The making part always came naturally to me.
Running a business… that took a lot more figuring out 🫠
I love being in the studio…but sharing my work, pricing it properly and talking about it confidently?
That part has always felt much harder.
I’ve had to learn how to:
✨ get my ceramics in front of the right people
💡 approach shops and wholesale without second-guessing myself
🎯 build a brand that actually felt like me
📦 grow something sustainable without losing the joy of making
That learning curve — all the trial, error, and slow confidence-building — is what led me here.
I’ve poured it all into my new course, designed to support potters who love making, but want a clearer, calmer way to run the business side too.
It officially launches on Wednesday 21st January, with early bird pricing available for a short time.
If you’re ready to stop guessing and start building your ceramics business with more confidence 🤍
💬 Comment “COURSE” and I’ll send you all the details.
It’s another weekend of @artistsopenhouses 🙌
Artist Open Houses is just one of the many reasons I love living in Brighton - a whole month of visiting artists’ studios and homes, and supporting local makers… yes please ☺️
@hygge_aoh is my open studio, and not only am I showcasing my latest ceramics, but also the work of 8 incredibly talented makers and artists as well.
If you’re out exploring this weekend (or next), we’d love to see you ✨
Glaze day in the studio ✨🔉
Dipping this batch of hand-drawn underglaze pencil cups and canisters into a glossy transparent glaze before their final firing.
I’ll be the first to admit… I really don’t enjoy glazing 😅
But the sounds? So satisfying.
The dip, the drips, the tongs tapping the bucket… weirdly soothing every single time.
(I’m a little annoyed I left my podcast playing in the background but bonus points if you can work out what I’m listening to 😂)
I think a lot of creatives assume pricing is just a maths problem.
But sooooo much of it is emotional.
It’s your confidence. Your own spending habits. Your fear of rejection. Your relationship with money. Your worry that people will think you’re arrogant, unrealistic or “not worth it.”
And when you make work with your own hands, it becomes even harder to separate the value of the object from the value of yourself.
I underpriced my work for years, partly because I genuinely didn’t understand my costs… but also because charging more felt deeply uncomfortable.
I think a lot of makers are actually carrying around invisible rules like:
“people won’t pay that”
“if I charge more, people will judge me”
“creatives shouldn’t care about money”
Anyway. Here are a few of the ‘rules’ I’ve had to make for myself over the years.
Please appreciate the tiny reed diffuser cut-out at the start because I was far too excited about it 😆
Geeez, I’m fully on the struggle bus this week with energy levels and trying to keep up with … anything really. Im naturally quite introverted, so hosting an open studio every weekend in May has definitely stretched me a quite a lot!
I had all these plans this month to start working on my Instagram growth masterclass for other potters (👀), but instead I seem to have become incredibly busy doing hundreds of tiny admin tasks and procrastinating.
Anyway. Here’s a short reel of me throwing one of my reed diffuser bottles in green and white marbled clay. I love making them, and they make the sweetest little addition to any room - they are perfect for windowsills 👌
I designed this oil burner 3 years ago now 🤯
And it was one of the first pieces I made that truly felt like me.
I know there are a lot of oil burners out there, but this shape still feels really personal to my work. Modern, simple, and elegant, with the widest point sitting around 1/3 of the way up. It took a lot of testing to get those proportions feeling right.
Each burner is thrown on the wheel, so they’ve all got their own little quirks. But I use a template trace the opening, which keeps the shape consistent and it’s always very satisfying to cut out.
The lid is detachable too, which makes cleaning out old wax much easier.
They can be used with essential oils or wax melts, and make such a lovely addition to a space 🫶
Thank you so much to everyone who came to my open studio this weekend 🫶
I’m honestly blown away by the support. So much work goes into getting everything ready - shifting furniture, styling shelves, cleaning the studio and house within an inch of its life, baking cakes, making pots - that there’s always that veryyyy nervous feeling beforehand of “what if nobody comes?”
But wow… you really showed up.
