We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joey Chessey a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Joey, thanks for joining us today. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers
With our business model of traveling around to art fairs all year round, we never have control over the weather (unfortunately). We have been through it all; rain, HEAVY rain, hail, strong winds… you name it. So, we have had some crazy experiences when it comes to selling at in-person art fairs.
In October of 2023, we participated in the Virginia MOCA Boardwalk Art Show along the boardwalk of Virginia Beach, VA. I had heard some crazy stories about the weather there, but also good stories about sales; so I figured we would try it. The show started Friday and the weather was absolutely gorgeous! Perfect beach weather. But, the forecast for Saturday and Sunday called for strong winds; all day and night long. We came to open up the booth on Saturday to some pretty strong gusts of wind. As the day continues, the wind just keeps getting more and more rough. Like… BAD. The radar said we were getting gusts of up to 40MPH, but these gusts were definitely higher than that. We spent most of the day holding onto the bars of our canopy and the bars of our display to hold everything down from rattling and shaking the pottery off of it. The show was roughly 7 hours long and most of the entire day was spent holding onto our work for dear life. Thankfully, we got through the day with no damage and only a slight bit of pain in our arms from holding onto our display!
Sunday’s forecast was calling for equally as bad of weather. We got to our booth (thankfully, still in tact) and right away had to get back onto the *holding on for dear life* train with myself holding onto the front tent bars and my partner holding onto the display bars. The winds were absolutely BRUTAL and nearly had us both in tears. I would say we were getting 50MPH+ gusts at certain points. Towards noon of that day, there was one gust of wind that you could literally *hear* coming towards us, hit us like a brick wall and lasted for a solid minute straight. After that gust, I said “screw this, I’m done”. So, we started to pack up our booth early, which is a big no-no in the art fair world… we just couldn’t continue to hold on to a booth with all of our strength, to not even make any sales at that. After packing our booth up, the weather cleared up a fair bit, and the crowds came back out. Part of us felt stupid for packing up early, but at that point in the weekend, we were so drained in ever aspect to even care.
After leaving the city on Monday morning with sore arms and barely breaking even on our expenses for the weekend, it was decided we would never go back to Virginia Beach, VA again!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
So, I am a self-employed ceramic artist! I primarily craft my work to be utilitarian, but I also have a fair bit of decorative work as well. I make everything on the pottery wheel, and then sometimes after it’s thrown, I will carve onto it or alter it. All of our glazes that we use are also handmade by us; completely safe for food use, as well as use in the microwave, dishwasher and oven! I fire in a “reduction” atmosphere in a gas kiln, which is essentially the opposite of the atmosphere you can get in a typical electric kiln – which results in my bold and earthy glazes showcased!
My love for pottery started in high school after the pottery wheel portion of our ceramics class started. I was pretty bored with the class until we used the wheel; something clicked for me there. I went on to trade-for-space at a local clay studio, now formerly known as Funke Fire Arts. During that time, I also was working as an assistant for a production potter. All of these experiences helped me hone more deeply into my craft, helped to learn more of the business side of things, as well as let me just play around and explore with resources I didn’t have at my disposal beforehand.
While I am the primary “maker” of the work, my partner Tyler is also an integral part of our business. He operates our website and online store, takes all of our photos, takes care of the entire home… this list could go on! He is also dabbling into the clay work with some hand building, and we are hoping to start showcasing his work very soon!
As stated above, we do have an online store where we procure a fair bit of our yearly income from. Most of our income, though, comes from juried art fairs. We exhibit at over 20 art fairs throughout the year, as close as an hour away from us, and as far as 20 hours away from us! We travel around many weekends of the year, set up a 10x10ft canopy, a display, our work and sell to the folks of the cities that we visit! We love the lifestyle that we’ve chosen, but it can be very mentally, physically and emotionally strenuous.
Regardless of how you find our work; whether it be online or in person, or more recently, through a gallery – we want our collectors to be able to enjoy their pottery every single day. Pottery is meant to be used, loved and cherished. Whether it’s that wind- down wine at the end of the night in a stemless wine tumbler, or one of your famous side dishes in a large serving bowl; we love being able to be a part of your every day lives through our handmade pottery.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
To be quite honest, funding the business was incredibly hard. I made the decision to become self employed after quitting a few crappy jobs in a row, with my partners push for me to be happy and to be my own boss. When that moment came, I barely had a few thousand dollars to my name. And if you have ever started a business… you know that amount is… absolutely nothing. Within a month or so, most, if not all of that capital was gone on renovating the studio space, buying some of the equipment and tools needed, and I barely had enough to have a functioning studio. Throughout the first year I had to bootstrap my business entirely with everything I had. Every weekend event, or online sales revenue I received was immediately put back into the business to actually start creating a workable studio space and get all of the right equipment for my needs. Even now, I’m still purchasing new tools and such to further help the studio run smoothly, but that first year was a doozy! There were times I didn’t think I would make it, and times I thought to myself “Will I ever be able to retire?!” – but now that the first year of self employment is over, I can get a good chuckle. It never is easy to own a business, but it DOES get easier over time!
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
So, fun fact; my business partner is my partner in life, Tyler! Him and I actually met at a concert years before we started dating. He was traveling around for work, and my friend group and his friend group somehow started mingling, and him and I hit it off. We stayed in contact throughout the years (not very well!) until he moved back to the area. We decided to hang out when there was a huge art event in Cincinnati. After that night, the rest has been history!
Since then, we have been through so much! He has seen me go from awful job, to awful job, and is the main reason I am self employed right now. He saw how unhappy I was working for others who didn’t appreciate my work ethic, and saw how much drive I have for my craft and knew I would be a fantastic business owner. I genuinely wouldn’t be where I am (where we are!), without his love, support and dedication. Over the past few years of running the business, he truly has been an integral part of its smooth sailing and has even started getting his hands dirty in the clay and making work!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sunrysepottery.com/
- Instagram: @sunrysepottery
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sunrysepottery
Image Credits
Tyler Hack, Myself.