Selling is a Relationship | Laurence André | Episode 618

Laurence André | Episode 618

Laurence André is a french potter living and working in Manigod, a small village located in Northern French Alps. Laurence settled her studio in the old walls of an old cheese dairy farm. Being into clay for 10 years now, working a white clay on the wheel or on plaster molds, Laurence is happy to imagine and produce small batch of tableware ceramics, slipware decorated one-of-a-kind pieces with folk patterns, flowers & animals that form merry different collections. Laurence is a self-taught, learning through experience – which she in turn is passing on during clay workshops in her studio.

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As you are making, do you have in mind not just this great product but also the great people that are going to be using them one day?

Yes, sometimes, depending on the different batch I make. For example last week I made different vases and when I made them I was think of the…most of the times it is ladies who buy my ceramics, but not all the time…I was thinking of the people who buy them. Because I know them in a way, you know, I have my own clients. So when I make something, they wait for me. I give a call and say, Look what I’ve got. Because I don’t make a lot, I am really working on my own with my two hands. I never have a big batch, it’s really the process of making one of a kind or small batch or I work on commission. Yes, very often I think about the people that are going to buy them.

You repeat a phrase , coup de coeur , what does that mean?

You don’t use that phrase in English?

No, we don’t. I don’t anyway.

It means heart stroke. Meaning you see something and you really like it and then you want to have it or you want to buy it. It brings you a feeling, you want it. You know? Coup de coeur. Coeur is the heart.

So this is a choice of love?

Yes, you can say that. I don’t know the word in English. I have heard people use it in English. You go, for example, on a trip, and you go to a nice restaurant, you didn’t expect this restaurant and you had really, really nice food and then you said about your trip, it was my coup de coeur. Meaning this restaurant was such a deal and you will probably remember it for a long, long time because it was really cool.

So you have to have a love for your customer, not just a love for your work.

Yes, of course. A love for the customer and a love for talking with people because people very often ask you all kinds of questions. Even if they know you a little bit they ask questions and you have to be ready to answer these questions. For exaple, sometimes one that comes very often is, Are you making it for a living? Is it your real job, or do you have another job? This question for me is really funny now because maybe five years ago I didn’t know what to answer because it was not a job, but now it becomes a job for me.

So part of selling is being able to listen and hear what is being said back to you.

Yes, and to be respectful because sometimes the questions are not very adapted to your work and to your art and they don’t really know what’s behind. So you have to be patient and be respectful when answering the question to you.

Do you think you have to be willing to give more than you take?

Can be. Yes. It can really be. For example when I do my workshops I give a lot. It’s exhausting for me. But it’s a nice process because it’s sharing a lot. You don’t count, you don’t count what you give. When you are in a passion job, it’s what you do, you know? You give and then when you give something happens with people.

How do you balance, this is my vision with this is a vision for you?

It is difficult that I think. It’s a meeting of people. When it happens I don’t think you really think about that and when it doesn’t happen because sometimes it can be slow or you make something with your heart and then it doesn’t work very well and the people don’t really feel what you put in your work. I think, to me, it has to be natural. If it doesn’t come, it doesn’t come. It doesn’t matter and you go on the next step. You know? You don’t have to force things.

Does that mean you see a little bit of what you do as somehow a collaboration between you are the person at the market?

I can be like that becasue sometimes people are my clients for example, what they say and what they like in my work is joyful, no? They feel that. ANd very often I say that when I work I am the little girl I was. I didn’t do that when I was a little girl and now I can do it. It is amazing. I am forty-six okay? But I do it like that. That is what I try to do and I think I can do that for the rest of my life. You can be a little girl at sixty or eighty. Then if people are happy with that and it puts a smile of their face then you are so happy. That is the way I like to work now.

It sounds like what you are saying is that you have to be sincere in what you are doing. It’s not just to please them it is from a sincere place in your creativity.

Of course, I think that is the point. To be sincere and to listen to yourself. And sometimes you are not okay or you have a period where you are not really okay and the work is more difficult to do . It doesn’t matter. You do something else and you come back when you feel better and then the work is better. When you are angry, the work is no good. When you are happy the work is good. That is what I feel in my work.

What is your favorite tool in the studio?

Should I say my hands?

You can say whatever (you like).

I would say that because you can do everything with your hands. That’s really, really the best tool. But if I was to chose a second one I would say it was a pencil to decorate.

How do you decorate with a pencil?

For example, recently I bought a batch of new pencils because the other ones were a little bit old so I needed to have new ones. ANd they were really, really expensive but the shape of the pencil is amazing. So when I draw on the clay it goes really fast. I work faster with the underglaze. Everything I do is by hand. I don’t use a picture or anything. It’s just painting on the clay and the pencil is so perfect that my work is easier to do. So I would say that is the best tool.

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