Viable
shops for crafts
It is still new for artisans to talk about turnover, earnings and business structure themselves. It is no longer a disgrace to have that perspective: making art and wanting to earn money to pay the bills can and must be combined. Business Center Bornholm and Maker’s Island Bornholm have teamed up to improve the opportunities in the skills development programme, which concludes in the autumn.
Viable businesses
By Jon Albjerg Ravnholt
8 September 2020
Head of Business Christa Lodahl had also heard about how craftspeople and the business promotion system had often found it difficult to meet on equal terms, just as Timmi Kromann and Svend Holst-Pedersen describe. As the newly appointed Head of Business at Business Center Bornholm last year, one of the items at the top of the agenda was to rectify that.
She was actually obliged to do so, because the appointment of Bornholm as a World Craft Region in 2017 brought with it a responsibility for Bornholm Regional Municipality, Destination Bornholm and Business Center Bornholm, which were behind the application together with the School of Glass and Ceramics, Hjorths Fabrik and Grønbechs Gård, to cooperate with the professional craftspeople's local organisation, ACAB, to make the most of the title. Both for the craftspeople and for Bornholm.
We have to get everything out of that title, says Christa Lodahl, who therefore organised an informal coffee meeting with Timmi Kromann to find out what the parties needed from each other and what they could give each other.
We wanted to understand each other, she says, stressing the word ”wanted”.
We don't need to think alike, but we must have mutual trust
to each other and respect for what each of us can do. The craftspeople themselves must want to elevate their business, and as business consultants, we must be able to support that in a way that suits them.
Focus on the business side
Because there are still some of the artisans who are entirely satisfied with where they are now. They are making ends meet
and do not need to expand their business. There are also
someone who participated in the initial workshops of the competency development programme and afterwards said that it was fine for them to get an idea of what it was about and what was expected of them if they wanted to proceed, but who on that basis assessed that they would rather continue as before.
The competency development programme was established in collaboration
between Business Center Bornholm and the steering group for Maker’s
The island of Bornholm, where Christa Lodahl is participating as a representative
for the business promotion system.
The first workshops were held in the winter, and after first a corona lockdown and then the peak season over the summer, they are now resuming the process. The next workshop focuses on sales and marketing, and that there is great interest in that topic among the craftspeople goes almost without saying. The new thing is that they are talking openly about it, says Christa Lodahl.
They want more viable businesses. And now this is being talked about openly. Previously, the general view was that this aspect wasn’t important. But at the School of Glass and Ceramics, there has also been a greater focus on the business side of things, and the students there influence each other’s way of thinking.
Hold yourself at arm's length
What is more, they also leave their mark on those who have been around for a few decades. One of them, Svend Holst-Pedersen from Rø Glass Studio, has told Christa Lodahl that the way craftspeople today share their thoughts, strategies and methods with one another is completely different from what he experienced when he started out as a craftspeople in 2000. Back then, everyone kept their cards close to their chest and competed with each other. Now they have realised that they achieve more by collaborating. Just as they do in Maker’s Island Bornholm and indeed are required to do under the World Craft Region title.
That collaboration also involves a close partnership with Business Center Bornholm, points out Christa Lodahl. – We’ve had a strong grip on younger artisans for many years at Business Center Bornholm, and we’ve built up some good experience with them. We’ve highlighted this to those who haven't used us. At the first workshop, we had Sarah Oakman from Oh Oak along to talk about her view on business development. She said that when she walks into Business Center Bornholm, she holds herself at arm's length and tries not to take things too personally. Because it's about seeing yourself from the outside as a business, and that can be quite difficult for many of them, as their business is so closely connected to their person.
Once they have learnt to distinguish between the two parts, the business
and once they’ve got to grips with the material themselves, the one-to-one coaching sessions with Business Centre Bornholm’s business advisers really get underway. They’ve had these earlier in the programme, but it’s at this stage that they become more intensive.
– We need to get a sense of their production process, but also of the individual’s personal circumstances. Some are still working part-time on the side, so how do we ensure they can produce and sell more? We look to see if they have a cash cow: if, for example, they have a mug that sells well, then they need to start producing and selling that mug at full capacity. Even if they might not feel that this is the process that fulfils them most creatively. The mug helps generate revenue and allows them to also develop other products that may not be quite as marketable. And the business manager finds that craftspeople are far more open to this way of thinking today.
Structure and a common language
By Jon Albjerg Ravnholt
8 September 2020
As a society, Bornholm cannot afford to miss out on the potential inherent in crafts. But craftspeople also cannot afford to do without the expertise that the business promotion system can offer them. Through the partnership Maker’s Island Bornholm, the parties meet to understand each other and develop the island as both a creative and commercial centre for crafts.
