Brewing Inspiration…

… She sold it to me for a fabulous price because the sale was almost over. She said she really didn’t care that much about making money from her pieces, because she just liked to make things and she wanted people to have them.

I’m mulling this over every time I use her teapot. I think it’s wonderful if you can find something you love to do and do it for its own sake, regardless of gatekeepers, regardless of whether you can sell it to anybody.

For me, that’s an idea much easier to apply to visual than verbal art. I have a hard time separating my writing from the question of who will read it… who will buy it. I don’t really like to think of writing as a business, but it is. Hard to see the point of writing stories if nobody reads them–and it’s hard to get people to read them if they don’t see them as something worth paying money for.

But I’d like to try to be more like this pottery artist. I asked if she had a card on her–I was thinking I could get in touch and tell her how much I was enjoying her teapot. But she said no, she didn’t worry about making a business out of her art, so she didn’t have cards.

So I gave her one of mine. Maybe she’ll find this blog someday and see how her teapot is helping me make a lot more than tea.