Is there anyone who actually enjoys being asked that question? How did it become a staple of polite conversation? I lost all fondness for the what-do-you-do line of conversation when I joined the legions of unemployed law school graduates.
Right now the answer is simple: I crochet. A lot.
I have spent most of my time since taking the bar exam in July working a variety of jobs, some of them fairly demeaning, while looking for a "real" job. When you're sending out enough resumes each day to wallpaper an Upper East Side co-op, sometimes you need to do something that makes you feel good about yourself. I crave activities that make me feel productive. If it involves using my hands to create something beautiful, then it's more likely to help me forget the stressful thoughts that are dancing around in my brain.
While I'm still actively seeking a law job, I am also working hard to make the transition from hobby crafter to professional artisan. As far as I can tell, this transition is largely mental. I've always made art of one kind or another. I majored in it in college and have even had some pieces in small exhibitions. However, my artwork never became compatible with my tiny-apartment lifestyle (let's just say that the term "studio" apartment is a complete misnomer). When a friend first taught me to crochet, I sniffed a bit: I was an artist. This was craft. Make something that people would use and wear? How perfectly plebeian.
But something must have stuck, because I have been crocheting with increasing regularity and (I hope) skill for eight years. When I started making hats as gifts, friends and coworkers encouraged me to start selling them. I opened an online shop on Etsy.com, a marketplace for handmade and vintage items, in January 2009. Like many new Etsy sellers I expected the sales to roll in. I mean, my friends loved my stuff, right? And my prices were reasonable, right? And I always got compliments when I wore my hats around New York City, right?
Well, it turns out that none of those things is enough to create a successful online craft empire.
Etsy is enormous. As of today there are 271,433 active shops, and new shops open every day. Doing business on Etsy boils down to one simple fact: if your work doesn't stand out, you don't make sales. While blogs like the hilarious Regretsy.com poke fun at lackluster Etsy items, most of the work on Etsy is impeccable. Furthermore, gone are the olden days of posting a few dark pictures of your friend wearing that cute necklace you made -- many Etsy sellers now hire professional photographers, models, photo editors, copy writers, and graphic designers to make their shops stand out. Online crafting is big business.
Where do I fit into this? Well, I'm still muddling through nearly two years after opening my shop. With the exception of sending my very patient boyfriend on occasional trips to the post office, I do everything myself. I'm still waiting for that magical morning where I wake up to 100 sales in one day. I get excruciatingly frustrated at finding my items buried beneath 10 pages of other hats within minutes of posting them, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet. That's one of the reasons I started this blog. Hopefully by writing about my experiences as an aspiring professional artisan I can figure out what I'm doing right and where I'm going wrong. If I'm lucky, maybe people will even read my ramblings and talk about their own experiences. You know, kind of like a virtual stitch and bitch club.
Next time I post I'll bring a box of wine.
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