On one side of the table, a detailed Excel spreadsheet. On the other, a host of vague ideas about art and very little understanding of economics. This is a somewhat exaggerated picture of what the meeting between the business development system and Bornholm’s professional craftspeople was like. However, both sides recognised that there was a cultural divide that needed to be bridged. The business development system needed to learn to distinguish between hobby craftspeople and ACAB members, who are trained craftspeople, whilst the craftspeople needed to become better at seeing their business as just that: a business. – Neither side understood the other. It was as if one side was speaking Danish and the other Chinese, sums up Timmi Kromann one morning in the workshop above the Kokolores shop in Svaneke.
To overcome that obstacle, she and the steering committee at Maker’s Island Bornholm, which is to promote Bornholm arts and crafts in connection with the designation as a World Craft Region, initiated a needs assessment to uncover what it is that craftspeople can actually use the business promotion system for. And to show the business consultants where there is a need to step in. The needs analysis was created in collaboration between ACAB, the Centre for Regional and Tourism Research and Destination Bornholm.
– What we needed to find out was: What are the craftspeople lacking? What do they need? And what will they get involved in?
Nobody does this to get rich
It was important to get an answer to that last question, as many of the craftspeople do not necessarily want commercial success at any cost. At any rate, not if it means they have to compromise their artistic ideals.
– I've never heard anyone say that they've chosen to go into crafts because they wanted to be wealthy, laughs Timmi Kromann. – That's not their highest goal. For them, the most important thing is the joy of creation. That's what they're passionate about, and then of course they hope to be able to make a business out of it. All craftspeople naturally want to be able to make a living from what they do.
This was also the condition under which Bornholm Regional Municipality joined the application to make Bornholm a World Craft Region. Neither the regional council nor ACAB could apply on their own: they had to demonstrate that they were collaborating on the project to ensure that it would be prioritised subsequently. – The fact that this is a collaborative effort places an obligation on Bornholm Regional Council. They are, of course, keen to ensure that the working hours and money they have invested in this project yield results.
The Bornholm Regional Council expects the craftspeople that the appointment and subsequent work within Maker’s Island Bornholm will lead to a tangible increase in the artisans’ turnover and boost employment in the sector, where the majority are still sole traders and many have secondary jobs. In the longer term, the aim is also to benefit both tourism and net migration: There needs to be something to attract a different audience outside the peak season – and it doesn’t matter at all if this is a mature audience with strong purchasing power – and a revitalised cultural scene can attract more new residents. Both those who wish to work directly with arts and crafts, and those who simply want to be part of that environment.
Tell the story
In the competence development course, which has been created in collaboration between Business Center Bornholm and Maker’s Island Bornholm, the individual craftspeople, together with a business consultant,
and, whilst discussing these issues with one another, they looked at the specific problems each of them was facing in their own businesses. One word kept coming up among most of them, says Timmi Kromann:
Structure. If you run your own business, you have a wide range of tasks to deal with, and you’re constantly switching roles. You’re good at some of them, perhaps not so good at others. But you need to work out how to organise things so you can make the most of it. That way, you can focus on what you’re good at and outsource what you’re not good at.
Another important point for the craftspeople was learning how to market themselves. The participants in the skills development programme had a workshop with trend researcher Mads Arlien-Søborg, who told the participants how each of them could write themselves into various current trends, such as sustainability or a renewed interest in beautifying the home in the wake of the coronavirus lockdown. –
Last spring we were in ACAB on a study trip to Ireland to visit the crafts organisation there. We were out to see quite a few workshops, and it became clear to us there that you have to be able to tell the story of what you make.
What we needed to figure out was: What are the craftspeople lacking? What do they need? And what are they willing to take part in? As a community, Bornholm cannot afford to miss out on the potential that exists within crafts. But the craftspeople also cannot afford to do without the expertise that the business promotion system can offer them. In the Maker’s Island Bornholm collaboration, the parties meet to understand each other and develop the island as both a creative and commercial centre for crafts. Were they better or worse than your members? – Some of them were good, and some of them were completely hopeless, Timmi Kromann notes.
As part of the skills development programme, participants have therefore been asked at each workshop to stand up and briefly explain what they do, and why it differs from what the others do. This pitch has now become second nature to each individual, and it helps them to focus their work on what is important.
I want to move on from there,
where I am now
By Jon Albjerg Ravnholt
8 September 2020
For 20 years, Svend Holst-Pedersen has worked as a professional glass artist. It has gone well, but Rø Glasværksted has the potential to reach further. Therefore, he is participating in Maker's Island Bornholm and Business Center Bornholm's competence development programme.
