We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cassidy Crawford a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Cassidy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How do you feel about asking friends and family to support your business? What’s appropriate, what’s not? Where do you draw the line?

I feel beyond privileged that I have such a supportive partner, family, and group of friends to call on for assistance with my small, growing business. Being a one-woman creative business, you have to wear many hats and juggle many things at once, and sometimes those may be far from something I’d consider a strength of my own. I’m beyond fortunate to vary in skill sets from the people I am supported by, and if it weren’t for their generosity and pure happiness in watching my business grow, I wouldn’t be able to do what I love. Receiving their help in pricing my work, building a market sign, or just gaining their opinions are some of the moments I feel so blessed to receive. Asking for help was something I struggled with, specifically through my education years, but I quickly realized it’s impossible to do some things alone, nor is it as enjoyable. I found community and strengthened bonds by collaborating and working together with my friends and family. I see asking for their help and assistance as a bonding moment, and I cherish the times I get their presence in a “working” space. As I began my journey with pottery, I stubbornly bought broken equipment that my dad helped me fix up. While I started teaching myself new things, the occasional mishap would naturally arise, requiring my “lab tach” (dad) to help me figure out the next problem. Whether it was tinkering with my kiln or Jimmy rigging my pottery wheel, I was growing my love for this art, so much so that I slowly overtook my parent’s entire garage. Their willingness to help me convert it over time into a workspace is why I developed this passion, it allowed me the space to grow and expand as an artist. My dad was also a creative woodworker in his earlier years, so I couldn’t help but love hearing any and all of his business advice. I will never forget spending many sleepless nights manually adjusting my broken kiln to get it through a whole firing. He told me, “Sometimes you’re only as good as your equipment will let you be.” That’s when I finally doubled down and started taking my pottery seriously and immediately upgraded my equipment and haven’t stopped since; thank you, dad, for everything!

Cassidy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started my creative journey on the perception that you couldn’t make an authentic, consistent living as an artist. Despite always being drawn to creative outlets like dance and painting, I never thought I had enough talent to pursue anything seriously. It wasn’t until I had moved back to my hometown after my attempt to pursue a career in the LA dance industry. When that dream fell apart due to injuries, I decided it was time to return to school. While at my local community college, Cuesta, I took many ceramic classes but didn’t fully apply myself due to my skewed perception at the time. Despite having teachers generously encourage me to keep going with it and my academic counselor bringing to my attention that I had taken most of their art classes yet wasn’t majoring in art, I decided to rethink my path. After pivoting my life path yet again, I can now see it slowly brought me to my passion for ceramics. The meditative flow which ceramics offers me, clears my mind and I hone in intensely on my piece. I just can’t get enough of the dopamine I receive when dabbling in new, challenging shapes and forms. I chose to make every piece a one-of-a-kind experience, capturing where I was in the moment of creating.
Functional work is such an enjoyable part of my work due to the experience I hope it brings to anyone who owns it. However, I am striving to increase the scale of my work and explore more textual large vessels. I’m inspired by the full circle concept of clay being foraged from the ground we inhabit and then using it to capture the material’s beauty and natural textures around us. With this idea, I explore atmospheric firing and alternative methods of capturing colors. While this is my most recent avenue to explore functional work, it remains a consistent practice in my work.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

While there is an endless list of all the rewarding aspects of being an artist and creative, the most rewarding part is the process and seeing all your hard work come together for the final result. Creating a career in an artistic field is not for the faint-hearted but the flexibility and control it gives you is incomparable. While the freedom it can bring is so beneficial, the most rewarding aspect of my ceramic work is seeing a person bond with a piece. I don’t know what it is about witnessing someone develop a connection with my work and having to have it in their homes and lives that I find so magical. Perhaps it’s when I envision people having slow morning cups of coffee with a mug where the handle feels like a hug or maybe a bowl that becomes the perfect vehicle for a nourishing meal or a sculptural piece that brings energy and a dynamic visual to a person’s home! It is an endless excitement when I think about it. I specifically focus on the tactile feel of the overall piece, which you’ll see in the small details. Such as the lip of my cups are beveled just enough to be a fun drinking experience and the glaze finish are enjoyable touchable feel you don’t want to put down. My overall goal for each piece is to create harmony of form, feel, and function.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Call me old fashioned but the most effective strategy I’ve had for growing my clientele is getting out in the public eye as much as possible. You never know who might gravitate to your work and have a future opportunity for you. Getting people’s eyes, and in my case hands, on my work has opened the most doors. In a different trade industry, I shortly explored, I had to work for free or discounted rates to develop myself as a reliable and worthy business. This strategy did pay off, once my credibility was apparent so was the demand for it. While I don’t want my work to be cost prohibiting for someone to enjoy it, you never know if they could be a returning customer or have an opportunity perfect for your work down the line, so I believe the more work I can get into people’s hands the better. The more you can engage with people the better, that also goes for an online presence, I see a big difference when I’m less consistent on my business’s socials. The more eyes you can get on your work the better and consistency is key. Another thing I’ve seen be a strategy that I didn’t anticipate being as successful as it has been is teaching classes, people are always looking for something fun to do, and I’ve noticed that even in a quick one-off class if someone doesn’t become the next Picasso they do however develop a better understanding for my craft where they can respect my artist prices, or even better I gain a future student that I get to talk shop with! All in all my best advice of business strategy centers around sharing your work authentically to you and building connections.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @handcrafted_by_cass
• Other: I teach classes at a pottery studio in Atascadero California called The Pottery Atascadero, you can access class schedules and other information at https://thepotteryatascadero.com/