This is Debra Coddington. I’m 63. Arrowsmith Forge, is an artisan-iron business my husband and I began when we met 35 years ago. We design, build and install architectural iron, furniture and lighting. Currently we’re a “custom metal” shop but for over 20 years Arrowsmith created lines of furniture and chandeliers for international corporations. Our extensive facilities enable us to make most anything of metal that our clients can dream up. And we do!
What did you do for work in your last full time/part time job?
Hard to remember that far back. I began building trade skills at 17, when I apprenticed w/a dental technicial to study lost wax casting in NYC. Since art paid little, to support myself I began peddling jewelry I was making; eventually selling to stores like: Cartier, Rosenthal Studiohaus, Bloomingdale’s, George Jensen, Bendels, etc.
When money got tight, I worked part time in the garment center, apprenticed to platers and casting houses in the jewelry district, addressed envelopes for Singer Sewing Machine from pages in the telephone book, developed a line of brown rice maki-sushi for a health food store, cleaned houses, studied physical anthropology at Hunter College, assisted instructors at The New School (for Social Research), and bartered bracelets to an organic co-op for food. I did whatever was necessary to make enough $ to survive. Back then it was far easier than it is today. NY was a city that encouraged its young artisans to create and develop their skills, their craft, their “art”.
You can afford to make mistakes when you can eat dinner for $1.95 at Comidas China y Criolla and rent is $135.00 per month (including electric).
In the late 70s I met my current husband at a blacksmithing conference and we began working together immediately. Because I knew NYC well, I sold our designs there. At the peak of Arrowsmith’s production business, we sold to: Pierre Deux, WaterWorks, Brunschwig & Fils, Portico and many boutique stores. We had 25 employees, which can be quite the human resource headache if you try to do it all yourself!
Are you making a living doing your passion?
O boy. Isn’t THAT a question…
When you begin to “make your living” doing what you love the most, when your “passion” becomes your meal-ticket, that passion can morph into something that is, shall we say, less exhilarating than its original incarnation.
For years I was devoted to metal work. In my mid 30s my life changed as the result of 2 simultaneous occurrences: kids and my business becoming successful; which meant someone had to run it.
Since the male member of our team is a raging (and brilliant) dyslexic who cannot dial phone numbers correctly on a bad day (but does 3-D rotations of objects by closing his eyes), by default running the biz was allocated to me.
And here’s the sound of me pulling up a soap box with advice for anyone interested in listening… Unless you’re harder-assed and a better biz person that I am,
HIRE SOMEONE ELSE to run whatever aspects of your business you find truly draining.
Not demanding. Draining. Understand and correct business deficiencies, but as much as possible, stick to what feeds you and your creativity. Try to not turn yourself into an emotional pretzel attempting to do things you legitimately dislike (and those may be broad and self-defined) or you may become someone you neither recognize nor like when you look into your internal mirror. Making deals, selling, compromising design and negotiating don’t have to be – but can become soul-exhausting. Can you fire people without it trashing you (and your creativity)? I couldn’t. I wish I’d recognized how destructive it was to me all those years ago. And I wish I’d hired someone better suited to that role because I was not. And I’m still not. 35 years later it still fucks w/me when I have to fire someone – which means quite simply that I don’t always make smart or right decisions for the business.
How much time do you spend in your dream work life?
These days I spend too little time in “dream” life. When the economy is so difficult it’s challenging to get enough of the “right” business through our doors. That said, attacking anything creatively, including marketing, makes unexciting tasks feel less mundane. (See Robert Henri’s “The Art Spirit” for a great dissertation on creativity.)
Remembering that my work used to be my “passion” – after putting kids thru college on the back of this business I’ve developed “hobbies” that are removed from work: the gym and training my Rottweiler being 2 of my favorites. I am however, still involved in design work and finishing product and – after all these years – am actually still inspired by the work.
Have you had to fire clients?
Definitely. There have been clients I’ve been unable to work with. I refuse to work w/abusive individuals.
