THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman:
Well, hello, passion maker. This is Miriam Schulman, and you’re listening to episode 154 of The Inspiration Place Podcast. I am so grateful that you’re here. Today we’re talking all about inspiring spaces. In this episode, you’ll discover why the process of creating is often as important as what is ultimately created, why the details of the workspace matter, and why you should always surround yourself with an environment that you love. Whether it’s art, music, written words, or choreographed dances, extraordinary women know that the process of creating is as important as what ultimately gets created. That’s why extraordinary women pay attention to the details of their workspaces, making sure that they surround themselves with visually stimulating inspiration and unique organizational systems.
Today’s guest knows all about that. She’s the founder and editor of chief of the bestselling, award winning current magazines, Where Women Create and What Women Create. She’s been a leading innovator in the handmade publishing market for more than 40 years. Please welcome to The Inspiration Place, Jo Packham.
Jo Packham:
It is such an honor for me to be here. Thank you for including me. I can’t tell you how thankful I am. This is my first real podcast.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s amazing. How come … All right. Okay. I think then the other podcasters are missing out because this is a huge opportunity to interview you.
Jo Packham:
And I’ve always said no.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, really? Oh, so they’ve asked you. Oh, now I feel honored.
Jo Packham:
Well, I always feel like I’m the behind the scenes girl. Right? I’m the one who nobody really knows their face, or is out there because I’m all about promoting all of the women featured in our magazines. So I didn’t ever want to take center stage. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted to do. But life is changing, and things are changing, and so I have to very slowly catch up with the times. So you’re my guinea pig.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. Because I understand you want to start your own podcast. Is that right?
Jo Packham:
I do, with some help from all of you. It’s because we’re launching this fabulous new website. And on the website, there will be videos and podcasts and all these things that I am truly not comfortable with and have never done. So this is my entry into a whole new area of publishing, which is online.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s fantastic. Well, good for you for expanding and evolving.
Jo Packham:
Thank you. It’s very scary.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. But it’s scared-cited.
Jo Packham:
Yes. It is.
Miriam Schulman:
Which is a made up word, yeah.
Jo Packham:
I may use that. I’ll quote you. Right? You can be quoted.
Miriam Schulman:
Excited but scared, they’re kind of the same feeling too. It’s the same vibration in your body. Whenever I’m feeling nervous or scared, I try to change my self talk to be like, “Oh, I’m just excited,” because it’s easy to trick yourself that really, that vibration is an excited vibration rather than a nervous vibration. Does that make sense?
Jo Packham:
Perfect sense. Yes, perfect sense. And I’m going to try that. I know for a fact that you have much to teach me, so I hope not only do we do podcasts, but I hope that we become friends, so that I can learn so much from you.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, absolutely. And I said to you, Jo, before we hit record, “This is a conversation today, so you can use this time to ask me things as well.” And I’m sure anything you want to know, my listeners are probably wondering. There’s probably more than one artist out there who wants to start a podcast, I would imagine.
Jo Packham:
I think there are probably thousands because what I know about artists is that they’re kind of loners. They like to be in their studios. They don’t really like the limelight as much as they like creating. It’s really difficult for them to get out there. It’s why they’re not as adept at business as business people are, because they just want to create, quietly in their studios with their pets. And they’re really happy. So the rest of this is an enormous step for them.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, for sure. People are often surprised to hear that I’m an introvert because I come on the podcast and I’m so animated. But what you have to remember is this is the perfect job for an introvert. I get to be famous without ever leaving my house.
Jo Packham:
Yes, you’re braver than most because you’re filming too. Right? Where a lot of people are just, it’s just the voice.
Miriam Schulman:
Just so you know, we only use about 90 seconds of the video part to make promotions on Instagram. I’ve played with the idea of taking the entire thing and turning it into a YouTube video, but it’s probably too much work than I want to do.
