Kness has a small creative business known for being independent, sustainable, and producing handmade art. She used to be a web marketing expert and consultant before becoming a full-time creator, and she smartly integrates her marketing knowledge collected in the past into her art business today.
She keeps an eye on the creator landscape, from platform changes to cultural shifts, from the importance of SEO to the challenges of AI. This interview, besides telling Kness’s creative journey, is packed with useful tips for artists and makers, and so we’re extremely happy to share it with you.
How long did it take to become a full-time creator?
It’s a pretty tough question because I’ve been a full-time creator on and off throughout my career. But when it comes to my latest gig, creating cute ceramic animals 😊, from the time I took my first pottery class in the summer of 2018 to when I dropped my consulting job by the end of 2021, it’s taken a little over 2 years of juggling.
How do you find the themes and ideas to work on?
I usually draw my inspiration from the unending well of cuteness all around me. I follow a lot of other artists, and I love the outdoors, so between pretty art and elusive wildlife, I’m all set with ideas when I sit at the wheel or the desk for painting. My customers also provide loads of ideas and inspiration. With some of them, we can talk for hours about projects and stuff they’d like, so I can also pick their brains for new, lovely ceramics.
You have ready-made art pieces and you do commissions. What is the ratio of the two regarding the number of works or projects, and how do these influence your income or profit?
It’s a cycle. I usually start the year with custom orders and end it with ready-made collections. I’d say my work is probably ⅓ custom orders and ⅔ ready-made art. The income is basically the same. Custom orders are more expensive because I spend more time on them, between communication with my clients, making sure I have things right and sometimes redoing the occasional failed piece. My own collections are a little bit more affordable, but I can make them quicker.
Which category of your artwork is the most popular? Figurines, jewelry, tableware?
It depends on whether we’re talking revenue or number of items sold, but generally speaking, tableware is definitely the highlight of the shop. People like to get something pretty and useful 😊
You also do illustrations. How does that fit together with your ceramics business?
I started out as an illustrator, so illustration came before ceramics. I always do both in the sense that a mug is a ceramic piece, but it’s also illustrated. I find that it’s a whole and a balance. I feel better making objects than just painting. It’s the diversity of activity that makes me the happiest. 😊
Illustration gives me some passive income, too, and it’s not much, but it always helps (washi tape with The Washi Station, art prints with INPRNT, print-on-demand goodies with Threadless).
Where are most of your customers located? Where do you ship the most?
Definitely the US, although I’ve noted a rise in my fellow Canadian customers’ awareness lately. Then it’s Europe, and after that, it’s a mix of destinations. I shipped to Greenland once. 😊
Have you tried selling on any e-commerce platforms, or have you always had your own webshop?
Yes, I tried Etsy at the start of my career, and I wrote a whole blog post series about this experience and why I turned to having my own webshop (here and here). Etsy has definitely changed a lot in the past 10-15 years and the changes are not favoring artists.
What marketing strategies do you implement to build awareness around your art?
I used to build my audience with SEO, but the invasion of AI-scrapped content has really muddied the waters here. It’s tough because AI will scrape my content (text and pictures) to feed the user some approximation of answers via search engines. And while people used to click on a Google search engine link and spend some time on my website, now they just read a mishmashed paragraph and are probably not satisfied with that either. Nobody benefits from this, unfortunately.
Nowadays, I focus on SEO still. It’s important, and I’m still hopeful that AI will somehow get out of the way. Quality content written by humans is essential. I also work a lot on social media and I use several of them, because as we all witnessed, one can disappear in an instant with your hard-won following. The most important thing I work on is my e-mail list: it’s the best way to keep a loyal following.
What are some of the important things that you’ve learned in your creator journey in general that you would be happy to share with other creators?
I have several rules that I try to stick to:
- Keep consistent schedules (work 9-5, regular meals and walks, weekends are off)
- Always add more time than you think you will need to complete something (like 30-50% more)
- Always keep a third to half of your earnings in a separate account for taxes, etc. + work with another account for all your work expenses and revenues
- Don’t trust billionaires! Diversify.
- Always stay positive on your pro accounts
- Track your numbers (analytics, etc.)
What was your pricing strategy in the beginning and how does it look now? What did you learn in this area?
My early strategy was no strategy. 😊 I sold my pieces because friends and family wanted them. I gave them away at first, then I sold them for close to nothing, and after a while, I got more confident with my own work quality, so I started to charge more.
Now, I consider how much I would like a certain piece vs. keeping it for myself. Would I like $100 or keep this? If the answer is keep it, my price is too low. It’s very organic and subjective, but that’s how I part with the work that I love. 😊
If something sells in the first 5 minutes, it’s probably not expensive enough—up to a point, because I know some of my pieces are super popular, but I wouldn’t raise the prices more than what it is already.
I think it works pretty well for now, although I kept some lower-priced items lately because the shop was popular and thus prices were unattainable for some and I wanted to be able to provide cute ceramics for lower budgets.
You use several channels for communication and marketing actively: your webshop, newsletter, blog, Instagram, Bluesky and Ko-fi. Do you have a separate strategy for each of these?
I do have a plan for e-mails, but the rest is mostly dependent on how I feel and what I have in stock vs. what I need to sell and my monthly income goal. I post daily-ish on socials, less on Twitter now because of we-know-what and more on Bluesky, Instagram, and Tumblr. Ko-Fi, I find it harder to post regularly. I had a weekly goal, but I managed to completely fail 😆 I have to get back to it. 😊
I see that you consciously moved from Twitter/X to Bluesky instead.