Even a long life is simply too short to deal with assholes.
We used to have a sign above my office manager’s desk, “Price is directly relative to attitude.” I don’t like to close doors so I attempt to be diplomatic, occasionally, even resorting to slight falsehoods when needed.
What pushed you to stop working for other people?
I never fit in anyone else’s box. So I built my own, with my own reality and rules. It wasn’t a conscious decision; never thought about it, meant to do it, or even realized I was doing it till one day- in my 40’s – I sort of emerged long enough to recognize what I’d developed as a result of the fact that I just never fit in anyone else’s reality.
Tell us about selling items that fell under NAFTA?
O dear. Well, on this one Ross Perot was dead-nuts! Pre-NAFTA we had 25 employees. Post NAFTA we had 7. NAFTA was the beginning of the end of our lucrative production business.
And then tell us about selling items that compete with offshoring…
We can’t and do not compete w/items made in a global market since there’s no level playing field. I understand the reasons for global trading and sympathize with third world labor. We just cannot compete. So we don’t. It almost put our business under when we continued to try.
Understanding that everyone wants cheaper stuff (hey, isn’t Walmart the largest corp in the world?) once we recognized the new “normal” we moved into a niche where we could be competitive. We changed what we did, who we sold to, the structure of the biz and downsized. It’s not perfect but we’re still alive.
And the recession? How did things go then?
That was practically the nail in the coffin of bigger = better for our biz.
NAFTA, 9/11, then the recession. Bad combination.
The recessions hit us very hard. We couldn’t access capital to alter our business (or heat the shop for that matter). The jury is still out as to how long we’ll be able to continue to be honest.
When you stopped working for other people describe how you felt.
The very first check I wrote to an employee made me so anxious I could barely breathe. I surely couldn’t sleep. 10 years later, I had over 20 employees and the things that made me anxious had exponentially increased. You learn as you grow…
Actually, meditating and the serenity prayer get me thru more sleepless nights than I like to admit.
How do you support yourself financially?
The business supports the family. My husband and I run it… Well, to be accurate it feels like it runs us. Both sons have worked w/us at various times in their lives and are creative and bright enough to not want our business. They’ve seen first-hand too many years of us taking no time off. Smart kids!
Do you consider yourself financially stable or not?
I always feel I’m one step away from losing everything. That’s not exactly accurate but I can never relax. Life is not uber secure but we are managing. It is always difficult. By its very nature custom work has a built in learning curve. We’re a custom shop now – rather than a production shop. Creating anything initially means uncertainty in the learning curve. Just think, you can actually lose your shirt every single time you do something truly new! Yes, you learn a ton, but you may not make a lot of $. Whereas, when we were involved w/production work (high end and upscale though it was) problems got resolved during prototyping. By the time lines were running the learning curve was finished. We could predict price based on output. That’s quite different than custom.
Do you have health insurance and if so, who pays for it? If not, why not?
We have health insurance and we pay for it. When our biz was super successful we paid 100% of our employees benefits and had 401K plans for them. It was a very hard decision to take that from employees, but we had to in order to continue. My husband is turning 65 so he’s eligible for Medicare now and Social Security which should help.
Glad you chose this path or do you wish you could go back in time?
I read The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin by P.D. Ouspensky in my teens and it profoundly influenced my forming persona. I think it’s kind of a waste of energy to wonder overmuch about that stuff. I think you do what you have to do. If you don’t have to go into business for yourself, if you envision other possibilities you’re gonna take them. People always told me how “brave” I was to be in business for myself. That felt inaccurate. Actually, it felt like BS. It wasn’t ever about bravery. I never had another choice cause I just never fit in anyone else’s box. I did get really lucky though,when I met a partner 35 years ago and we wanted to build our box together. It’s been an interesting run so far and I don’t know where it’ll wind up. Apparently we’re not done yet.
You can read more about Debra Coddington and Arrowsmith Forge at her website.
