Bus 20 Ceramics is changing! Read on to learn more.
2024 was a wild year of ups and downs. The business had a record year in terms of sales, even while scaling back in-person events, and we built a community we became super proud of. I started volunteering with the Artist Mentorship Program (AMP) teaching ceramics, and I forged bonds with some of the most amazing people I've ever met. Even still, I took a long hard look at what capitalism means for practicing artists, and how more and more the landscape of creative work is changing, and realized we had to come to terms with some harsh truths.
There are a lot of reasons why handmade art careers are dying:
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People are used to slave labor prices. With all of the dupes of handmade art being produced by fast fashion and international wholesaling companies, customers expect handmade work to barely break even on materials. My community faces accusations of greed, selfishness, and unrealistic expectations for charging just enough to make $3.00/hour for labor.
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The handmade market is being flooded by SHEIN and Temu resellers. I can't tell you how many vendors I've spotted at handmade fairs with cheap items they bought wholesale. They mark up the item from the $0.99/unit they paid to $28, just enough to undercut makers on price and drive us out of the market. Customers can't tell the difference and buy up the cheap goods thinking they're supporting a small business.
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The wage gap and corporate greed mean very few folks have the cash to spend on handmade art. When you've got companies driving up the cost of groceries just because they can and billionaires sitting on a dragon's hoard of cash that can't circulate in the economy, we're being priced out of our homes, let alone our ability to buy things that bring us joy.
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Etsy got overrun by dropshippers. You have to dig through a million resold cheap wholesale goods to find genuine handmade items. Social media used to be a great place to find them, but with social media companies bowing down to large corporations and capitalist oligarchy more than ever, small businesses are getting choked out, with no way to reach their customers.
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To keep up with mass production standards, you have to break your mind and body. I know many kids in their 20s who had to get carpal tunnel surgery only a few years into their careers. My shoulders are wet from tearful hugs after almost every market in the holiday season. They come from exhausted artists 6 weeks into 7-day work weeks with early starts to workdays and late finishes. The sacrifice to make the magic of the dream work gets bigger and bigger every year.
All of these things together mean that having an art career is becoming increasingly inaccessible, and I'm watching more and more of my community have to forego the career they dreamt of to head back to a day job. There's nothing wrong with having a day job--in fact, I encourage most practicing artists to have one--but we all dream of the days when you could support yourself as a full-time artist, drawing ideas in your sunny studio over a hot cup of coffee, and heading to craft fairs to be among fellow artists instead of scammers.
Courtney and I both had to adjust our careers not for lack of Bus 20's success, which continued in spite of these conditions through last year, but because of how the work was affecting our lives. Courtney is taking her incredible craft skills and business savvy on to have a creative career with more stability and less stress. In the meantime, my body stopped being able to support the harsh demands of a commercial pottery career.
I've lost most of my previous physical abilities because of a mild COVID infection.
A very small percentage of people develop debilitating neurological symptoms after contracting COVID, and I guess it's time for me to buy a lottery ticket! After getting sick in 2024 with what felt like a very mild one-day cold, I started having nonepileptic seizures and severe muscle weakness. Over the course of six months my issues escalated, and now I walk with a cane, can't even enter the pottery studio, and have between 5 and 30 nonepileptic seizures per day. You can read more about this at fndhope.org if you'd like to.
I was ready to continue Bus 20 as a solo project with tons of amazing ideas for the new year. I felt a lot of grief over the landscape of the business changing, but knew Courtney and many of my other maker friends would still be involved in some capacity. More than anything, I wanted to devote more of my time to my two passions: teaching homeless youth pottery and creating free memorial and bereavement pieces for clients. I knew that if I balanced out my creative career to be slightly more hands-off I would have the time and the financial capacity to pour myself into these passion projects.
What I didn't expect was losing the physical ability to make ceramics. I'm slowly rebuilding my tolerance for exertion with the determination to continue to make art I'm passionate about. I have no intention of giving up, and it means the world to me if you've read this far and will continue to support my journey. Wait for me, baby! I'll be back in a new form soon!
Bus 20 Ceramics will live on with fewer identical items, more fine art, more illustration, and a larger offline presence. As we speak I'm negotiating consignment contracts with businesses to sell pottery. I'm most interested in regaining the ability to create, and relying on my community to help sell. I'm hoping partnering with physical businesses who vet their vendors will help us mutually survive.
You can help, too! Google lens is extremely helpful for finding out if an item you're buying came from a large factory instead of an artist or creator. As customers, you're uniquely able to call out large craft markets, local shops, and art fairs for hosting SHEIN and Temu resellers. You can also follow handmade artists on social media platforms to keep an eye out when you need a special gift or new mug.
I used to have a thriving career in operations and fraud prevention for financial technology companies. There's a lot more in common between these two fields than you might think! I'm looking at returning to that job market so that I can focus more on doing the work I'm passionate about and stop breaking my body to keep up with megacorporations. I really love my fintech community and miss a lot of elements of my old career and the community I found there.
In the interim, I still want to focus as much as possible on bringing creative joy into the world in whatever capacity I can. I know we're all feeling a little scared and uncertain about the future, and we deserve the chance to laugh and feel happy. I'm willing to contribute whatever I have to forging a beautiful path forward together.
xoxo Frankie