Teaching beadmaking and what to know about selecting a teacher

It's a growth industry here in the UK now, and with the rise in people who now own torches and have decided that after three weeks melting glass they're ready to teach, there is a need for some thought on the subject. Making beads is a very relaxing way to spend time, it has several great results. You chill out at the torch, you have something to show for your time and you can possibly sell your work.

But, once you show someone else your beads they say 'WOW' and the next thing you know they're over at yours and there's glass melting going on. It's great fun and happens across the world, people sharing their skills.

Hmmm... so what? What does this have to do with teaching and the rest? It's that next step that counts. The thought is this. I can make beads, my friends love them, we've melted glass together and now I think I should make some money off all this because I want to support my hobby.

Is this really the way to go about it? Years ago, when Mike was first making beads, after more than a year of making and selling beads, he decided it was time to take on the next step of teaching beadmaking. This was with not just time at the torch, an average of 5-8 hours a day, almost every day, but also with 30 years of being an art teacher behind him. You would have thought that he was planning to give lessons on the fine art of (fill in your own heinous concept). Despite the fact that he had spent quite a lot of time working on the plan for his lessons, and based his approach on the ISGB lesson recommendations, there were a few folk who thought that it was a Very Bad Idea, to the point that someone somewhere took it on themselves to write a personal LETTER to Mike, this individual castigating Mike in no uncertain terms for his temerity in taking the step of teaching beadmaking to the masses. No, really, it happened. With luck you'll never get a letter implying you're being mercenary and only teaching for the money without the skill required.


So, what does this have to do with teaching?

Everything, really. Someone, somewhere will decide if you're not suitable to teach. Usually it's a student or a prospective student. They will want to know if you're worth the money they're going to pay for the pleasure of learning how to make beads. And if you are, that's great.
How do they know?

The ISGB has a great guide to teaching beadmaking. They have spent a long time and a lot of thought on the topic, working to help people by preparing guidelines for both teacher and student.

It is important to cover so many aspects of beadmaking, not just 'here's a torch, light it and don't burn yourselves' and yet this happens. Before you take the step of teaching someone in your home, studio or elsewhere it is vital that you prepare yourself as much as the students. And, this is a very important and... can you make a bead? Not just melt glass, but make a bead. A consistent bead, properly constructed. Do you know what to look for in a bead? Is your technique sound? Do you understand the important basics, not just the fancy aspects of the latest popular glass colour but the sound principles behind beadmaking? If not, then perhaps you need a bit more time at the torch before you teach others?

Read the guidelines. If you're a student, ask your prospective teacher the questions they suggest. If you plan to teach, then ask yourself if you can say yes to the criteria as set out by the ISGB.

The link to the guidelines: http://www.isgb.org/education/standards.shtml

They're the best guide you could possibly ask for.

Honey or vinegar

It's easy to say thank you, yet so few people do. It's easy to admit fault, yet sometimes people get into squabbles over something that is just Not Important.

Customer service, it's the lifeblood of a company. It costs nothing to be nice, it pays huge rewards in both the cosmic, karmic dividends of internal happiness but it also makes someone else feel valued. You made the effort to do something for them therefore you show them they're worth doing something for. You listen and do not immediately deny responsibility. You listen and understand what is being said and accept that it has value. You do something about a situation where your customer is not happy, and work to help turn a negative into something that is a positive result for both you and your customer.

What can we do to make you happy? What can we do to make you a customer that wants to come back? I'm sorry, I was wrong, how can I make it right?

Aren't these the things that keep a business going?

Catch more with honey than vinegar, as someone used to say.

A life less well-travelled

It's been a week or two of reflection and pondering. New auctions on eBay, the ressurection of JustBeads as an auction venue, more beads being listed in the US venues of Etsy and Artfire. Plenty going on and something has to give, something has to be the sacrifice to the gods of space and time.

