Sane People In Taos

The coolest and most sane people we found in Taos had to be the potters. Since Kat is at Alfred University in upstate New York studying ceramics, she's been hitting up every decent potter she can find.  So the day before we left Taos we ended up hanging out with Scott Carlson in Arroyo Secco ( a couple minutes drive from downtown Taos).  Apparently one day local resident Julia Roberts was trying to avoid some paparazzi and Scott hid her in his studio (next door to this photo) as the photographers lost interest and couldn't find her.  Now she's a huge fan of Scott and buys tons of his work.  So Kat and I hung out and got some Carlson business lessons one afternoon.

Carlson Business Lesson
1.  Create a persona--Scott lives in a tourist heavy area.  He assumes that people come to Taos expecting a laid-back and slightly naughty time.  Scott inebriates people to the point they relax, feel part of the in-crowd, and have faulty judgment regarding matters of taste and money.
2.  Act like you don't give a shit--act like you don't care if they buy your products or not and people won't feel pressured to buy and it'll be beneficial for you in the long.
3.  Whip out "regret"--when you see someone returning to scope out one of your pieces, and you've done the "I don't give a shit" spiel, then hover in on you-don't-wanna-regret-not-buying-that.  This works best on tourists who will leave town and won't be able to swing back by later.  Regret is powerful--harness it.
4.  Act like their friend--when they feel like your friend then they'll want to take something back to their friends to show off with, "Yeah, we hung out with the guy who made this, got drunk, and had a ball."  They'll want to buy it just to show off to their friends.

Works every time.