I saw that there was a business grant being offered through the Juice Conference- a conference of business , non-profits, banking, and entrepreneurs, promoted by the Maine Arts Commission.
I prepared an introduction and contacted a mold maker for a cost estimate before I learned the terms of this grant which requires that one register, pay fro and attend the conference and then present an oral presentation in what strikes me as an American Idol style format.
Since grants are very speculative, we had been thinking that we can submit an application without investing a great deal of time. We would like tioattend the conference- but we cannot do so at this time.
I decided to submit the following to the conference anyway- having already requested an inquiry as to a place for those who cannot attend the conference to submit information. Well see what happens- and in the mean time, since the effort has already been put forth, I am publishing the introduction I provisionally prepared here.
Proposal for a Small Grant:
Andersen Design is a long established Maine Business. We are the first ceramic production studio on the Boothbay Peninsula, which now is home to a small industry of slip-cast productions. This industry has fostered the growth of a skilled labor class- skilled in the art, craft and science of ceramics, one of humanities first traditional crafts. As private economy businesses we must pay our employees as we train them, often at a loss until the employee has developed a level of competence. Whenever Andersen Design has been forced to lay employees off, these employees have been immediately snatched up by other ceramic enterprises. The illustrious Eva Zeisel trained Weston Andersen, and the second generation of Andersen’s have learned from Weston.
Andersen began selling our original ceramic art in a 200-year-old barn on Southport Island in 1952. Our clientele immediately began collecting our work. Today there are many collections dating back to the 1950’s or later.
Our line of classical wildlife sculptures and original and contemporary functional forms is identified with Maine through out the world. We produce our art from raw materials all sourced in the United States and our glazes and body are as original and unique to our product as are our original sculptures and forms. Andersen Design has always been difficult to categorize because we are at once art, craft, a private economy business, a production line and one of a kind art.
Ceramic production provides for a lifetime of creativity and continual development. Because our forms are produced in molds using the stoneware slip-casting process, they can be made into production pieces that can be ordered by retailers for resale- or treated uniquely as one of a kind art. The design and production processes complement each other. A perfect example is our popular cobble dish- a small dish that can be reproduced in one of our patterns- which are identifiable but never exactly the same as each rendition is unique- or the can be used for experimentation and spontaneous expression- a process from which new production ideas emerge. Each piece is individual – a metaphorical representation of American individualism- and this I believe is the quality that has fostered the continual development of the Andersen Collector.
Andersen Designs best employees come from the rooted Maine Community. We provide a life style that offers intelligent and disciplined, and talented employees daily challenges and continual development of their skills.
Our line has sold in retail shops, museum stores, galleries, antique stores, department stores- as far away as Denmark and Japan, and catalogs- most notably the Smithsonian catalog for which our classic gentle sandpiper has been a number one seller for over thirty years.
In these difficult times we have been receiving unsolicited inquiries from established stores such as LL Bean and Days of Maine, who are ordering at first very cautiously in very small quantities to see how the work sells. We know that it sells well even in these times, as stores such as Lovell’s, in Portland, Freeport, and New Hampshire, have been surprised to discover as recently as last spring. The House of Logan, a long established home décor store in Boothbay harbor was taken aback by the marketability of our lie when they began carrying it a few years back. We are also seeing unsolicited calls from retailers with whom we had lost contact. They are telling us that in these difficult times they are gravitating to classical items- and in over fifty years of sustained marketability, Andersen Design has established that we are indeed a classic, both in Maine and throughout the world.
Still we need to put more money and energy into developing our marketing. We lost contact with the wholesale market when we stopped doing the New York Gift Show in the late eighties- and of course marketing has changed with the Internet. An increase in our internet profile is an increase in both retail and wholesale business. Retail business provides a higher profit margin, while wholesale business provides a flexibility that can sustain one through slow retail seasons. We have an active retail website- www.andersenstudio.com and an inactive wholesale domain. We need to research and develop targeted advertising and to also continue doing shows in which we bring our work directly before the public. This is an area in which we would like to develop partnerships with others.
This grant application is targeted at creating new production molds of some of our most popular items and at funding a marketing campaign-, which needs to be properly researched. Some places where we might advertise if we had the budget include Downeast magazine, Maine Home design, Maine & Boats and Harbors (where an article about us by Weston’s grandson, the author Colin Woodard, is tentatively scheduled to be published in the early spring)- Architectural Digest, Elle Home Décor. Metropolitan Home - or other national or international home décor publications. We have been interested in doing the Fine Furnishing and Fine Craft Shows put on by Karen Little Shows, which happen four times a year. In this regard we hope to find collaborators or partners. We need to put more research into shows in order to determine which are best for us. We also need to be researching foreign markets.
New production molds would decrease our production time by about fifty percent as well as producing a better quality result. New production molds reduce fettling time, as the mold marks are minimal. They reduce decorating time because the lines of the pieces are crisper.
Joe Randal of Birchstone Studios in Denmark Maine produced an excellent block mold of our baby penguin for us when it was on the cover of the Smithsonian Christmas cataloged a few years ago. The block mold dramatically reduces the cost and ease of creating fresh production molds. If we receive the grant we would contract with Joe Randal to create production molds on these items and possibly others:
Chickadee
Chicakee with Berry
Wren.
Junco,
Hedgehog,
Small loon,
Large Loon,
Sand Piper
Baby Seal
Mother Seal,
Seagulls
We are waiting to meet with Joe Randal so that we can figure out what part of the grant money would be required to finance block molds, and what remains for a marketing budget.
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