2018 WAS SUCH A HUGE YEAR FOR MY BUSINESS; I BUILT MY STUDIO, I INVESTED MORE MONEY THAN I HAD EVER INVESTED IN ANYTHING (OTHER THAN WHEN WE BOUGHT OUR HOUSE) SO THERE WAS QUITE A LOT OF PRESSURE PLACED ON 2019 TO BE A BIGGER AND BETTER YEAR. IT WAS, BUT NOT FOR THE REASONS YOU MIGHT EXPECT…

Contrary to what you may think, I’m always hugely self-conscious when writing about myself but if you’re reading this you’re one of the very important people who contribute to my business through your constant support and interest, so as ever I wanted to check in with you and this time of year seems like the perfect opportunity to reflect and share a little context behind my business and life!

Nearly exactly year ago, I wrote a blog post about all the things I was going to achieve in 2019 (it’s still up on my blog if you want a nose). Amongst my many goals were; starting an online pottery course, creating a podcast, designing a range of ceramics for a big brand and turning over £60k. I can’t help but snort as I type that list of things now - I must have been bonkers to think I could even just fit all of that in a single year. Little did I know, as the year progressed, life would unfold beneath my feet in a twisty path of combes and cliffs.

Despite the freezing temperature and the snows, the year started well, I was thrilled to have been chosen as one of the Potter’s Cast listener’s favourite episodes of 2018 - ( I’ve shared the episode at the bottom of the page).  A short trip to bonnie Scotland reminded me how great it is to travel and I planned a few more trips for the summer. Soon after returning from Scotland, I lost my first ever big batch of work due to a massive kiln over-fire. Hundreds of £££ of pottery lost. Which sucked. We also lost all of our personal photos from the past 15 years on a hard drive which got corrupted - that sucked even more. We managed to piece together pivotal moments like our wedding, honeymoon and holidays from CDs, social media, friends photos and by reaching out to photographers but both were big blows which took months to recover from.

Having dusted myself off from February’s losses, by spring time I was back into a regimented making routine; throwing, trimming, firing, glazing. Repeat. I hadn’t missed a monthly shop update since September the year before but this level of production was hard to maintain and a shift was brewing from deep within my business (and myself). It was starting to dawn on me that it was near impossible to work on any of the ‘goals’ that I set myself or even just to be creative whilst working to such a strict production regime. I began looking for examples of other ways of working and different ways of creating a successful business.

March & April saw lots of reevaluating. What do I want from my business? What is it giving me? What am I giving back? My instincts were shouting loud at this point. I wanted things to shift. I needed things to shift. I had to get away from just endless production. I read the book ‘A Company of One’ by Paul Jarvis, which had a huge impact on my mindset surrounding the way I was working and the ways we’ve been told we need to work in order to be ‘successful’.
In the mean time, I was thrilled to have been invited back on the Potter’s Cast to talk about my website, branding and marketing (episode 518, if you’re interested- linked at the bottom of the page).

May brought one of my favourite moments of the year: I hand delivered over 80 pieces of pottery to Le Cochon Avegule in York, one of the UK’s top restaurants, owned and run by talented chef and sommelier team Josh and Vicky Overington, who commissioned me to make most of the restaurants crockery. It was super proud moment. I even got the chance to eat from my own work during their heavenly 12 course tasting menu - a surreal ‘pinch me’ moment.

Later that month, I went on a glazing course with the fabulous and uber talented chemist and potter Linda Bloomfield. This was the start of the most challenging yet rewarding evolution of my work to date - creating my own range of glazes. You can read all about the ins and outs of that on a previous blog post also shared at the bottom of this blog post.

In June I travelled. Thomas and I went to France. We ate, swam, read and relaxed. Soon after our return I departed on a solo trip to Canada to visit my best friend (of over 15 years) who emigrated to BC in 2013. It was a truly beautiful, life-changing trip. I was immersed in the natural wonders of an enchanting country. We hiked and hiked and hiked and talked and talked and talked, we  experienced snow in June and I even saw bear. It was magical. BUT having so much time out of the studio was tricky business-wise. No making = no pots, no pots = no money. Playing catch up from being away so long had a knock-on effect well into the rest of the year. It is truly one of the a hardest elements of running a solo business; how to have time away from the studio and not have it negatively effect you financially for months. Despite the monetary challenges, I had the time of my life. The time spent travelling crystallised what I wanted from my business; it needed to facilitate my life, not the other way around. I was deep into the process of creating my new glazes - work that also took me away from production - yet it was deeply rewarding and even though this was a hard summer finically, life felt great.

July saw the start of some changes. I invested in an extension for Derek the kiln, now known as Big Derek (BD). He’s 110 litres of fire power and I love and respect him in equal measure. It took a while for me and Derek to get aquatinted but his extra space meant my studio could be more efficient; firing bigger batches of work in one go rather than several smaller batches is great for time and electricity saving.
I made the decision to hire a studio assistant, an idea I had been toying with for some time. I needed help. I couldn’t continue to do it all on my own anymore. I’d had friends and my husband help me in the past but I needed a more permanent arrangement. There is so much groundwork which needs to be done before you can even throw a single mug. My Company of One is now a Company of Two. Layla (thank the Lord for Layla), now works for me one day a week - I know one day a week doesn’t sound like a lot but it’s all I can afford at the moment plus when you’ve been doing everything on your own up until that point it takes time to adjust. This decision has made a huge difference.