46 years ago today, the first humans set foot on the moon. As a potter, I’m obsessed with making marks. This photo shows Buzz Aldrin making footprints on the lunar surface:
Aldrin’s mark on the moon will impact society forever. Earlier this year, my friends at StarTalk Radio helped get a cosmic mug into Buzz Aldrin’s hands (also- StarTalk just put out this awesome podcast episode with Bill Nye talking about his change of heart towards GMO foods). As more and more celebrities like Buzz Aldrin own cosmic mugs, my hope is that my art will help people think about important marks we all make on society.
To help celebrate this important day, the Bigcommerce Blog generously agreed to host a giveaway of my newest cosmic mugs! You can enter the giveaway here:
Bigcommerce has helped me sell pottery online for the past four years. Their online store hosting is a key reason that I have been able to make a living as a full-time potter. They generously let me write this guest blog post on their website:
“Apollo 11 bootprint” by NASA / Buzz Aldrin – NASA (original upload; ALSJ (AS11-40-5877)). Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_11_bootprint.jpg#/media/File:Apollo_11_bootprint.jpg
“Aldrin Apollo 11 original” by NASA – http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5903HR.jpghttp://www.archive.org/details/AS11-40-5903 (TIFF image). Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aldrin_Apollo_11_original.jpg#/media/File:Aldrin_Apollo_11_original.jpg
Special thanks to Ceramics TECHNICAL magazine for publishing an awesome pottery article written by author Marissa Deml! Marissa and I worked together last year and came up with the idea to create “Cosmic Mugs.” As a Marketing Intern, her final project was to write and submit an article to a professional publication. Thanks to her skills as an author, our work got published! You can read her four page article below, and also purchase a hard copy of Ceramics TECHNICAL here.
Artists all over the world struggle to find ways to avoid attaching the word “starving” to their job title. For ceramic artists, this often means going to graduate school, becoming a professor, and building networks in academia. Recent industry polls (from the NCECA blog) show how 50% of ceramic artists are academics. Non-academics support their art by selling their wares, working part-time, and pairing with community art centers or galleries. These are all great options.
But are there ways to support art making that we haven’t yet discovered?
Our plan is to utilize the internet to face the “starving artist” fear by forging new paths that would not have been possible until recently. By trying to explore every possible connection through the internet, and then focusing on the few that succeed, we discover new ways to get pottery into people’s hands.
In case you haven’t seen the Facebook posts, Joel is giving away one Cosmic Mug each month to help spark interest in his new work. You’re reading this, which means you’re probably on the mailing list and automatically entered in the monthly random Cosmic Mug giveaway! If you’re the lucky winner, you’ll receive an e-mail asking for your address so we can ship you a free Cosmic Mug at absolutely no cost to you. And the first winner is…drumroll, please…
Subscriber #255: r********@yahoo.com YAHOOOO! CONGRATS! Thanks to everyone else who signed up! Keep your hopes up for your chance to win the next monthly Cosmic Mug giveaway, posted at the end of May.
Social media sites and blogs let us creatively market pottery at extremely low costs. More popular blogs expose Cosmic Mugs to people who might never have seen them otherwise, like the Laughing Squid feature that got 1,000+ social media interactions.
We think it would be awesome to get Cosmic Mugs featured by mainstream media, where millions of people would see what beautiful handmade ceramics look like. Talk show hosts and their guests so often drink from boring, mass-produced coffee mugs. Wouldn’t a Cosmic Mug look cooler?
From left to right: Bill Nye (THE SCIENCE GUY), Boring Mug, and Chuck Nice
The internet allows us to build a network among celebrities. A few months ago, we started communicating through Facebook to people at StarTalk Radio. Their host, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, has six Cosmic Mugs in his office right now! The radio show has since evolved into a TV show, airing every Monday on National Geographic Channel.
StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson airs on Mondays at 11/10C on National Geographic Channel
#1 New York Times Best-selling author and entrepreneur Tim Ferriss podcasts through the Tim Ferriss Podcast, and he also launched a killer, new TV show this week: The Tim Ferriss Experiment. Oh yeah, Tim also owns a Cosmic Mug!
This week I am writing a letter to Bill Nye the Science Guy and sending it along with a Cosmic Mug and an issue of American Craft to the Planetary Society in California. We joined the Planetary Society, and we hope they will like the way Cosmic Mugs bring distant wonders into our hands, allowing people to experience the feeling of space.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with becoming a teacher or professor to support yourself as an artist – many of Joel’s greatest inspirations are teachers (shout out to Ben Carter – innovative educator and podcaster who you pottery people will love.) But we’re devoted to exploring new ways to find success in the ceramics field by teaching indirectly. Connections that started online have already brought Joel’s pottery into the hands of over half a dozen celebrities and astronauts: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Tim Ferriss, Bryan Callen, Joe Rogan, Brendan Schaub, Buzz Aldrin, & Mike Massimino. Monday a Cosmic Mug not only goes in the mail to Bill Nye, but also to Matt Mullenweg. He created WordPress, which not only runs my website, but 23% of the entire internet!
Our global vision is to reach a tipping point that causes pottery to enter the mainstream eye. Stayed tuned…
This is the final post in, “A Potter’s Journey” for American Craft Council’s website. I’m so thankful for the opportunities they gave me to share the trials and tribulations from my roller coaster career as an emerging artist. Please consider supporting American Craft Council to help more artists build platforms for successful careers in the arts. Without further ado, part eight of A Potter’s Journey:
These “Cosmic Mugs” are largely inspired by Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City (in the video, he’s the guy on my shirt). In his article titled, “The Universe As A Muse” Dr. Tyson said:
“Like the religious and mythological sources that so influenced art before and during the Renaissance, countless artists today are moved by the need to capture the cosmos—on film, in dance, and on canvas.”
Here is a video I made about how the cosmos influences my pottery. Enjoy!
