Andersen Design - Andersen Studio Contemplates Taking the Quantum Leap of Faith

Andersen Studio's new Internet presence is seeing growth potential and looking for ways to calibrate production and shipping to a potentially greater flow of orders.  Like most in the micro-economy private sector, there is not a lot of capital available to us other that that old American convention- sweat equity.


Earlier this year, I redesigned our website, using the open source Joomla template, which has a very sophisticated back end for processing orders and other information. I took the photographs and wrote  the text myself. I researched SEO and incorporated what I learned into our website design. I also activated a social networking marketing effort, for which our line of classic American ceramic art and design is ideally suited- (being that we became a collectible exclusively through the grass roots). Social networking is better suited to the micro economy than it is to large corporations. Etsy has been a great resource for us - both for generating new business and for greater exposure to design and shopping blogs and printed publications.


At this point, I do not yet have our entire line represented but I have created catalog pages for each section. The catalog pages play an important role in search engine optimization as they enable Andersen Studio to be discovered by a larger public through targeted search terms. I started with our line of birds. I knew that we had a chance of getting a rating with a "ceramic birds" search thread, where as our chances are pretty slim if the search term is "ceramics". Before I redesigned our website. I went through ten pages of the search term "ceramic birds" without finding Andersen Studio. Now we are either the last listing on page one or the top of page two. NOte _ I recently checked to find we have been bumped to page 3 of a Ceramic Birds search on Google. This may be due in part to pulling back on the marketing until We can better synchronize production and shipping- but that is just specualtion - it also might have to do with Google changes.


I would like to bump us up on the list so that we remain on page one but not at this time as we need to calibrate our production and shipping with our marketing efforts. The flow of orders that came in during July and August, which is usually a slow online season for us is steady and consistent. It can clearly grow once we have a well managed production and shipping team.


To this end I believe we also need more space, which is a risky investment at this time but it seems necessary to realize the growth potential that the Internet makes possible for a small hand crafted production like Andersen Design. I have driven by Industrial Way in Boothbay , where I like the feel- but that is the extent so far of my searches for more space. Since we have to invest in space and employment before we achieve a greater flow of orders ( so that we are capable of handling such a flow), I am looking for a very affordable space to begin with. ( There are other family members involved in this business as well)


One of the great challenges and rewards of ceramic slip casting production is that it depends on great team work. There are those who really love this kind of work. A business such as our has many different facets involving many skills. We will eventually be looking for a great manager.


I have also long been looking for a way to get other people involved in such a way that this business can be carried on by future generations and to that end, I published a visions statement a number of years ago. Essential to the success of such a vision is to have a licensing agreement that satisfies, financial, aesthetic, and philosophical needs. We also need legal council to develop a system of governance.




My vision statement- written quite a number of years ago is HERE.


The idea is a network of small independently owned production studios, united by marketing and a company identity along the lines of fashion houses which are started by unique designers but carried on beyond their own life time. Andersen Studio- Andersen Design has established such an identity and is also recognized in the field of mid-century design See Andersen Studio in The Media
 
This is an unformed project at this time. We will be looking for new employees and are also open to new partnerships. In a time when the government targets  businesses making a profit greater than 250,000.00, this seems like a good time to develop a small independent network of ceramic art and design productions, which individually might remain below the radar, so to speak- at least for now.

Andersen Studio has developed two large and comprehensive lines of ceramic design since the mid-century - original contemporary functional forms and wild life sculpture. Our originating philosophy was to create a hand made product affordable to the middle classes. Through out our history our collectible line of American ceramic art and design has been marketed in both middle class and high-end venues, we have also sold over seas most notably in department stores in Japan and Denmark. Because our line is affordable but also appeals to a higher end buyer, we have an unusual marketing flexibility. Because we have always been a micro-economy production we have never flooded our market, even as our designs have maintained their marketability over the course of half a century. Because we became a collectable solely through the wisdom of the grass roots, and because our line is expressive of genuine American individuality, Andersen Studio has a fair probability of weathering the unpredictable economic and political patterns that the private economy is currently confronting.

We are also open to partnerships in other states, especially sites with small government that favor the free enterprise system.

A Vision becomes a Process

Early One of AKinf Fish Platter by Brenda Andersen - circa 1952-1968? on slipcast form designed by Weston neil Andersen

An Open Leter sent to Andersen Studio's Email Followers:
A lot has happened since I last wrote. This story begins back in the 1980’s when Joe Randall worked for our production studio in Portland, Maine. It was there that Joe was introduced to the fascinating process of production ceramics, the same process that my father was introduced to by the illustrious Eva Zeisel, when he studied industrial design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, before and after World War II.


Joe was so inspired by the production process that he went on to study ceramics at Alfred University. He has since been involved in the ceramic business but we had lost contact with him.