Bead fairs. Yes, they're part of the great glassy web that is our daily existence, but they are not always the best part. It's not the people, we love that, it's not the travel (not as loveable as the people, truly) and it's not the set-up/pack-away and drive home that are the problem. It's that there are so many now and the make-up of the traders has changed.

Looking at the schedule from three or four years ago and there were significantly fewer fairs. Is that good? Is that bad? Opinions vary. Customers love the convenience of a fair that is local to them, of course. It makes a bit of one-stop shopping easy, they can see a great variety of items all at once instead of spending ages online or travelling to distant shops.

Is it good for the traders? Not always. More fairs means less revenue per fair as people generally only have so much money to spend in a year. If customers have a bead budget of several hundred pounds over the year and now don't have to save up for the one 'big' show, then they may visit several smaller shows which are new and closer and more accessible etc and so on. But the traders still have to show up for the same expenses per show and three times the shows, so for the amount of sales of one show several years ago, they are now faced with treble the costs for three shows and only the same amount of sales from the buyers. Not exactly good for them, then, when it's not a hobby but a living they're trying to make.

And, in the case of beadmakers, there are more all the time. The growth of lampworking in the UK has been very steady over the past few years. Newcomers are encouraged by friends to start selling virtually from day one, enthusiastic comments in forums and from family and friends about new beadmakers and their work creates on many occasions a very unrealistic impression of what their beads are worth and if they should really even be selling their work. Plenty of these new beadmakers have almost no overhead, they don't have studio costs or large fuel bills for hundreds of miles travelled over a year.

Many choose to only do shows local to them, which is nice. Many of them also look at any money made at a show as simply a way to buy more glass, the chicken and the egg principle operating there. More glass, more beads, more glass, more beads. And nowhere in the middle is there the necessity to pay for various other things. It makes life simple for the occasional show, pop along to the venue ten minutes from home, set up, have a natter with friends, sell a bit and spend it on glass and head home again for a cuppa and a meal.

We've had a look at shows over the past year and have taken a decision based on several factors, and one of them is the preponderance at some fairs of beadmakers. This skews the amounts of traders, in some cases with several beadmakers sharing a table it ends up with the number of 'lampwork pounds' through the door being divided rather drastically between 12-15 beadmakers rather than five or six. In a craft fair or other arts or crafts show, the organisers limit the number of any particular kind of trader or artist, yet this is not happening in bead fairs. Yes, there are the arguments about market forces and people buying what they want, but to be honest there are other factors too. New beadmakers sell cheaply. They price to buy more glass to make more beads to buy more glass, most of them are hobbyist beadmakers who simply want to keep their hobby as a self-financing one. Nothing wrong with this, but are they suitable for bead fairs where the majority of the businesses are people who work full-time and derive their income from their businesses?

When we first started being involved in lampwork, we had the great good fortune to have the assistance and guidance of a number of beadmakers and bead people who use lampwork in their designs or simply love lampwork, many of them in the US and many of them very successful people. Uniformly, they were generous with advice but sparing with effusive praise for Mike's first beads that were nice but not earth-shaking. It was a long process, and one that taught us a lot, before we felt Mike's made beads were ready to sell. They had proper dimpled ends, they were well-made, they were symmetrical and even and made to as high a standard as he was able. And when the friends who helped us said they were ready for sale, we felt that it was true. They didn't praise everything, and they certainly had the courage to criticize things they felt weren't just right. And that's something that is not common in forums/discussion groups/whatever.

People are afraid to say anything that isn't a positive, even if it's a 'false positive' in that it's simply cheering someone on when what they really need is a bit of common-sense commentary. No one is able to simply say 'no, they're not that good and here's why...' because no one wants to be hounded or slammed or labelled as 'nasty', 'envious', 'bitter', 'insecure' but those are all potential reactions. And the same with trading at bead fairs.