Svend Holst-Pedersen sits for a moment in tranquillity, enjoying the late-summer sun on the bench in front of his small gallery overlooking Svaneke Harbour. It is early in the morning; there are still a few hours to go before he opens, and visitors are beginning to trickle in at regular intervals. In late summer, the mature clientele arrive – those with the time, peace of mind and money to immerse themselves in his distinctive glass creations.
I have a German family who have been coming here to Bornholm for 40 years. Now it is their children who are coming with their own children. That is three generation who have all been through my shop, he smiles.
Yesterday I had a family in whom I had done business with in 2009. Now they wanted to buy something again after having lived with the other thing for so many years. It means something to me that I can feel that what I do is appreciated.
Svend Holst-Pedersen is no young man; he has a long-term perspective on his work as a craftsperson and his business. Yet he is also willing to change his routines one more time, just as he did in the mid-nineties when he traded a steady job for a career as a professional craftsperson.
I had worked in a camera shop in Rønne for 20 years, and I was happy there, but I wanted to do something else, it sounds as if that decision was the simplest thing in the world to make.
Svend Holst-Pedersen was admitted as one of the oldest students in the first cohort at the School of Glass and Ceramics in Nexø in 1997, after having served an apprenticeship with glass artist Charlie Meaker at Snogebæk Glashytte during his weekends and holidays since 1992. As a newly graduated glass artist in 2000, he opened Rø Glasværksted, and although he has held onto the dream, he acknowledges that it has not been easy all the way.
It has been a bit of an uphill struggle at times, and there hasn't been much to show for it. That's no secret. But I'm still here, and I'm content with my life.
We need to label our things
It is simply not enough to sit back in the sun on the bench and let things take their course.
I want to move further along than where I am now.
That is why Svend Holst-Pedersen is one of the participants in the skills development programme that Maker’s Island Bornholm and Business Center Bornholm ran together leading up to the lockdown in the spring and are now resuming in the autumn.
Timmi Kromann talked about how you artisans had a feeling that you didn't speak the same language as the business promotion system.
That’s well put. I’ve tried talking to someone from Væksthus Hovedstaden before who was full of ideas and had a lot of energy, but also very … business, says Svend Holst-Pedersen, savouring the word as if it were somewhat alien to him. – In this process, they’ve been ahead of the game and found people who could speak the same language as us artists. Because many of us are bad at doing business. We find it hard to sell ourselves and present our work. We’ve had to learn to put our work into words. To pitch them, as they call it.
That pitch is still a bit difficult for Svend Holst-Pedersen to rattle off on the spot, he admits. But when he shows people around his gallery, there are nevertheless some very clear thoughts about why he works with the particular expression that he does.
I am very excited about working with glass surfaces and creating contrasts within them, he explains, showing off a sculpture where the starting point has been a piece of wood whose grain shows through the glass, while at the top there is a sharp break where the surface has been polished completely smooth. Another sculpture uses the same effect, but here yellow colour has been added to the sides, creating an effect like the characteristic yellow algal crust on the rocks just around the corner from the gallery.
Through the eyes of others
The surrounding nature and its forms are an obvious source of inspiration for him, as they are for several other Bornholm craftspeople. Have you considered whether your art should be able to be related to Bornholm?
for the tourists who make up the majority of your buyers?
Not really. For them, I make these small things, he replies, gesturing towards a shelf with mushrooms and sparrows in stained glass. They are knick-knacks that are needed to generate a steady turnover. – I don't sell a sculpture like this every day, says Svend Holst-Pedersen, pointing to one of the faces hanging on the wall in a series inspired by the facial ornamentation of African tribes. But there needs to be a market for the things he makes.
I kind of feel my way through when I make my things, and then I see how it's received. I can't afford to just make things that nobody wants.
Similarly, the aim of the competency development course has been for the participating artisans to look at their business with fresh eyes and figure out how to optimise it. For Rø Glasværksted, it is about securing more sales channels where items can also be sold during the winter when the gallery in Svaneke is closed.
That might well give me a busier winter, because that is when I work in my own workshop making new things for the shelves here as well as exhibitions and orders. But ideally it should
I had sales all the time, and I could achieve that by having items on display in galleries throughout the year. That is, amongst other things, what I want to take away from this course.
Business Center Bornholm and Maker's Island have together found a common language that can help Svend Holst-Pedersen to make business development relevant and exciting for him. So now he is giving it a try. Twenty years into his career, there is still room and the will to develop the business, he notes.