Hi! In this section I plan on rambling a bit about the day to day nonsense that happens in the shop. I have two colorful assitants that one static post will not do justice. last week alex wanted a dance break with sofie b hawkins "damn i wish was your lover", (one of my all time favorites). when told about this anna's response was "eeew". there's a constant discussion on candy, dark vs. milk chocolate and we have a daily countdown to oprah.(but we don't watch the ones where all they do is scream. that's stressful) Anna has been with me from day one on this venture and i will repay her continuously for all of her support. seriously, i got her to sleep over onetime last year because i thought a storm was coming and we HAD to work the next day. i owe her alot of thankyou's and peppermint patties.
On the business side of things, let me catch you up with the shop situation and why sleepovers had to happen. In 2006, i moved to Scranton PA from Philadelphia with intentions of putting all of my time and energy into producing tiles and figuring out how to sell them. My tiles got placed in a little spanish restaurant that served tapas and wines. i needed a job and they needed waitresses. so my work was on the wall and i was running around describing spanish cuisine and also how to enamel. it was really fun. a lovely interior designer saw my stuff and had a friend on the corporate ladder and asked if i wanted to make 1500 pieces. i delivered some beers and said sure. the next steps were all about the how's. i was working/living out of 300 square foot apartment. with one tiny kiln. i had 1800lbs of copper being delivered shortly. where was that going to go? At this point Anna came on to help me. i got a bigger kiln and then rented a carriage house from a friend. then we got a second kiln. my dad made all the woodblocks for the backs of the tiles. he also attached them. my mom helped paint the blocks and also packaged all of them. seriously. i think at the very end i mounted maybe 20 and i may have packed a box or two. i'll mention here that when i say 1500, it was 1500 sets of 3. so 4500 pieces all together had to be made and mounted, then wrapped and packaged. i talked like rainman alot. and had walls with random numbers scribbled on them that only i understood. this was a very interesting, cold year. when it was all finished, i moved out of the carriage house and rented a store front space to do the next contract of 1500 sets of 3 decorative dishes. this is what we're working on now. so stop by now and again for silly stories and maybe tips on what happens when your hobby/passion/obsession starts paying your bills -and racking up it's own set of bills
