Just spent an hour fiddling with print-on-demand sites and looking up sublimation presses…but then it occurred to me that there’s already so much silly pre-fabricated crap in the world: do I really want to add to it?
The POD sites are so shiny and they’ve got so much STUFF and it looks SO GOOD with my designs on it and then I try to work with their design programs that always turn out to be way more fiddly and frustrating than I want to deal with. Then when I finally get a “product” ready to go, the base prices make me sick—and in order to make any profit at all I have to charge even MORE?! Do people really want to pay $45 for a goddam T-shirt?
Well, no. Judging from my previous attempts at selling my art with this method, they do NOT. I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t.
I should repurpose stuff from thrift stores. Paint and draw on it myself. Each piece totally unique. (And thus just as expensive, considering how much time I’d have to put into it, but still–at least I’d get the money instead of the printing company.)
Perhaps I do need a kiln.
And a giant printer.
Of course, all the time it would take to make these unique items would mean charging more, but I feel like I’d actually be selling something worth the price.
I should buy a set of fabric paints.
I’ll need glaze.
And an…oh, I already have an iron. (Thanks, Grandma.)
A 3d printer would be nice, too.
In other news, I’m working on a new assemblage piece. It’s a heartfelt expression of my deeply emotional response to the fact that my studio seems to be attracting all the bees in the county who have about a day left to live. The working title is WHERE THE HELL ARE ALL THESE BEES COMING FROM AND HOW ARE THEY GETTING IN HERE AND FOR FUCK’S SAKE WHY DO THEY WANT TO DIE IN MY STUDIO.