This is the third year I've participated in the Pots 'n Plants Sale at Karen Kim's house. It's always been a great sale for me with plenty of buyers and lots of friends stopping by. This year was a little different, but that's because I did something I'd never done before. I offered a whole table full of pots that I'd priced for only $20 and next to it was a table full of pots that had my regular prices on them. What do you think happened? Well, I sold quite a few of the $20 pots but absolutely none of the other pots. Bottom line: I made about a third of what I've normally made in this sale. Why did I have so many inexpensive pots? Well, over the course of the last year I've donated 30 pots to the Hawaii Potters Guild Educational Outreach Auction. We have 2 ladies at HPG who for several years have been offering after school ceramics classes to kids in poorer schools in the area. Quite a few of the local public schools have completely cut their art programs, so this after school program has helped to fill a need. Unfortunately, just a few weeks ago I received an email from the director of the program telling me she'd resigned and they wouldn't be doing the auction this year. So could I pick up my 30 pots as soon as possible? I didn't have any room to store them, so I decided to sell them inexpensively at the Pots 'n Plants Sale. I have to admit that the pots I donated were not my favorite pots and I didn't plan on selling them in a regular sale anyway, but they were still okay. Side by side, however, my better pots apparently didn't look that much better because people were quite satisfied with my lesser creations. In the past I've always offered a few pots that were seconds or were on sale and they didn't detract from the sale of my better pots. In this case, however, I offered so many pots at sale prices that no one looked at my other pots at all. Some of Karen's friends who were helping at the sale didn't help matters at all. They'd announce to everyone who came up to my tables, "Look at this table. Only $20 a pot. What a great deal!" "Those other pots are so expensive, but look at these. Only $20!" and such like. God bless them, they were trying to help!
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