Jo Packham:
I understand that completely.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. And then speaking of wanting to stay behind the scenes, so yesterday, I talked to a publicist. So I think you know I’m publishing a book, How to Make it as an Artist. And the publisher wants me to hire a publicist, that’s a lot of Ps. The publisher wants me to hire a publicist. I spoke to the publicist yesterday and she says, “Yeah, we’ll get you on television.” I was like, “Oh, God no.” I started gripping my chair. I was like …
Jo Packham:
Yeah, and they’re kind of mean when you go on TV, I think because they have a lot of people that are trying to promote. It’s hard. I tried that 30 years ago and decided that wasn’t something I wanted to do either.
Miriam Schulman:
My first thought was I’d have to lose weight if I wanted to do that.
Jo Packham:
Yeah, yeah. Always. When you’re my age, you have to buy a lot of turtlenecks because, you know.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. I mean, I look really good on Zoom. I am going to be working on an article for where … It’s not going to be Where Women Create, right? It’s going to be for What Women Create.
Jo Packham:
What Women Create.
Miriam Schulman:
Before we talk about me, because this is not about me, what is the difference between the two issues? Because I’m sure my listeners really want to know. Not everyone who listens is familiar with the publications.
Jo Packham:
I actually started with Where Women Create. And Where Women Create is all about the studios. It’s where you do what you do. And in the magazine, we focus each feature on the studio, and then we show a very few photographs of what the women actually make inside the studio, so people know why they have certain kind of organizational systems and certain kind of decorations. And then we received so many letters from people who wanted to know more about the art itself, so we decided to do What Women Create. So it focuses completely on anthology of inspiration and process of the beautiful things that people create. It’s not a how-to. It’s not a step by step. It just gives you enough information for two reasons, to educate the artist to see that maybe she could take another medium and incorporate it into her own medium. And secondly, we sell really a lot of them to art collectors and stuff.
And the purpose behind it is to educate them on why artists’ work should be more expensive, or is priced at a price where the artist can actually make money at it. So if they understand the process, you know how when you’re at an art show, more like a maker craft show, and you walk up? You’re sitting in the booth, and you walk up, and people say, “Oh, I could make that.” And I think, “Yeah, probably not.” And it’s not just the hour of making it, it’s the years of learning it, and the ones you threw away, and the different materials. I mean, and so my job I feel like is to educate everybody, so that we appreciate not just …
I mean, people appreciate gallery art, of course. But they need to appreciate maker art, the kinds of handmade quilts and weavings, and now that macrame is back. Those are hundreds of hours are invested in those. That’s what What is for.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. So it’s less about the studio and more about the process of creating, and got it. Okay. What was your incentive or your reason behind founding the magazine in the first place? Which I understand it’s been around for over 10 years now, since 2009. Is that right?
Jo Packham:
That is right. Correct. First, I started 40 years ago in publishing cross stitch pamphlets. I owned a needle work supply and art store by the university here in Ogden, and we sold supplies to the university art classes. And then cross stitch hit America from Ginnie Thompson and Gloria and Pat. Ginnie brought it over from Europe. They had never done mass cross stitch in the US. And it hit like a bomb. And so when we were selling the supplies in the store, I said to my partner, “We need to do books on this.” So I started with $2.50, 14 page softbound books on counted cross stitch. Then I moved into publishing. When the bottom fell out of that market, we woke up one morning and it was gone.
We moved into publishing hardbound books. And I did that for 18 years. It was always how-to. That had to be stepped out. Gardening, cooking, crafts, and then from that, I moved into magazines because it was a different venue and it was so much easier. Books are difficult, but magazines are easy. You write a 20 page article. You take the photography, and you move on to the next one. And the artist doesn’t get tired of proofing and making new projects and doing all that photography and all that kind of stuff. So it’s a lot more fun. And yet, in everything I’ve ever done, I work with the arts and I work with women, some men, the men who make it. We allow one man in each issue, and it’s tongue in cheek on the men who make it, and we feature one guy.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, that’s cool. I didn’t realize you did that. So for those of you who have not picked up the magazine, is it available around the world, or just in the US?
Jo Packham:
Nope, around the world.
Miriam Schulman:
Perfect because we’re listened to in over 50 countries now, so I want to make sure that my friends in other places can get this. So for those of you who have not seen the magazine yet, it’s on heavy paper. It’s really high quality and it’s gorgeous. Now how many artists are usually in an issue? How many artists would you expect to find in there?
