If you’ve been following me on Instagram over the past few months, you might have noticed some changes. (Or, you might not have, because freaking algorithms.) I am still technically making jewelry, but a lot of my time and energy right now is going into publishing books and related products specifically aimed at artists and makers.
The book part should come as no surprise. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a little kid. Books are my love language. I give them as gifts, I love getting them as gifts, and nothing brings me greater joy than when someone asks “can you recommend a book about…” Writing and publishing books is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, and I’m only just getting started.
But some of the other products – the artist’s merch, the journal, the notebooks, maybe even the planner – those may feel a little more out of left field, particularly if you think of me predominantly as a jewelry designer. But the truth is, a lot of these ideas have been percolating in the back of my mind, and it was two books I read last year (I know, you’re shocked!) that led me to finally explore these areas of my business.
The first book was Emotion by Design by Greg Hoffman. I’ll admit this book wasn’t what I was hoping it would be when I first read the title. As someone who is very interested in the emotional power of art and objects, my initial hope was that it would be about how to build emotion into the design of products. Instead, it’s more about the story of Hoffman’s professional life and how that intertwined with various initiatives at Nike, where he was head of global design.
But that was still fascinating, particularly because I’m always curious about our cultural relationship to sports versus our cultural relationship to art. Sports seem to get a pride of place in our society that arts do not. And despite the fact that most people who engage in sports do so at the amateur level (only a tiny number of people who run marathons each year are professionals) there is no myth of the starving athlete.
One of the things sets professional athletes apart from professional artists is a culture of sponsorship. This has changed somewhat with social media, but so much of the funding model in sports comes from companies sponsoring athletes, whether that’s on the team or the individual level. Not all of these sponsors are athletic brands, but that is the most common in individual sports like running. I can’t help but imagine how artists lives would be different if companies like Blick or Rio Grande (the jewelry supply company) had a roster of sponsored artists that they supported not just with free product, but with regular paychecks. (Or if Netflix and other broadcasters actually paid the artists that competed on their reality competitions.)
Sadly, I’m not in a financial position to start supporting artists with regular paychecks. (Believe me, if I was, it would be happening.) But there’s another relationship to athletes that comes through so clearly in Emotion by Design that I want to bring over to the artworld, and that’s a sense of identity and inspiration. A big part of what Nike does, through its products and advertising, is to encourage everyone that they can be an athlete. They have built a billion dollar brand by empower people to go after their athletic dreams.
And this is what has motivated me to start creating more products that help showcase our identity as artists. Because I believe that claiming ourselves as artists is one of the most powerful things we can do. That’s because, at the core of everything I do is my love for art. I don’t teach business to artists because I’m passionate about business. I do it because I’m passionate about art, and learning to be better at business is one of the best tools we have for bringing more art into the world.
I’ve been focused on the education piece of that for well over a decade, but reading Emotion by Design was the kick I needed to start thinking about showcasing my passion for art and artists on the product side of my business as well.
The other book that influenced this push into tangible products was David Sax’s The Future is Analog. I had read Sax’s previous book, The Revenge of Analog, a few years ago (even putting on my list of best business books I read in 2019) and was happy to see that Sax had expanded on the subject. Both books focus on a rejection of digital in favor of the tangible (from books to records), but The Future of Analog specifically looks at how the pandemic gave us a promised digital future (everything online all the time) and how unsatisfying that ended up being in so many ways.
This tracks with what I noticed last year, which was that, while online shopping was certainly up during 2020 and 2021, people seemed to be over it by 2022. While we might have developed the habit of shopping for essentials online, for special stuff, you know, art, we want to see, experience, and yes, purchase it in person.
As someone who has always championed selling your products in stores, this is great news. While sadly, not every local store made it out of the pandemic, more survived than we originally thought, and people are still shopping in stores, a feeling that was echoed for me while walking the most recent round of trade shows in New York. I did NY Gift back in 2009, at the height of the recession, and the mood was rough. You could roll a bowling ball down the aisle and not hit anyone. I’m not saying everything is back to normal, but walking Shoppe Object and NY Now a couple of weeks ago, there was decent energy. Buyers were there and they were writing orders.
But the flip side to this is that it’s made running an online business much harder, as people realized they don’t want to spend all of their time online. And when it comes to the side of my business that supports artists and makers, it’s thoroughly online. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not giving up my online mentorship program or online classes anytime soon. But I also don’t love the idea that all of my best work exists only online.
This is why I’m making more of a push towards books. Physical books that exist outside the computer, that you can hold in your hands. (While also still making digital and audio versions available, because I understand that some people prefer convenience over tactility, and that’s ok.) And while I love a good spreadsheet, I’m also leaning more into the parts of me that use analog tools (I’m team paper planner all the way) and creating some of those as well.
And while I’m currently selling these new analog tools online, making physical products will allow me to do more selling IRL (that’s in real life) moving forward, something I recommend you do as well. (Especially if you’ve been frustrated with your online sales this past year.)
This is the point where you’d probably expect me to translate my own experience into some tangible advice for you. But I don’t have any. (Other than to add some IRL selling into your business mix.) At the end of the day, everyone’s business is different, and what I’m doing doesn’t always directly translate to what you should do. So why am I sharing all of this with you?
Because I believe in transparency. And because, as someone who teaches business, I think it’s fascinating to get behind-the-scenes glimpses into how someone else thinks through their decisions. And I’m guessing you do too.