I have to admit I am a bit bitter about Twitter because before it was taken over, it was almost half of my customers and business who came from there. I had a growing number of followers, and everything was perfectly tuned. I could do the math of how much this has cost me, but to be honest, I think it would be super depressing; it is what it is.
With this platform’s revenue now close to $0, I had to work harder on other platforms. Bluesky is truly promising, it’s hardly comparable from 13k on Bluesky now vs. 60+k on Twitter, before it was ruined. But 13k on Bluesky is way more engaged and happy than 55k on 2025’s Twitter. I feel people are more open, and there’s less spam and bots. It’s way more positive and friendly than Twitter is.
How often do you send out a newsletter, and what topics do you cover in these?
I send a weekly-ish email to my list. It’s often sale-related because I have one monthly release of new work, so before, during and after the drop, it’s mostly stuff like, “Hey, I’m going to have a new drop” or “Hi, new drop is here”, and “Thank you for buying my cute little things”. Besides that, I often share studio news. I love to send emails, although it’s always a bit intimidating for some reason. At the same time, I love it when people hit reply and tell me that they really enjoy the emails. 😊
I build my email list all the time. There’s a monthly free phone background when you subscribe, and there’s a little coloring calendar, too. I try and offer little perks from time to time to promote it and also make my subscribers feel super special because they are!
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Were there any platforms that you tried, social, e-commerce, or other, but don’t anymore? If so, why didn’t they work?
Etsy, I left without looking back and advertised it because I found their treatment of artists pretty unfair, and the fees are ridiculous. I used Society6 for prints on demand, but in the end, their artist earnings were lower and lower while the quality also took a turn for the worse. When my customers told me they weren’t satisfied with S6 because of quality issues on top of it, I closed my shop there.
Which channel or platform brings the most customers for you?
It’s definitely my email list and Instagram right now. BlueSky is starting to be more effective, but it’s still timid.
How of then do you create new artwork? Do you have planned collections, or it’s more like continuously uploading the things you’re ready with?
I create new things most days, unless it’s shipping day or the dreaded tax days. I’m most often sculpting, on the throwing wheel, or painting. I have planned collections and custom order openings simultaneously. I try and plan ahead, but to be super honest, I often look at what I have a week before the update and go with it. Why? Because ceramics are super dependent on kiln schedules and must go through two firings with another step in between. A firing is at least 24-36 hours from loading the kiln to emptying it, so one has to be extra aware with planning here. 😊 I wish I could have 2-3 months of planned pieces ahead of me, but it kind of sucks the fun and joy out of the work so that’s how I roll, half organized, half yolo!
How even is your income? It is more or less the same month by month, or do you experience any seasonality or variety?
It’s pretty even, actually. I had a slower year last year, but this year is starting out pretty nicely. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a good one! 😊
Do you do financial planning and reviews? If yes, do you have any advice regarding these for others, especially beginner, creators?
I do some planning, and I check my numbers regularly. I’d say definitely check out what comes in vs. your expenses. I’m not the best financial planner, but I think it’s the basic thing to do. 😊
You’re a mother. How did your creator/work routine change after becoming a mom, and how was your creator journey/business affected by taking on a new role?
I became a mom when I had a full-time job and then switched to my small ceramics business, so after my kid was a little more independent from me. They were around 6 when I started out, but it’s definitely more of a challenge because when you’re a small business owner or creator, you want to put in the hours, and that’s not something you can always do. The pandemic, lockdowns, closed schools, and a two-month school strike last year definitely took a toll on production.
I’m also inspired by my motherhood, and it’s part of me, so it also has super positive effects. Recently, I went to teach a small pottery workshop at my kid’s school, and it was a lovely time.
Kids help build community, and it’s vital right now.
How do you handle challenges in your creator life? Setbacks, failures, creative crisis—do you experience these, and if so, how do you overcome these phases?
My typical reactions to these are:
- Panic
- Find a workaround / organize, or study my way out of the thing
- Forget about it
More seriously, yes, there are always setbacks and failures, but I love what I do so much that I don’t see myself doing anything else. Whether it’s grief, sadness, or hurt, I keep moving, I walk. I found that moving the body often helps the mind go where it needs to. This is my go-to solution when stuck: go outside, see some birds, teach my dog new tricks, and when I’m back, somehow I can do what needs to be done!
What do you think is the biggest challenge today for creators, regardless of their fields?
Visibility is definitely a challenge for creators and AI is a pain in the butt. AI, specifically, affects the overall trust of people in what they see online, it spreads misinformation, a lot of it, and it’s completely unregulated. It also hurts my marketing tools: quality content is drowning in AI mud.
Concept artists and video game artists are directly impacted by AI. I’ve seen AI used on ads where there would previously have been an artist hired more than I can count now. It’s sad and honestly it’s not an aesthetic I like at all, it’s not catchy. It’s also miseducating the public’s eye. By exposing people to bad visuals we’re just training them to not make a difference between what’s generated and what’s real. People trust what they see and now they can’t do that. It’s a huge scam issue too. This is a subject that has so many ramifications and consequences it’s impossible to list them all but the main question is: Who benefits ? Not the artists. Not the public. And it should be a concern to the legislator.
But we have great ways to fight both: community and empathy. It’s only by working together and sharing our knowledge and experiences, by helping out the new generations that we will overcome whatever’s thrown at us. 😊
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