Jo Packham:
It’s 162 pages, and we don’t have advertising. So we range from about 10 to 14 artists. I like to be able to tell the whole story with a beautiful photography, so we try to give every artist 18 to 20 pages, so that you really know about her. But not everybody has that much content, and so we always have smaller articles. So it depends on how many smaller articles we have, how many extras we add at the end. But we never have fewer than 10. I’ve never had more than 18.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. And then are you actively looking for artists? Or are you just going by the submissions?
Jo Packham:
Both. Every trade show before COVID, of course, I did every trade show, every art show, everything, selfishly because I love to travel and because I love those kinds of things. But they are such a great resource for us for artists. Right? When you go to the big gift shows and you go to the very back row to the newbies in the corner, they are fabulous artists. And so we can help them promote their companies, kind of get a step up with great PR that they wouldn’t be able to pay for otherwise. I’m not an artist, I’ve always wanted to be an artist. And so the way I take care of my fix is I … That’s why I feature artists and do everything I can to support the artists. It’s why we don’t have advertising.
If you ever see advertising in the magazines, I always give it to the artists for free. So if they’re having a big event, we give them a page. If they’re coming out with a new product, we give them a page in a magazine other than their feature, so they’re featured in two magazines. So that way, it gives them something that most artists can afford to pay for.
Miriam Schulman:
So I’m trying to figure out the business model because that’s so unusual to have a magazine without advertising in it. You’re just supported by the subscriptions and the sales of the magazine itself.
Jo Packham:
Well, in the beginning when I worked with Stampington for a while, and then I went to another publisher, and they were strictly newsstand sales. So we made all of our money on newsstand sales. We’re the highest grossing magazine at Costco and Whole Foods, and we’re number two in our category at Barnes and Noble. After COVID when I went to work for Madavor, they’re a subscription based magazine. Now they’re promoting subscriptions like crazy because when the bookstores closed, it was really hard on all of us who didn’t have subscriptions. Right?
So they still sell at Barnes and Noble. We’re still check out stand, we’re still front of shelf. And because we do really, really well, but now this big, huge promotion is to get more subscribers, and so that we can do both. And then our new website has a membership model, so that they can join and we’ll give them lots of other things besides the print magazines and the online content.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, that’s really smart. Let’s go back to talking about featuring artists because I know there’s a lot of people out there, women and the one guy who you’ll feature, who want to know more about this. So I am including in the show notes, and today’s show notes is schulmanart.com/154. So in the show notes, I am including a link to the submission guideline. Hopefully, that link won’t break when you have your new website, by the way.
Jo Packham:
Yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
Right? If it’s broken, my listener friends, please email me or something. Let me know and I can fix it because I’m sure you’re going to still have a submission guidelines on the new website. Right?
Jo Packham:
Oh, absolutely.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. Let’s talk about that for a minute. I get pitched every single week, and a lot of the pitches I get are pretty janky. Can we help out our listeners about what they should be doing better when they’re pitching? Or maybe you only get wonderful pitches. I don’t know.
Jo Packham:
Oh, no. I get people pitching to the magazine that say, “I just love your magazine, such and such,” which isn’t my magazine. It’s somebody else’s magazine.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, no. That’s the worst. They didn’t even look at the email, like the at. Don’t they say it’s @wherewomencreate.com not at yourcompetitor.com?
Jo Packham:
Yeah. I mean, it’s just crazy. I mean, you know. You get them. I personally answer every single email.
Miriam Schulman:
Wow.
Jo Packham:
It’s because I want to know my audience. I want to know what they’re thinking. I want to know what they want. I want to know what the problems are. And I want them to feel important. And if they’re talking to the editor-in-chief, they feel important. Right? So what I have to say to you if you want to submit is, first, do your homework. Make sure you know who the editor-in-chief is, who you submit to, who the magazine is, what they do, do not submit What to Where, or Where to What. Make sure that you know what you’re submitting for. And then the other thing I tell them is that no isn’t no until it’s absolutely no. And then you ask them why because I would say literally 95% of the cases have nothing to do with the art that’s submitted.