My sister Elise volunteers her “service’ to the local land trust- (Yes – this is even before being promoted by our presidential family to do so). Elise helps to organize the Boothbay Region Boat Festival, which takes place at the shipyards around the bend from us in August. Last August I saw a slip-cast ceramic whale by a young artist, both different and similar to our work, similar enough so to say that the influence is there. I asked my sister about the work and she told me than she had put the young designer in contact with Joe.

When I saw the competition for a small business grant that the Juice Conference is offering, I formulated an idea for the grant and wrote to Joe for an estimate on doing molds. A few years back, Joe had done a block mold for us when we had a large order of baby penguins for the Smithsonian catalog.

After I had composed my introduction and contacted Joe, I learned that the grant process was an America Idol style oral run-off- and so did not pursue it, but none the less a process had been set in motion, merging with the larger process that began in the 1940’s when Eva Zeisel taught her land mark class in slip-cast ceramic production and a young man by the name of Weston Neil Andersen was a student.

When I called Joe I asked to have the block mold for the baby penguin, which I had never seen. The block mold makes the production of production molds very easy. I am interested in having block molds made of all our small sculptures, which was the basis of the grant proposal. Joe was planning a trip our way and said that he would stop by and deliver the block mold.

Last night Joe stopped by and we had a most interesting and inspiring meeting. It seems that Elise’s introduction of the young designer had set yet another stage of this decades long process in motion. Joe’s is a man fascinated by the mold making process and the design and management of a ceramic production shop. He does not want to do the actual production work but to be involved as a manager who oversees the process on a weekly basis. He has a colleague in New Hampshire who wants to set up a production shop and is ready to go but it hinges on the young designer, who wants only to design and market. The designer is going to the Atlanta and Rosen Shows with his own work and hoping to bring back enough orders to justify the financing of the project. Joe has another long-time associate who is their financing specialist.

Meanwhile, we have been side tracked this year with large projects not specifically related to our field. This has competed with our time and energy for focusing on sales- but the opportunities have been knocking on our door unsolicited. We are currently in the preliminary negotiation phase with three different enterprises that promise to yield quantity orders. We are also experiencing calls from former retailers with whom we had lost contact. The classical success of our line is a draw in these difficult times. Our line has retained its marketability for over half a century through out many fluctuations of the economy.

I was amazed to be sitting in the room listening to someone else as inspired and focused on the entire process – from design- to production – to sales and financing of a ceramic production enterprise. As I have written in my VISION statement, this enterprise hinges on love of the work and appreciation of the life style, and Joe clearly has that love and understanding. He was speaking about associates with whom he had a substantial history of dealings. We, ourselves, are a part of that chain of connections. Here I was listening to someone describe the emerging manifestation of the concepts expressed in my VISION statement, written a number of years ago. - And we are the link that can make the collaboration whole- not only because we can supplement orders should the young designer fall short of his goal and add to orders if he doesn’t- but because we have been involved in every aspect of the process for years-and we would like to have more time to focus on design, ceramic art and marketing – which is complementary to the project that is currently formulating.

It is formulating during a time when congress is discussing bills that may drastically alter the way business is to be done. If worse comes to worse and bills are passed that cripple the American economy with the highest taxes we have ever seen while simultaneously skyrocketing the cost of energy for every American -there is a back up plan. We would then look for a different nation in which to produce our medium priced line, while focusing on an upper end Art line here. Joe has experience dealing with overseas productions. Andersen Design has been recognized for art and design through our history and so we are poised to make this kind of transition. If best comes to best and taxes are left alone or even reduced and the Cap N Tax is defeated we can do both a medium priced line and develop a higher priced line in this country.

Andersen Design will be finishing the bisque ware in our own studio- at least initially. Our glazes are all of our own invention and are part of what distinguishes our work, only one other company has ever produced a line with our glazes and that is because a former employee stole the recipes from us. That company has since gone out of business. We also love the process and look forward to an opportunity to devote more of our own time and energy to that process. We expect to be developing more one of a kind work, which complements production work and often generates ideas for more production pieces.

In order to make this really work, we need to build a new ceramic finishing production here. This will provide interesting Maine Jobs- while the bisque ware production will provide interesting New Hampshire jobs. We will need to find financing for the new facility and possibly other costs.

As a small business we have always slipped between the cracks of establishment financiers. We are a genuine grassroots collectible because our work became a collectible by way of ordinary people deciding to collect Andersen stoneware. There was never any effort or collaborations with outside organizations to promote the collectiblity of Andersen stoneware- it was just the people's choice. By joining this network of ceramic production entrepreneurs, we can reduce the burden on us and that will allow us to improve our customer service as well as focus more on the ceramic process. We have not historically found great support through established channels- our business success is from the grass roots and so I have decided to spread our cause through our own grass roots. Thank You Grass Roots! We Love you!



Sincerely,

Susan Mackenzie Andersen;

http://www.andersenstudio.com/