It's not insecurity that prompts us to cut back next year on our list of shows to attend, it's practicalities like footfall, balance of traders and venues. We base our decisions on various things, including sales, but not exclusively. So, you'll see us at shows, but not as frequently. Our sales online are easier to achieve, we can stay home and get work done without travelling, we can have a life on weekends and best of all we can put our feet up and sell without having to leave the house. It's hard work but it's worth it and it doesn't start out the day with a minimum £250 deficit of costs just to do a show for a day.

So, next year we'll be about but the schedule will be a sleeker, more svelte one with more gaps between shows. We're already looking forward to experiencing weekends at home!

Don't blame the tools

I love glass. I love everything about it, the way it stays transparent when it's cool, the way light moves through it, the way it takes shape... well, to be honest there's not a lot about glass I don't like.

And yet, I watch people trying new glass all the time, desperate to get 'colours' or 'make it pop' or 'sing' or whatever. The new silver glass colours are fantastic in the right hands and yes they do sing and pop and colour up and do everything but wash the dishes and sweep the floor.

And yet...

What's wrong with simplicity? And walking before you run? And getting a grasp of mechanics and techniques. I see more beauty in one single bead made with attention to detail, with a sense of pride in technique and composition than in all the wonky silvered glass blobs out there.

Pure and simple are good. Basic work lays the foundation for progress. You don't get great beads if you don't have a good bead to start with.

Yadda yadda yadda.

For pure perfection of shape and simple application of a basic technique such as frit, take a look at the new beads by Dawn Scannell/Art Insomnia. Simple wound disks of black or raku glass but there's nothing simple about the quality of the construction, wound carefully and with attention to the construction of the layers of glass and then simple application of raku glass frit. And then WHAM! It's magic, that's it. The magic of knowing your materials.

Lots of people put frit on beads but not everyone bothers to understand the structure and reactions of the two kinds of glass.

Before flying, like Dawn, perhaps it's best to spend some time walking and learning how to craft a bead or what you end up with is the glass version of 'all fur coat and no knickers'.

The Beast raises its ugly head

Pricing!

Don't run away, it's not that big a thing, really. Ok, maybe it is. But it's something every artist faces.

How many times have you heard or seen a discussion about prices for art? 'Oooh, that takes some nerve to charge THAT for a bit of paper, string and paint', or the traditional greeting of *pursed lips* ... *disdainful but angry glare* ... 'HOW MUCH? But it's just a bead!'

Yes, we've all been there, or most of us, no doubt. It's horrible to cope with, it's soul-destroying to have people put their grubby fingers and opinions on your work without understanding that it's a real person standing there, not a mannequin or a robot. Sometimes it would nice to perhaps be a Cylon, because of the interesting 'delete' ability but that's just a daydream, so shall we move on? Right.

Pricing. Is it putting a value on some glass or is it putting a value on the buyer? Do you price for yourself or for for the market? What the heck to I mean by putting 'a value on the buyer'? It's pretty simple really. There are several types of buyer that will filter past you at the show you're doing. Craft fair, bead fair, market or whatever.

There are the browsers and grazers who are moving along, getting a bit of entertainment and eye-candy, perhaps a chat with someone who is standing there waiting for a sale. They can travel individually or in small packs, depending on the day, the phase of the moon or how many of them can fit in a charabanc. The odds are that they will rarely purchase but will frequently admire or gasp at the prices and bolt. Browsers are often open to a bit of information about why your beads are the price they are and often will give you something of value, if not money. They will nod in understanding and store the information for another day.

Then there are the skimmers. They travel quickly and usually solo, they know what they are looking for but not necessarily what they're looking at and may not want to be educated about your art. Price is everything to them. They're often the worst type of people to cope with as they have a set idea of what is 'valuable' to them. If you don't fit into their world-view it's very unlikely that they'll fit into yours. However, if the two views coincide, they can be very good, loyal customers and will sometimes surprise you with the things they buy. If they talk to you, it's to the point, and can be very knowledgeable about your work in particular and beads in general.