So you figure if I’m doing eight magazines a year now, but we were, right before COVID, we were doing 23 magazines a year. You can imagine how much content we get. Right? So if your email comes in and it gets buried, sometimes you never find it. So I always tell people, “If you don’t hear back from me,” it’s even on the website. If you don’t hear back from me within four days, send it again and just put following up, and then it puts you to the top of the email list. Right? I don’t want to read 20 emails. I just want to read following up. And then I tell them that if I write them really a nice letter, I don’t go into great detail. But we’re not taking whatever submissions right now or whatever. I tell them to write them back and ask me why because maybe it’s because I just signed up four painter features, and so I’m good for a year because we only feature one painter in each issues, so I get four a year.
But I don’t have time to write that in every single letter. So if they’ll write me and say, “Would you just take the time to tell me why you said no?” 99% of the time, it’s all about me and not about them. So they just need to be not obnoxious, but nicely persistent. After a while, I mean, I think I’m pretty human. And if somebody’s written me four or five times, I think, “Oh, my hell. This cute little artist wants to be in this magazine so bad, I’m just going to put her in right now.” Right? And I call my managing editor and I say to Susan, “She goes in now. Make room for her.” All of us, you and me, want passionate artists who really, really want to be part of what we do.
Miriam Schulman:
100%. In fact, I have a soft spot, I get very turned off, like you said, they pitch you, and it’s so obvious that it’s like they don’t even know who they’re pitching. A lot of times, you’ll get that from … I don’t know if you hear. You may not hear, but I get as a podcaster, there are pitching agencies. And I will get the letter where the person’s details are in a different font, or my details are in a different font, so it was so obvious that … Right. Yeah, that’s not so bad. But when people pitch to me how much they love the podcast, but they never left a review for me when it’s so easy to leave a review. I mean, come on, just leave a review. Tag me. Comment on my Instagram. Tell me you like it. So I do have a soft spot for people who do all those things, and then I get pitched, I pay attention. I pay attention.
Jo Packham:
Exactly. And they need to be educated because so I know nothing about podcasts. Right? I mean, you’re talking zero here. After I received an invitation from you, I did start listening for a minute, but then we were trying to launch the website, so I got a little overwhelmed. But I have a whole week blocked out just to listen to podcasts because I never have. Right? But when you were interviewing me when we had our little interview, and you said that, “Nobody leaves a comment,” I thought to myself, “Oh, my hell. I would’ve never left a comment.” It would’ve never occurred to me because I don’t know what podcast etiquette is. I don’t know what is expected because I don’t read the comments on Instagram. I don’t read the comments. I don’t care. And I leave comments sometimes, but not very often. But when I said that, I thought, “I’m going to start leaving comments on everything.” Right? It just never occurred to me.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. Well, you don’t have to comment on everything. I mean, I am one of these people who go against what’s popular right now, so I am not about … I think artists spend way too much time on social media, and they really need to spend actually less time, not more time. So if you listen to a podcast, you have the phone usually, your phone in your hand when you’re listening to it. And you have it open right there. All you have to do is hit the five star and leave a little review. It’s right in your hand. Leaving a review, which is not going to suck you into the vortex of fighting with strangers on social media. I even did a book giveaway, so I have about 2000 listeners of the podcast on average per episode. I think it might be more now.
So I had an author on, Make Your Art No Matter what, and I loved the book. I did an offer. I said, “Anyone who leaves a podcast review, I will send you a free book.” That wasn’t free for me. I had to purchase it and send it to them, and pay for shipping. And I think we got a dozen reviews that way. I was surprised it wasn’t more. There’s thousands of people who listen to the show, and I even bribed them to leave a review.
Jo Packham:
Bribing is good. Bribing is really good.
Miriam Schulman:
Right?
Jo Packham:
Absolutely.
Miriam Schulman:
And if you’re listening to this now and you want the free book, it’s too late, by the way. So I only gave them a week to do it. You have to do it by this date. If you can’t figure out how to leave the review, you have to prove that you’ve done it. Somebody said, “I couldn’t figure it out. Will you send me a free book anyway?” I was like, “No, no. It’s not free for me. This is a good deal.” Get a millennial to help you.
Jo Packham:
My grandson, my 16 year old grandson was here this morning, actually, trying to help me. Right?
