Welcome

Contact

Suite 2, The Coal Shed,
402 William Street, Wiarton, Ontario

roguegoat@hotmail.ca

By Appointment Only.

Rogue Goat on Instagram

Vancouver & Edmonton...a belated but ever so heartfelt thank you! I totalled my car just a few days before Josh left for Edmonton, and while the adrenaline of getting things (and him!) shipped (as well as the totally rare, snatched from between time, night away for live music) worked as a powerful anaesthetic...afterwards, not so much. 😳 Josh has now made his way across wintry Canada and my whinging irritability about my wretched back is subsiding...so we are finishing up the last “didn’t quite make it to Edmonton” pieces that can ship Dec 17. :) There are two large works, 36x48 (this is a smidge of it), 30x40 and then some $125-$375 pieces. Pieces go live on FB (previewed here over the next few days) Sunday the 16th at 7pm EST.

Last day of yet another amazing show in Edmonton at Butterdome Craft Sale. 😍 This set is 24/36/24 x 48 with what Josh lovingly refers to as “bastard” walnut. It’s actually Bastogne walnut...a little bit denser so more work (and expletives!) to cut.

Josh is in Edmonton for @signatures.ca , Butterdome Sale at the University of Alberta, running today through Sunday. This is (was? 🤔) one of my favourites from the Edmonton collection, 24x48, big Leaf Maple.

Work patterns.The Wheel of the Year is a Wiccan cycle of solstices and celebrations that pulls the seasons round cyclically...I often think of it when visualizing our artisan year. How each season changes both the work and our capacity for it. This strange responsiveness to other forces & invisible needs troubles people used to a nine to five. While artisans can work much longer and harder than average folk during critical periods, real creative work, the part that’s generative of ideas, technical growth and experimentation has different, somewhat invisible demands. We need fallow periods to regenerate to create. December/ January is one of my most creative phases but then the long winter nights cause the black dog to bay and I tend to struggle in February. Having a big spring show collection to work toward along with show application planning are a boon in this season to clawing time forward. Summer used to be our big season and festivals our favourite way to sell. But we really never made much work in that season, but spent lots of time on the road. Now it’s a period for family, friends, slow soft winds & dreaming. (Well, and Josh complaining about the heat. 😜) Every year I make a calendar of $ amount quotas for the holiday shows (this works better than size quotas as it allows us to freely respond to the best use of the wood). It starts the first of August & every year, Josh ignores it until September. 😳 Too long a lead time and he perceives too much latitude and procrastinates. But too much lead time for me is also problematic..it amplifies my anxiety and I tend to overthink each piece. My brain interferes with my hands and I question my competency instead of leaning into it. Perfectionism becomes paralyzing. Both of us need the pressure of a shorter time line to be decisive and committed. Quality over quantity, fallow to fertile, the wheel of the year.

A Work In Progress. What is most valuable to us about this life we have fashioned is not the money or even the making but the margins to be who we are. It has softened the ways that anxiety, depression and ADHD manifest in our lives but they still permeate our choices. Josh has a very hard time staying on task for longer than twenty minutes or so. His moods are quixotic, things can go sideways very quickly. For those that may think I’m throwing Josh under a bus here, let’s be clear...I have my own issues, it’s just in the sense of work, my anxiety is largely appeased by more of it and pressure (which is the opposite of Josh). Also animals and cupcakes. 😍 We are both supportive of what the other needs to be well and manage our brains while at the same time having healthy boundaries around not being responsible FOR that personal work. The discrepancy between how our two brains work can cause resentment between us, but it’s indivisible from the super hero qualities inherent in our neurodiversity; hyperfocus, empathy, observation, unbridled enthusiasm. I thought that a great deal of our work pressure would be relieved by Taryn going to school but it hasn’t really increased Josh’s productivity. He’s cutting pretty much the same amount as before , but every piece is really, really good. It took the type of pressure off that made him panic and try to take short cuts. There’s a ceiling to how much he can make, but his life fills up around it with more joy. Mental health affects everyone’s ability to function at their best. But when you are your work, when there’s no one to call in and cover your shift, when there’s no co workers or corporate entity to carry things when it gets shaky, when there’s a visibility to what you do and how you are doing it, the choice becomes about honestly saying what you are struggling with or staying mute and compounding the problem. So let’s have more messy real ness for those that need it. More empathy for the falling down and more faith in the getting back up. 😘 And more understanding that real success isn’t dollars or things or responding to email quickly or having “enough”, but giving ourselves space to be and to breathe.

Cash flow is a logistical issue that has big implications...and an easy place to start as it has the least to go with our personal work ethics. 😜Sure, there are lots of people in Craft with a partner securing the expenses or with their lives already successful from “real” careers for whom it’s softened, but for the rest of us, cash flow dictates how and when we do things. When we started, each sale was fed directly back in to materials and we had jobs on the side. We would make more stock only when sales warranted. Our first show applications were not just ones we wanted to do, but which ones we could afford the deposits and payments for at certain times of the year. My mum gave us some short term loans for big show fees and materials. We needed that boost to afford larger quantities of wood, panels and resin to make a substantial collection. Each show began with a long list of debts that every sale marked off. Abundance, scarcity, cyclically, until we reached a point where sales volume created a financial buffer and tactical choices became less constrained, with bigger numbers and longer timelines. That took five years to build and one year to undue. 😂 Because of this house and move, we dropped about a third of our sales last year...but kept all the overhead and all the momentum. So this past year has been tight as we recovered from one hell of a financial hangover. Some materials had to bought not simply when we needed them, but when we had the money...which was always later then ideal. We also had to work along the way to pay bills instead of giving ourselves a long lead time to work up a collection. And sometimes we posted work not only to tease interest, but to pay an unexpected expense. Like $7000 of car repairs in two months 😳 Because we are from Ontario, we often get asked whether doing the west coast shows are “worth it”. They are, absolutely,...they are also an investment. The booth is $4000 at CC. Shipping our crate is $700 and then another $500 to send it on to Edmonton. We always ship all the last pieces air cargo. Flights. Hotel. Food. Those numbers are not negotiable. (Continued in comments!)