We also had our private view last night, so I was feeling slightly jaded this morning (and running mostly on coffee), but seeing so many people through the doors completely lifted me again.
And genuinely, it means so much when people who follow along on here come and visit in real life. It’s such a weird and lovely thing to finally meet people properly and show you the space behind everything I make.
Also… if you visited and enjoyed it, we’d massively appreciate a vote for your favourite open house 👀 We came runner-up last year, so obviously now we’ve got a point to prove (I’ll add the link in my stories).
Thank you again for such a lovely weekend ✨
When pottery was my hobby, it was how I switched off.
Then I turned it into my full-time job… and somewhere along the way, I forgot I was allowed to have a life outside of the studio 😅
For the first couple of years of running my business, I genuinely didn’t really have another hobby. Everything became about pottery. Making, glazing, firing, packing, emails, Instagram, stressing about kiln firings at 3am…
And I think when your passion becomes your job, it can easily become your entire identity.
It took me way too long to realise that resting isn’t resting unless I’m not thinking about work.
So if you’re building a creative business right now, this is your reminder to protect a few parts of your life that have absolutely nothing to do with your business.
Your brain will thank you for it 🫶
Soooo… what’s everyone’s non-pottery hobby?!
Ring dishes are back in stock 🙌
A few more have just made it out the kiln and are looking glorious in the afternoon sunshine.
They’re designed as little everyday jewellery dishes, perfect for rings, earrings, and all the small things that otherwise end up scattered around the house ☺️
Each one is wheel-thrown in my chalk stoneware clay and finished with a hand-drawn pattern using an underglaze pencil. Every line is drawn freehand, so no two are ever exactly the same.
These sold pretty quickly on launch day, so if you’ve had your eye on one, now’s your chance ✨
If you love the look of unglazed pottery like I do, this is worth knowing…
Unglazed ceramics are naturally porous, so over time they can absorb moisture, oils and marks. You can wash them to remove this but for pieces that are trickier to clean (like vases or lamps), it’s not always that practical.
For those, I use a silicon dioxide sealant (also called liquid quartz). It works by filling those tiny pores in the clay, creating a protective, water-resistant layer.
It dries completely transparent and doesn’t change the look or feel of the unglazed surface at all so you keep that soft, tactile finish.
It helps prevent staining and just makes pieces a lot easier to live with.
It’s non-toxic and non-hazardous, but it’s worth noting that the brand currently available in the UK isn’t officially approved for food-safe use so I only use it on non-food pieces.
Save this for later if you work with unglazed clay 🤍
This is what it looks like when a house becomes an art gallery…
Wow, what an incredible start to Artist Open Houses. There’s so much prep that goes into this, I get completely lost in it… and every year I say I’ll share more of the process.
Did I manage it this year? Not at all 😆
For one month a year, we transform our home completely. Furniture gets packed away, walls get freshly painted and everything deep cleaned… all to create a space to showcase my ceramics and the most beautiful work from other local artists.
The prep feels never-ending in the run-up… so many lists, so many ideas and constantly shuffling and reshuffling things around until they look right! And then suddenly, it comes together.
But one thing I have managed this year is to pick up my camera 🙌.
So this is the first of many glimpses I’ll be sharing over the next few weeks…
Here are my new ceramic vases, paired with simple, ikebana-inspired arrangements.
If you’ve already visited, thank you ☺️
And if you’re planning to come, I can’t wait to see you over the next few weekends.
Using coloured clay makes the dreamiest ceramics…
Soft tones and beautiful, subtle colours.
And yes, while that is true, the reality behind the scenes is mostly mixing, wedging, testing… and then doing it all again because the colour isn’t quite right.
When I explain to other potters how I make my coloured clay, I always get the same reaction…
“You’re basically just doing reclaim out of choice?”
Yep. Exactly that.
Anyway… today is the first day of my open studio, so if you’d like to see the results of all that “preparing clay”, you’re very welcome to come by ☺️!
Alongside my work, there are 8 brilliant guest artists exhibiting as well.
