SNAG Conference - Seattle, WA (Part 2)

At the SNAG (Society of North American Goldsmiths) Conference this year, I attended a professional development seminar that focused on the topics of Niche Marketing and Photographing Your Work.  Just thought I would share a couple of highlights from the seminar here.

Niche Marketing was the part that I was really looking forward to, but while they had good speakers who talked about the niches that they were able to break into, there was not a whole lot of information about how to go about establishing yourself in your niche or really much on marketing at all.

The first presenter was Hilary Pfeifer with her alter ego Bunny with a Toolbelt. 

I got this image off her etsy page.  Super cute custom cake toppers.  (Plus it made me think more about persuing the wedding niche with my copper cone boutonnieres.)

Then there was Emiko Oye who makes jewelry out of legos!  Also delightful.

She had some good information to share:

- You want good professional quality photos.

- Balance your exhibition work with your production work.  People will see your big exhibition work and maybe can't afford it, but might be inspired to buy something from your production line.  (I thought this was great advice and definitely something to try to remember, because I know I can get so caught up with one or the other depending on my current situation that I will forget entirely about the other for a while.)

- Be accessible.  Be online, but also in galleries - you will get a lot of exposure online, but people also like to touch the work, try it on, and see the craftsmanship with their own eyes - things that you lose on the web.

- Get involved in your community.  You'll make great connections for future opportunities.

Then there was Deb Stoner who found her niche in eyewear.

Her advice was this:

- Teach what you know.  Become the expert in your niche.  (Hers is a great niche because there are only about two other people known for making custom art eyewear, period.)

- Curate a show. (Now this is not really realistic for emerging artists like myself, I think you have to be rather established in your field to even consider this as a possibility, but I could be mistaken.  Please correct me if I'm wrong here, and I'll get in on that!!!)

- In addition to doing work for jobs (for money), make time to do what you love.  It will keep you interested and it will keep your work and your teaching fresh. 

So definitely some good advice from some very interesting and talented artists, but not a whole lot of info on making your work fit into a niche.  So I found this blog posting  4 Ways to Make Your Products More Niche, and I think there's some good information in there as well. 

So check all that out, and I'll be back later on to share some info about photographing your work.  Until then, thanks for reading!

SNAG Conference - Seattle, WA (Part 1)

My, my, my... I have gotten behind again.  I wanted to post last week about the micro-raising workshop that Chuck Kennington and I taught May 21-22.  (No rapture, yay! That would have been rather inconvenient.)  But I ran out of time to post with only 3 days to handle business and pack for my next adventure, so that is just going to have to wait for a few days because I just got home from Seattle, and I'm really excited to post about the SNAG (Society of North American Goldsmiths) Conference. 

This is an annual conference and gathering of metalsmiths from all over North America, and each year it's in a different city.  This year, Seattle.  Cool city!  It's really great to be able to be surrounded, not only by hundreds of artists, but specifically metalsmiths, enamelists, jewelers, and craft professionals.  I was able to connect with some old friends as well as meet a lot of new and interesting people in my field.

Making plans for this year was a little crazy.  Usually people stay at the hotel that hosts the conference with a group of friends sharing a room (because these are nice hotels).  My plan had been to stay with my NC Black crew, but their plans were altered, and they weren't able to stay at the hotel due to various circumsatances, including the fact that they drove across country and had a thule trailer attached to the car for all their equipment, and that could not be parked in the garage.  Great.  So I called up my friends Annie and Ben who live in Seattle, and made arrangements to stay at their house.  This all went down about 3 weeks prior to the conference.  So I got my plane tickets, rented a car, and headed out west solo.  Scary!  For me anyway.  But it all worked out.  I flew in on Thursday morning, and that night there was a "pin swap" meet & greet session to kick off the conference.  I had made 15 pins for swapping, and unfortunately, I don't have a good photo of them to post.  But they were tiny copper cones (made with NC Black tools of course) with hand-dyed wool plumes poufing out the tops.  I liked them.  And in return for these, I got all kinds of neat handmade pins!

Of the names I know (it helps if you put your pins on business cards!), I got pins from Kristi Kloss, Lessley Brooke, Melissa J. Russell, Nancy Tiska, Kim Howell, Jennifer Wall, Kathryn Osgood, Kim M. Baxter, Erin Swietnicki, Callie Shevlin, and Maggie Smith/Quirk Gallery.  Well done!

Among lectures, artist spotlights, and various other activities, I also helped out in the NC Black Co. vendor booth doing demos and helping to sell tools. Here's a photo of our booth featuring the always fabulous Andrea Kennington and the delightfully dapper Les Bryant.

and the featured hammers:

omg, <3

That was a lot of fun.  Les and I were also filmed by Jay Whaley and Greg Berg of Whaley Studios in San Diego, doing demos - anticlastic bracelet for Les, and micro raising for me.  I'll post a link to that when it's up.  I imagine they just got home, too.

I'll be back later today or tomorrow to share some info I gathered at the conference.  But for now, there are other tasks that need attending.  Thanks for reading!