations didn’t always come and you had to rely on someone else’s opinion, and ultimately you had to pay a fee to do this thing. Where with a backyard sale maybe the first five years it’s just your friends and family coming to support you but over time it’s this thing you are investing in yourself and it can compound and grow.
Book
The Manifestations of Sherlock Holmes by James Lovegrove
Contact
Instagram: @jadoonath