Editing Your Maker Profile

Your profile is the page visitors land on when they want to know who made this. It carries your bio, where you work, and how to reach you.

It’s separate from the things you list for sale — shop items if you’re an Artisan & Maker, artworks if you’re a Gallery Exhibitor. Those each have their own pages, and this is the page they all point back to.

You edit it yourself, from the front of the site. It takes a few minutes, and it’s worth revisiting once a year.

This is the thing most worth knowing.

Your profile is not reviewed. Save it and it’s live.

Your shop items and artworks are different — a volunteer checks those before they appear, because they can be bought.

Your account page says so too: the My public profile card, under Your maker page, ends "Changes go live straight away", while Your shop says "A volunteer checks each item before it goes on sale."

So a typo in your bio is public the moment you save it — and equally, a fix is public the moment you make it. You don’t need to ask anyone.

Two things on this page can’t be edited here, and the form tells you so:

Your name and your photo both come from My details, your account settings.

That’s deliberate. There is one name and one photo per person, used everywhere the Waterwheel lists or pictures you. When makers could set them in two places, nobody could tell which one a visitor would see.

If either is wrong, the link on this page takes you straight there.

Tagline — one line, shown on the makers page alongside everyone else. This is what makes a visitor click through, so say what you actually make:

Wheel-thrown functional stoneware, fired at the Warburton salt kiln.

Craft and material do more work here than adjectives. "Beautiful handmade pieces" describes almost every maker at the Waterwheel; "salt-fired stoneware" finds the people looking for you.

About — the longer introduction on your own page.

A few sentences about your practice, in plain text. This is the part visitors actually read before deciding to buy, so it’s worth more than five minutes.

What tends to work:

• How long you’ve been at it, and where. Place matters here — people are often visiting the valley.
• How you actually work — the materials, the process, the kiln.
• What the work is for. "Everything she makes is meant to be used. Chips are expected" tells you more than a paragraph of adjectives.

What to leave out: prices, stock, and anything about a particular piece. Those belong on the item, and they go stale here.

Every link needs the full address including https://. The fields only accept a complete link: type a bare instagram.com/you and the form won’t save — your browser stops it and asks you to enter a URL.

Studio location — a suburb is enough. You don’t have to publish a street address, and most makers working from home shouldn’t.

Your existing maker code — leave this blank unless you already sell at the Waterwheel and have a code written on your item tags. Enter just the code at the start, without the number after it: KSAL for tags reading KSAL15. If you don’t have one, we’ll label your items for you.

It is not your till code. That’s a separate number the Waterwheel sets up automatically, and it’s the one that matters for getting paid. This field is just the handwritten code on the tag, so a volunteer at the counter can work out whose work they’re holding.

Up to five photos, each under 8 MB. These are photos of your work, not of your products for sale — those have their own pages.

A plain background and daylight will do more than anything else. Photograph the work you want to be known for, not the newest thing off the wheel.

Then Save changes.

Your name, your bio, where you work and your links — and below this, anything you currently have for sale.

The large background image is set by the Waterwheel, not from this form. If yours looks plain, that’s why; ask a volunteer if you’d like one added. Everything you wrote still reads clearly without it.

Worth opening your own page once after you save, and reading it as a visitor would.

A profile goes stale more quietly than a listing does. Nothing breaks — it just slowly stops describing you.

Worth a few minutes:

• when your work changes direction, or you take up a new material
• when a link dies — an old website, a social account you’ve left
• when you’ve stopped making something the bio still leads with
• when you read it and it sounds like someone else

Once a year is plenty.

Why can’t I change my name here? There’s one name per person, set in My details, so what visitors see is consistent everywhere. The link on the form takes you there.

Do my changes need approving? No. Your profile is live as soon as you save. Artworks and shop items are the ones that get checked.

Can I have a profile without selling anything? Yes. Plenty of makers are listed without anything currently for sale.

Can I add my own background photo? Not from this form — the Waterwheel sets those. Email info@yarravalleywaterwheel.org if you’d like one added or changed.

Something else? Email info@yarravalleywaterwheel.org and a volunteer will pick it up.