I stopped posting my finished work and the right people started writing
Somewhere along the way I stopped showing finished pieces and started showing the torn paper pile on my studio floor. Rough edges, the ugly rejects, the stack of book pages I was deciding not to use. Not deliberate. I just got tired of curating.
The emails I get now are from people who ask about the process, not the pieces. A collector in Oslo bought three things because she said she wanted to own the part I hadn't thrown away. Still small numbers, but the conversations are better.
I think showing the finished thing invites people to judge it. Showing the mess invites them in. Two weeks ago I posted a photo of my hands covered in paste and got more genuine replies than anything I've put up in a year.
No idea if this scales. But I'd rather have forty people who care than four hundred who scroll past.
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this makes so much sense and honestly it's got me thinking about my own page. i post the finished pieces out of the kiln and people scroll past, but the other week i posted a photo of a face that cracked right across the jaw during drying, and the comments were way more alive. people wanted to know what happened, not whether it was good.
there's something about the mess that says "you could do this too" and i think that's what people actually want. the finished thing is a wall. the pile of torn paper is a door.
Oslo collector is a good sign too. the people who buy process over polish are the ones who get it long term, i think. my granny says the same thing about her cooking recipes, the stained pages are the ones worth keeping.