I want to talk about a very double edged issue for us...selling out and why it happens, over the next few days. We came home with one piece this year, 85 % of it sold the first day. We have only a little bit more for Edmonton so the likelihood is that there will be many happy people and a few disappointed ones. We are so grateful that you support us with such intensity. It has created a bubble of relative security in this lifestyle, aside from the perks of being told you are awesome for days straight😜 and a validation of our inclination to lead a life centred on making. We never in our wildest dreams thought that we would be in a position of not being able to make as much as people want and it is still genuinely baffling to us. I still think nothing is going to sell the night before each show opens! The voices that understand that handmade is an expression of a whole life and has a season and a harvest much like a farmers far outweigh those that express irritation.But there are definitely difficulties to this situation.It charges our relationship with each other, with making, with show producers, with fellow artisans and, of course, you. I learned at the show that “pulling a Rogue Goat” was a term amongst some vendors. I winced at it, knowing that while most of our colleagues would mean it with supportive envy, there are definitely those that don’t. I’m more sensitive to those currents than Josh, especially as they wash up on my own ideas of perfectionism, professionalism and achievement. That sensitivity is leading me to articulate more clearly some of the “why’s” of where we are at with producing work. Because there always is a “why”, often quite practical, but invisible if all you can see is the symptom. If you take away the strange anomaly that is our popularity, the issues that I want to talk about ;cash flow, working patterns, avoiding creative burnout, experimentation, pricing...they are all logistic and psychological challenges that every creative person faces. And hopefully I’ll do a fair enough job of articulating a perspective that includes a community of makers, not simply just the two of us.

2 of 2. Show life is about celebrating each other’s successes. A big thank you to the effervescent @janicelutsenko for selling our largest tryptych for us and just being a lovely voice of support. I was so happy to hear that fellow Ontarian @fisheyesisters won the Gold Excellence Award this year. Jen is a sweetheart, it was her first year here and with the requisite anxieties. Being recognized by your peers for your craftsmanship, not merely your showmanship or saleability is so fulfilling. And Saturday night we bittersweetly celebrated Paul Yard’s retirement. For so many years he has stewarded this fantastic show and he’s just the nicest guy. Paul has been part of our real enjoyment in doing this show and a resource for growth & encouragement since we began five years ago, which is baby time in the great history of @circlecraft We also spent the later part of the night in the circle of new and old art carnie friends, trading work stories but also who we are. Spinning together a bigger and stronger web of connection. Big smooches to @wanderlust_faeriedust @splatandco & the cutest girl in the word, @mumbletease There’s, of course, you. A relationship of gratitude...you for the love of your piece and for us, our gratefulness for being included in the fabric of your life. Or your stories of where you first saw us, the piece you wanted or were able to purchase, your appreciation for my stories (😳), how you have watched us struggle and succeed. I’m writing this while laying on the couch after an overnight flight home to my family & beasties, the deep comfort of warm bodies cuddled close after absence and against the chill of an old house with snow outside its windows. And I’m writing this to tell you that while it may appear that we primarily sell things, what we really do, what all of you participate in, is a life wandering with love through stories and connection. Until next year, 😘.

1 of 2. Post show strike, not wanting to leave each other, vainly trying to take a flattering photo of all of us...we decided crawling towards the camera being tigers was likely to soften the haggardness of lighting, weariness and....being a lot older. It didn’t, but still...tigers! 😜 Dev @rawecojewelry & Nic and I have been friends for a long time now. That long enough and close enough that means that time and distance have often intervened (and sometimes wrongmindedness 😜), yet it is instantly the same as soon as we are together. The same meaning; heartfelt conversations, our deepest worries and hurts, but also reckless giggling, a lack of any conversational boundaries, impropriety (cider)...and love. Nic came with me from Ontario for this show and the three of us lived together for the week. Each night as the show closed, Dev & I would whine that we were tired and going right to bed. Every night we all stayed up talking into the wee hours. During the day we talk with our fellow vendors in stolen moments on the way to the bathroom or buying show treats. We are a community fascinated with our processes and desire to constantly get better. It’s not about becoming more efficient, although sometimes that happens too...but further into our creative integrity. Stronger in it. A great booth neighbour you connect with makes a lovely show even better...I was lucky enough be beside Clare from @themagpiesnestjewelry this year. It’s always affirming to have those conversations where another craft professional agrees with your instincts; more is not better, the necessity of making room to experiment, to make mistakes, how to handle influence as it shades to copying, the curious, consistent inequality of the length of to do lists and the hours of the day. Plus, I adore South African accents. 😍

@circlecraft starts today! So good to be back in Vancouver after missing last year.

About
Welcome
Art
Commissions
Where to Find Us
Care Instructions
Rogue Thoughts…

rogue goat Blog at WordPress.com.