D7 – Get close to Hanks – Zanfirico Hanks

Friday, September 11th, 2026. Studio Uncle Fish, Irmo, South Carolina.

Falling asleep defeated and waking up insecure is my life pattern.

Ending my morning walk after a mile because of an over quantity of sadness is also traditional.

I have spared this blog several paragraphs of depressing shit via peraonal communication via black coffee, weed, and cigarettes.

And so yeah, taking in the gift of all that, it’s another blessed day!

Studio Assessment

In a progressive future, there will be a link to a tour of the glass shop.

I needed to drive down to Lexington, South Carolina, for oxygen this morning (30 minutes each way), and it gave me the opportunity to gather my thoughts and make plans.

Clean and ready for productive creativity. I can not say the same for myself.

The only way for me to survive is to double down on the premise of my business: assembling large hanks of Zanfirico beads.

So, to confirm for myself and the universe, the name of this business is Zanfirico Hanks.

Zanfirico Hanks

Sell beads. Go backpacking.

Production and sale of large-scale hanks of Zanfirico beads to support long-term, long-distance backpacking.

It is very scary for me to admit that there is no further future for me as a traditional glass artist or a traditional glass beadmaker. It’s not working. It hasn’t been working. It’s not worth fighting for.

Hundreds of observations and years of reasonings aside, the time for all those have passed, the presumed successful formula is: produce large-scale hanks of Zanfirico beads for display. Art de craft. Wall hangings. Instalation type collections of large numbers of objects. This is the way.

Make hanks. Sell the remainders at any price to survive. This is the plan.

I’ve been afraid of this even while designing it and seeing it sensibilities. I’ve tried to mitigate my approach to this new situation with the activities of a traditional artist, and it’s just not working. I need to double down. Focus and let go.

Kiln split from this morning. I am not enthusiastic about this work.

eBay Charity Auctions

After cleaning the studio, the first order of business is national service. Read about my 100% donation eBay charity auctions program, benefiting food programs around the United States, by clicking here. Link to live auctions by clicking here.

My charity auctions are still trying to repopulate themselves after my recent shutdown by the powers that be at eBay. I am thrilled to have three consecutive listing days that have not been forced off the internet. Also, I have not received any communications from the eBay fraud or security departments that would lead me to existential crisis. So that’s good. Very good, even.

Nothing needs to be packed and shipped.

I have problems with my charity auctions that I’d love to solve, but I need to move forward with things that are potentially profitable. It can all wait.

Etsy

Shop the Zanfirico Harold Etsy store by clicking here. You buy, I backpack.

One of the things I need to change is my Etsy inventory.

Things are not selling. They are sitting. I need to look at the inventory I have for sale on Etsy and determine if any of those items would better serve my future if they were part of one of the collections I am building.
I dislike much of my Etsy inventory. I need to go through my items and heavily discount anything I don’t have personal respect for.

The first items to be removed from the Etsy store are sets of marble beads. Their quality is fully mids, and they are not selling for those and other reasons. I pulled maybe twenty-two marble bead set from Etsy, splitting those sets of beads into collections where possible. The remaining beads I can list as singles on Etsy, they will take forever to sell as ever. Removal of the sets from Etsy is a major cut to the value of my store. Sets were $1-200. And now, all that value is deleted.

I also moved all disk beads I immediately hate into a discount area of the store.

I placed all the tobacco pipes I have on discount. None of them have sold since listing, and they do not get any views.

I now have over a hundred items with 25% discount.

Sigh. Painful.

I have an emotional breakdown in the studio. These changes are very undermining to the financial future of my life. These changes reflect my understanding that nothing is selling. Prices are low, and they are probably never going back up. There is no indication that I have any ideas that will help things sell, and I have no idea what to do.

My life and career are sinking beyond the bottom and into the muck. I have this Zanfirico Hanks idea and nothing else. Just so fucked. Navigation away from failure is not entrepreneurialism and it sure as fuck isn’t craft.

I adjust my prep layout and make plans to move more directly towards this Hanks thing. I absolutely see that this decision has me making stuff I am absolutely sure will not sell, and this makes me very sad.

But I’m always wrong about everything, so who knows? Maybe this Zanfirico Hanks thing will turn up roses. It’s a good plan, all things considered.

Lampworking

In a progressive future, there will be a link to photograph history or plans or some shit.

Derrick’s (guy who owns the studio where I work) mom stopped by the shop to check that all is well with property and pets. Derrick is in Charlotte working his booth at retail venues over the weekend. Good luck to him. There is a link to his homepage at the top of this post.

I get the last lampworking for “Cane Set 1” completed. I have been managing myself using a system called “trys,” but that system doesn’t translate well to this format. So, like a bunch of other stuff this morning, I changed things up. The last of work for Cane Set 1 was 3 cores for marbles and marble beads. They will get run tomorrow, would be my guess.

Conclusion

Fear is unconsumed creative potential or something that will kill. It’s hard to know unless up close.

I need to do better. Get close to this Hanks thing. Consume my fear or… be killed. Lol, sigh. That’s actually the plan.

Zanfirico Hanks