And finally there's the intense shopper. They pick up every bead. They come back several times. They circle before landing. They may never say a word to you, lulling you into a false sense of 'oh, just browsing but not buying' before presenting you with a handful of sets or beads, with a handful of money to follow but not much in the way of talk. They knew beforehand what they wanted, there's probably a list somewhere and you were on it. Other people may never get a look, but you've been 'chosen' and it's a good thing until they 'un-choose' you and move on to another artist.

So, how do you price for them all? Simple. You don't. You price for the kind of customer that you prefer, that you feel fits your work best and you want to own your work. Does that exclude some buyers? Of course it does. Some won't buy if the beads are 'too dear', some will not buy if they're too low in price, which may seem odd but is what I mean by pricing by putting a value on the buyer. You price for your market, you give them a sense of value by saying 'yes, my beads are not for everyone but they're for YOU because you value yourself enough to spend that kind of money on them'.

On occasion I've even said to people who were rude enough to point out that Mike's beads were 'too expensive' that I was sorry they didn't feel they deserved to spend that kind of money on themselves. Because, in many ways, that's what it is. Beads are an indulgence for many people, not a vital part of daily life. Watch people at shows, watch how they shop. Notice how they act after they buy something. Yes, it's an important thing to know. You sell happiness, as well as beads. And that does have a value. Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy beads. And we all know that beads make you happy.

So, then. Value yourself and value your customers. Stop pricing your work like it's something from a sweatshop. It's not, it's from your heart and mind.

Too much choice?

It's not an uncommon thing to hear at the bead fairs. 'Oooh, you have too much choice' meaning that there are a significant number of beads on display.

Is this good? Is it bad?

We spend a lot of time working on displays for the beads, hoping to find the right balance of presentation and display. We started out with a simple rack of beads, and some laid out on the table and not one single set of lights! Disaster. Lights are SO important when selling glass or anything sparkly. If you don't believe it, take a look at those masters of presentation, the Swarovski crystal people. Halogens everywhere, sparkly and bright. So, as we developed our displays, lighting was an essential part of the plan. And IKEA was our friend, in so many ways. We now own at least three variations on a theme of lighting from them, starting with the clip-on halogens, adding in desk-lights in one incarnation and then moving on to some really nifty folding halogens that tuck away inside our new displays.

But, what is lighting without a coherent layout? We've tried them all. Cards with the beads mounted on them, beads hanging, beads coiled in festive array, beads swagged, beads draped.... and have any of them made a difference?

Honestly, we don't know. When we're faced with comments like the opening one, it's hard to say. Is it because we DO have too much choice? Should we play the 'upmarket jewellery' approach and only put out three sets with tags discreetly turned over? Should we imply that Mike only makes one set a week and they should be overjoyed to be allowed to see the rare outpouring of his artistic genius?

Or, should we sling everything in a heap, put a sign out that says 'heaps o beads, go on then, you know you want to, cheap at twice the price'?

Answers on a postcard. Next time, it's pricing. You know, the Perennial Question.

Bead fairs are your friend

3am, and it's dark. No matter what time of year, it's dark. Darker than dark, really, and dragging ourselves out to the car to travel to Yet Another Bead Fair. 3am means a four-hour drive to the fair, and another four hours home afterwards, depending on the traffic, the pit stops, finding some place for breakfast (McD's a fave of the son, as he loves the pancakes) and feeling sure that the sat-nav is not lying about where the venue is.

The car is full of stock, displays, bags of snacks, a pillow and blanket for the yawning child and two Nintendo DS games for the longer stretches of boring motorway in the dark, where we will do battle with the forces of LEGO evil. Indiana Jones today? Batman? It's difficult to say until we get on the road.