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah.
Jo Packham:
So yes, I get that.
Miriam Schulman:
By the way, I wanted to make sure you knew that as of this recording, the self study track of the Artist Incubator program is closed. I do have a mastermind. And as of this recording, there’s just one spot open. It could be yours. If you’re lacking a solid strategy and a winning mindset, and you’re disappointed with your current art sales, let’s fix that. If you’ve been listening to this podcast and you’ve found my tips helpful, then maybe it’s time to take the next logical step and work with me on a deeper level. The Artist Incubator program is for professional and emerging artists who want to take their art business to the next level by mastering the art of sales and marketing. To see if you qualify, go to schulmanart.com/biz, as in B-I-Z, to apply now. That’s schulmanart.com/biz. And now back to the show.
As we were saying, I’m going to be in your magazine. I’m a little intimidated. I did hire a photographer. The deal is she has to make me look as good as I do on Zoom, so that also requires a makeup artist.
Jo Packham:
But you know what’s so nice about print is that we can make you look amazing in Photoshop. And it’s super, super simple. That’s why I’ve always been so afraid to go live because I’m like, “I don’t think I look live, even though my photographs are all new.” I mean, I don’t use 20 year old photographs. Right? They’re all new. But they do kind of take care of some of the problems. Right?
Miriam Schulman:
Yes. It’s better than plastic surgery. My friends from college, they have no idea. I remember there was a couple years ago, I was invited to a reunion. I forget if it was college or high school, and I was like, “Oh, come on. Can’t you just keep looking at my Photoshopped pictures on Facebook? Why do I have to tell them the truth?”
Jo Packham:
I agree. We all agree. And I get really cranky when people say, “Age is just a number.” I think, “Yeah. No, it’s in my neck. It’s in my knees. It’s got 70 written all over it.” Right? It’s real. It’s a real struggle for women.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. I mean, that is. But at the same time, what I’ve lost in that department, I’ve gained in confidence.
Jo Packham:
When you hit 70, you’re going to go backwards because all of a sudden, I mean, it’s a real thing. In our industry, I am probably one of the oldest. I’ve been around the longest. I’m the oldest. I start working, I call them young kids because they’re 25 and 30 years old. Right? And they really do look at me like I’m their grandmother. And so all of a sudden when they start talking in a language that I don’t understand, because I don’t understand all of the adjectives and adverbs and things that they use, and when they start talking about the web and doing everything on your phone and all that, I fly into a panic. I’m not quite old enough. I need to be 85 to be the crazy little old lady in publishing, so I’m not that old. But I’m not … It’s very intimidating.
Miriam Schulman:
I hear you, but I all the time, if I’m on the phone with support, any support, and they can’t see me, I always tell them I’m old because I just, “Could you just walk me through this slowly?” That way, I feel like they’re not going to judge me. Pretend I’m your mother.
Jo Packham:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:26:28]. That’s what I said to this young kid. I said, “Could you just talk to me and pretend like I’m your grandmother?” And he looked at me like, “I’ll be really nice to you.” Right?
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, yeah.
Jo Packham:
It’s funny.
Miriam Schulman:
There was a thing, Jo, you don’t have to do things you don’t know how to do. That is actually something I feel really, in my years of being in business, and I’m talking about online especially, is what held me back is not, not knowing how to do something. What has held me back is thinking I had to do everything, and learning how to do it, and doing it myself, instead of hiring people and outsourcing. I think it’s such a gift to be able to go with that mindset, I am going to … Who can do this? Not: How do I do this? Who can do this?
