by Whitney Smith

Potter, Whitney Smith has written up a great post on wholesaling at The Handmade Artist that is pretty informative for artists. Here's the start:

Many artists face the dilemma or whether or not to wholesale their work to stores and galleries. When I did my first American Craft Council wholesale show in Baltimore back in 2001, I couldn't imagine anything more exciting than having a store carry my work. I really wanted that validation and exposure in a retail environment, as many artists do. But I didn't have a clue what I was getting myself into. Back then, my ceramic work was incredibly labor intensive and one-of-a-kind. I knew how to throw in a production schedule, but the finishing work was impossible to fit into a production mode without losing my mind from the repetition. But I didn't know this yet. I went to the show, was happy to come home with $5,000 worth of orders, and promptly burned myself down to a tiny little crisp in the following months as I filled the orders. I quickly realized my precious pots, priced to move, weren't going to begin to compensate me for the amount of time I was putting into creating them, nor would they cover my costs at the loony bin where my husband was making a reservation for me. Read more...