Weeks of preparation are behind, now it's two hours of setting up, and six to seven hours of meeting people at the fair (any fair, they all run fairly much the same). Selling beads is only a very small part of it, sometimes it's the easiest, most straightforward part, too. People mostly know what they want and ninety out of a hundred people come with reasonable expectations, intelligent conversation and a sense of humour. It's great to talk to people about Mike's work and hear their appreciative comments about the beads. It's always a highlight of the day. And there are always encounters that will end up as something to tell our friends who are convinced that all we do is sit around, drink tea and rake in money. Sometimes we simply survive the day on our senses of humour, if the fair is slow and sales slower.

We spend part of the day thinking about what is happening during the fair: are the beads right for the venue, is the display working, do we need more lights or less things out on the table, should we change the layout... it never ends. So much time goes into things that customers never see. New materials for displays, new equipment in the studio, new glass colours, new bead techniques and a pile of discarded practice beads for every style that finally makes it to the sale table. We think about sales, will we just meet our costs or will we be so rushed off our feet we don't have time to think till we're ready to break the stand down for heading home. Sometimes it seems to be in the laps of the gods, all the hard work nothing as compared to the vagaries of location, inclination and economy.

Seven hours can fly past, or they can drag like a Very Slow Dragging Thing. We can smile or we can use the 'clenched teeth grimace' that looks like a smile but isn't. It all depends on so much. How many people are there, do they know what they're looking at, do they want beads or do they just want entertainment. On occasion, it's impossible to tell.

Then it's time to pack. We have a system now, it's almost a ballet, one person does the packing of boxes, one does the break-down of the displays, and it's now down to an art. Half an hour if we're lucky and we're in the car, ready to find someplace to re-fuel ourselves and brace for the long drive home, which can be anything from a couple of hours to a mind-numbing 8-hour crawl along the motor way.

Fingers crossed that the Nintendo batteries hold out!

Selling internationally

Sometimes it can be a problem pricing work for sale. When it's for sale locally, there are factors to consider such as the price people are willing to pay, how much do they appreciate handmade items, the economy locally, etc. There seems to be a willingness to equate handmade with 'cheap' for some reason. A price tag on a mass-produced handbag can be jaw-droppingly high, considering that the materials could have cost pence, the labour paid pence and the profits astronomical. The fact that such things sell readily and regularly is due to the social pressures that fall under that horrible phrase 'aspirational'. A name-brand handbag is aspirational, designer 'gear' is aspirational, but something that is unique and original does not appeal to the people who buy to give a veneer of social success. Only people who are confident in their own status and self are willing to buy something that doesn't have an automatic value in the eyes of others.

What does this mean? Locally, it means trying to find the right markets, the right customers, the right mentality that says 'original is good'.

Add in the factor of trying to sell across not just national boundaries but also across various currencies and it can become a nightmare. It's not as bad if you sell in a currency that is on the lower side of an exchange rate, you can price your work properly and achieve the prices you feel are appropriate for your efforts but if you are selling from the upper slope of the exchange rate suddenly it becomes a problem. A set of beads worth £35 to someone in the UK may be worth the same in unit value, but $35 isn't anywhere close in value to someone whose income is marked in pounds rather than dollars.

So, what's a beadmaker to do? Well, we take a pragmatic view of things. If we sell in a dollar market, we have to price in comparable units, so when we list things on Etsy or ArtFire or eBay.com, we consider the unit price as our guideline. What does this mean? A bargain for UK buyers who get a virtual discount depending on the exchange rate, and a reasonable price for people who pay in dollars.

It's the only way to swim the seas of the international currency ocean. Sometimes you give a little but you get a lot. What we get is great customers and a chance to extend the range where the beads are seen. Can't beat that.

Blogging again

Can't keep up with so many different places to update things so I'll just use this, ok?

The Tillerman Beads online shop, ten new sets going up today.

Etsy, new beads today.


eBay, new auctions this afternoon!

Yes, I know, it's a short post but so much information in such a small space, eh?