10/20/26
There are many hats that you wear being a Studio owner. There is the teacher, the accountant, the inventory manager, the store clerk and custodian among a few. I got into this for several reasons. The first being that my house and garage were becoming so full that I couldn’t do any pottery work. You soon start to thinking and asking yourself what would it cost to rent outside studio space for myself and my work. Being the entrepreneur that I am and the cost, that idea soon morphed into opening up a commercial studio. Needless to say with that concept, it evolved to how to make a commercial studio pay for itself. Having started several businesses in my past lives (I started with partners the first legal distillery in Oklahoma for one), I didn’t see that as a big problem. You start off by deciding exactly what business to start. Then figuring out how you will make your money doing it. You research the things that you need such as machinery, a place to rent, supplies, etc. You put this all in a spreadsheet called a proforma and figure out what it costs to start, what is will cost to run it, estimated projected sales, profit on those sales. With all that you then figure out where your breakeven point will be and how long it will take to get there. I am sure that I have left out a lot of steps, but you get the idea. With all that you have your concept and basic business plan. It goes downhill from there. What is left is lots of hard work and long hours. So far, it has been well worth it.

09/26/26
Last weekend I went and sold at the Elk City Fall Festival. I always enjoy visiting Elk City and have family there. Each festival is always a little different and each year is always different. This year I felt that people were holding on to their money a little more. Sales were not easy. I had lots of compliments and even met some folks that came back this year to buy more of my stuff but the overall sales were just not there. I am hoping that this is not a harbinger of things to come in our economy.

07/18/26
Trials and Tribulations

Opening any business is not easy. This is my fourth . In college I had a t-shirt printing and selling business mainly focused on dorm residents. Later on I started a computing consulting business and in 2003 I along with some partners started the first legal distillery in the State of Oklahoma (Old Russia Distillery). Over the years I have learned a few things and trust me, even though the Studio has had problems they are nothing compared to starting a distillery.

Starting a new business involves many steps and processes. The first is finding a location that meets your needs. Over the years I have made mental notes about where I saw problems the other studios in town were having. The main one is the lack of parking. I made sure our parking lot is very large. The next is not having enough space to make learning and classes easy. Mainly only having enough space such that only one class can happen at one time. Classes also restricted when and what type of Open Studio time for their members. Spain Pottery has four separate rooms. The first room is the Gallery and is used for selling product and pottery supplies. There are separate wheel throwing and hand building/glazing rooms. Room four is the storage and kiln room. I chose this space in the hopes it addresses the concerns and complaints that I have heard over the years. I am also hoping that this space will foster better learning and the building of a creative community here on the southside of Oklahoma City.

07/11/26
Introduction

I have been a maker since my childhood. I would things like take apart pallets and crates and then build things with the wood. At that time the biggest restriction to my creativity was the lack of tools. Back then tools were expensive and not easy to come by (hence why I have way tom many now). Since we were poor all I had was a hammer, a dull saw and a couple of screwdrivers. With those I built small pieces of furniture, shelves and anything else that I or my family might have needed. They may have not looked pretty but they filled a need and allowed me to express myself. From there I slowly acquired more tools and taught myself how to do basic woodworking and how to repair things. I call myself a maker because I also have built a couple of companies along the way and taught myself lots of skill. I am a self taught programmer who went back to school to have something showing that I did know what I was doing. In my career I have been everything from a programmer, a network engineer, a server engineer, to finally to being the Director of Cyber Security of the company I worked for. During that time I learned 3D printing, Laser Etching/Cutting, Woodworking remodeling houses, watercolor painting and lots of little skills which has allowed me to create/build/maintain/fix most things in my life.

Now out of all my passions, the one I seem to enjoy most is pottery. I started learning pottery about 4 years ago about a year after my wife died. My sisters bought me basic wheel throwing lessons in April of 2022. Working with clay felt natural to me. Like everyone else I wasn’t very good but a part of me wanted to push myself to become better. Now 4 years later after many fails, mistakes and a few things of beauty I decided to open up my own studio here on the south side of Oklahoma City. This blog is to document this journey and the lessons that I will be learning.