Jo Packham:
I think that’s probably one of the most valuable tips you can ever give your listeners because I think someone who’s as successful and good at your job as you are, that it’s nice to hear you say that because there are always control issues. Right? You’re afraid to let control of certain things. And for some in my world, my artists, they work on budgets, pretty tight budgets. And so it becomes this give, take relationship of I really should start a podcast. I really should hire somebody to do it. But if I don’t do it, or if I learn how to do it myself, then I can go buy the new set of paints that I want that cost $450. Right? Or whatever it is, so it’s that kind of give take. So to hear somebody like you say that, that’s okay, and that you should do that, is a valuable gift to your listener. You might want to print that on your forehead.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. That expression, I can’t take credit for it. I think it’s the title of a Dan Sullivan book, Who Not How. Always, you will go faster when you expand your own capacity by not doing things that aren’t in your zone of genius. And now that we’re talking about podcasting, I don’t believe everyone should start a podcast. I don’t think that’s for everybody. Just because I did it, it made sense for me because I had a vision of where I wanted to grow. The podcast has taken me to that place. But for artists, it may not be something they need to do. If you just want to talk about your own art, a blog is much more appropriate for that than a podcast.
Jo Packham:
Or a video.
Miriam Schulman:
Absolutely.
Jo Packham:
Some of the artists are producing such beautiful videos. I mean, I don’t want to do it myself, but that’s what I’m going to hire somebody to do is the videos because I think artists are really visual. And so if they can watch those beautiful videos, then it’s not that they don’t like to listen. That’s not it because they always want to learn. But it’s just the videos for me are the song and dance of what I would like to undertake.
Miriam Schulman:
What have you learned as the editor of the Where Women Create Franchise? What has been the biggest lessons?
Jo Packham:
The first is that artists are truly I think what I would consider a very unusual group of women. I love artists. I surround myself with artists. They’re always busy, have a million ideas, probably a little ADD. I mean, they are fun. They are really, really fun people. I love that. In my business model in publishing, I work with very large companies. I have learned that they’re ruthless. And it’s been a contradiction for me between the world I surround myself with and the world that I have to make my money in are so different that I have a really, really difficult time with the business end of it.
Miriam Schulman:
When you said they’re ruthless, you were talking about businesses, or are you talking about artists?
Jo Packham:
Oh, no businesses, big business.
Miriam Schulman:
Businesses, okay, I just wanted to be clear. Okay.
Jo Packham:
Yeah, big publishing companies are ruthless. It’s all about the bottom line. This sounds terrible, but a lot of them are run by men, and they’re not artists. They don’t have that sensitive side, that passion, that obsession sometimes. And so it’s such a dichotomy in my two worlds, and I don’t cross the bridge very well sometimes. But there’s no alternative because publishing is too expensive to do yourself unless your dad was the president of a bank somewhere or something. Mine wasn’t. So I have to do what I have to do to be able to do what I want to do. Those are the two most valuable lessons that I didn’t realize the difference. I didn’t realize the personality traits. I didn’t realize all of that until I got way into it. And would I trade it? No. Has it been brutal? Yes. The business side of what I do is brutal. And I’ve hit the ground three times. This is my last swing back, right? I’m done after this one. I would say those two things.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah, that’s so interesting. So you’re the editor and you’re the founder. But you’re not the publisher. Is that right?
Jo Packham:
That’s exactly right.
Miriam Schulman:
Got it. Okay. One thing that I’m so grateful for when I got my publishing contract is my editor who acquired the book, she said, so it’s Harper Collins leadership is so great now, it’s not longer a secret. The other podcast interviews was like, “Well, I have this thing, but I can’t really tell you because it’s not DocuSigned.” I don’t want the deal to fall apart. But I loved what Sarah Kendrick, my editor said, is that when she’s in publishing and she looked around, and she was like, “People I know don’t want to read these books. These are all written by old white men.” I’m with a business book publisher in print. So I’m happy that she saw the vision for this book.
And I know that it’s really going to outperform the expectations because I feel that the world of publishing sees the type of artist that you represent in your magazine, and that listen to my show, this market of the world, which I don’t think we got into that, which is probably something we should just talk about before we wrap up. So we’re not the gallerists, we’re not helping people get into museums. But this market of people who are self representing artists, maybe they’re in a few galleries, but they’re not in the Goshens of the world, it’s a huge market. And also, the people who are the dreamers, who are trying to break into creating a sustainable living with their art, it’s a huge market and it’s very undervalued. And I think there’s a little bit of … Can we say there’s a bit of sexism why it’s undervalued? Would you agree with that?
Jo Packham:
You can say there’s really a lot of sexism. Absolutely, yes.
Miriam Schulman:
It’s like a little. Yeah.
