(gentle beats) - I don't know how I got so lucky to have a job as an artist.

I feel grateful for it every single day because this uplifts me.

I don't need much else.

This is good.

Hi, I am Lauren Herzak-Bauman, I own Lauren HB Studio and I'm an artist.

I have three different aspects to my business, I have a line of functional pottery and I also make sculpture.

And I have gotten into public art in the last five or six years as well.

The pottery that I produce, I wholesale it but I also sell it to the public through my website or through events at my studio.

And so mid-March, phone-call after phone-call, email after email came in, canceling the orders.

The thought is, Well, we have to focus on online sales but like so is everyone else.

So how are you going to make yourself stand out and how are you going to try to pull people towards you and also make a case to buy products that aren't essential.

One of the first things I did is, I just, I kind of went into disaster recovery mode and I had a ton of stock sitting around ready to go out to orders that were now canceled.

So, I offered mystery boxes, so you didn't to choose the pieces, but you could choose the color, and the size, and it was a wild success.

The Screw Factory also has been doing a fantastic job of promoting their artists online.

They had an online artists sale.

We are gonna be doing events like online sales monthly.

You know, there is a lot of like pulling the community together with that.

My mom and I, we just started making masks for Our Lady of the Wayside just to help that group in some way, and then someone else was like, "Oh, are you selling masks?

I'll buy some."

So it so interesting because even though I deem art as essential, art is a bit of a luxury item, right?

I have never made something that was as essential as a face mask.

It kind of fits my personality.

I like to make things in mass quantities.

So there's like a fun art aspect coming into it, which I really appreciate.

I've recently started thinking a lot about the difference between positivity and optimism, staying in the present moment is, I think a really big part of keeping hope or staying optimistic.

I have to just put things in perspective.

I'm healthy and safe for now, my family is healthy and safe for now, I have my bad days but when I really start thinking about it like I am just absolutely lucky to make art and have people who wanna have conversations about art and, I don't know, there's lots to be grateful for.

(upbeat music)