Jo Packham:
Even in today’s world.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, 100%.
Jo Packham:
Which is astounding to me.
Miriam Schulman:
Did you see, it was in the paper today, the women’s volleyball team got fined for wearing shorts instead of bikini bottoms? Did you see that?
Jo Packham:
I did not see.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, my God. My daughter, who’s 23, she was so appalled.
Jo Packham:
As she should be.
Miriam Schulman:
As she should be, exactly.
Jo Packham:
That’s terrible. Yeah, the things that go on are just … It’s truly unbelievable. You just don’t even know how to respond.
Miriam Schulman:
This whole year though has been like I keep rubbing my eyes. This is real? Yeah. This is what we’re doing still. Let me circle back to something I brought up, but I didn’t really ask you, and I feel it should be addressed. You are representing in your magazine a certain kind of artist. Can you say more about that?
Jo Packham:
It’s a pretty broad range. We have started doing one feature in each magazine of what I would consider gallery artists. It’s kind of just like a story. They write their story. We show their beautiful photography because their work is not aspired to by our people. But what they do inspires them to do other things. We refer to our people as artists and makers because there used to be, when I stared in this industry 40 years ago, there was a definite division between crafter and artist, like you never crossed the line. Right?
And you could tell where the line was. I mean, it was quite obvious. But now it’s blended, artists, makers, slash, gallery artists, which are, I can still see the line very, very clearly. But the difference between artists and makers is so blurred now that they’re all the same. I mean, the workmanship is fabulous. The inspiration is off the charts. I mean, it’s just an amazing group of women and men who do phenomenal work. We take everybody. And I’m always looking for, like if you’re a painter, or you crochet, or you do something, I’m looking for the ones, ceramics, who’s a little bit different, a little bit edgy, but not gallery stuff.
I found an artist in France a couple of weeks ago who does pretty basic ceramic stuff, but when it’s wet, she stitches on them. So she actually takes a needle and thread and goes up through the ceramic plates and stitches on them. And it is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. So it’s always things like that. Right? And we don’t want to know her technique. We don’t want to give away her secrets. But we do want to inspire her for both the fiber people and the ceramics people of what’s possible.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s amazing. Okay. So we’re about to wrap up, and we touched upon that you’re launching a new website, which I imagine will be out by the time this podcast airs. Can you tell a little bit more about that?
Jo Packham:
It is for me a very big website. It’s beautiful. It has a membership segment, which is I think what makes it a little bit different than a lot of websites. In the membership part, there will be lots of classes taught by different artists from around the world, podcasts, videos. We put on events. We do lots of contests, all kinds of things, and content that you can’t find in the magazine. There will be new articles. We are actually putting up all 15 years of articles that I’ve published in my magazines. So not only will have that existing content, but you will have the magazine content, plus brand new content that you can’t get anywhere else.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s fantastic. I can’t wait. Okay. We’ve included links to the new website, which is the same URL as the old website. The submission process, you can find all of it in the show notes, schulmanart.com/154. And don’t forget if you liked this episode, you have to check out the mastermind. It’s my private coaching program for professional and emerging artists who want to take their art business to the next level by mastering the art of sales and marketing. I do have a self study track, but that’s closed. So the mastermind track of the program is the only way you can work with me right now, and it is by application only. To see if you qualify, go to schulmanart.com/biz. That’s biz as in B-I-Z. All righty, Jo, do you have any last words for our listeners before we call this podcast complete?
Jo Packham:
I think I would just like to thank this community for as giving and as supportive as they are, and to remind them that it’s always important to help everybody else. They’re not stealing your art. They’re not trying to do all of those things. No two artists create the same. We’re inspired by all of the same kinds of things. But be supportive of each other because together, I mean, you read it everywhere, but it’s so true because together, we really can be great. When we do it by ourselves, it’s really, really hard.
Miriam Schulman:
That’s a beautiful and inspiring place to stop. Okay, my friend, thank you so much for being with me here today. I’ll see you the same time, same place next week. Until then, stay inspired.
Thank you for listening to The Inspiration Place Podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at Facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram at @SchulmanArt, and of course, on schulmanart.com.
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