Clay 551 V.P. Porcelain from Standard Clay Company
Primary forming method hand-rolled coils
Primary firing temperature once fired to cone 6 in an electric kiln
Favorite surface treatment hand-rolled coils
Favorite tools Hard to say—my bucket probably, but my spray bottle is a close second.
Playlist Playlist changes all the time! NPR in the mornings and music all day.
Wishlist plumbing and more power
Studio
My studio is not fancy, but it is an upgrade from the basement corner I worked in for years ducking air vents and furnace parts. It’s an unfinished three-car garage with poor lighting and no temperature control. It’s a far cry from the floor-to-ceiling picture windows of previous workspaces in Cranbrook’s studios or the Korean vistas at ClayArch Gimhae residency. There are no windows, the door is held closed by a rock, and it’s sweaty in the summer and freezing in the winter. It’s a good size, with enough storage for clay, glazes, in-progress work, drying work, and finished inventory. This space was the biggest reason we bought this house—detached garages are hard to find in Pittsburgh!
Walking through the door, you’re greeted first with stacks of boxes of Standard & Laguna clays, and then with my inventory of finished works. I have a custom worktable dominating the center of the space so I can move around the pieces while working. The table, built with my father-in-law, is divided in half for light- and dark-clay use to allow me to work on multiple projects at the same time. Walking around the center workspace, dry materials, glazes, hand tools, order sheets, and shop management supplies, as well as my command center for music, notepad, and cigars all live in the handmade workbench built into the back wall by previous homeowners. That leads into the firing area, with two kilns and their furniture. An old wood stove vent protrudes from the wall and will eventually be converted into proper ventilation, but for now, I fire mostly at night and air out the space in the morning. There are always plans to improve the studio—better electricity would be the first priority, so I’m able to add another kiln. Hopefully, the T3418 L&L. L&L recently sent me a new test kiln, which together with my custom eQ2827 L&L maxes out the power that’s currently available. Plumbing would be a huge improvement, and insulation for temperature regulation sure would be nice.
I do think it’s important to remember that a beautiful finished studio is not required to find success as an artist—I make what I can, where I can, and hopefully (eventually) I’ll have that picture-perfect studio I’m dreaming of.
Paying Dues (and Bills)
Ceramics is my only full-time job, which I’m truly grateful for. I earned my BFA from The Cleveland Institute of Art and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and, after graduating from Cranbrook, I spent six months in South Korea as an artist in residence at the ClayArch Gimhae Museum. I started at the Cleveland Institute of Art thinking I would be a painter or maybe a sculptor, but met Bill Brouillard and the ceramics department and fell in love with the material and the process. I’ve been a practicing artist for about a decade and was able to quit my day job to do this full time starting in 2021. It was difficult to let go of the stability and normalcy of a “regular job,” but we’d reached a point where it made more sense both financially and from a time-management perspective for me to focus fully on my art. Right now, I work between five and ten hours a day in the studio, basically every day of the week, depending on orders and what phase the work is in.
Marketing
My sales are a bit of everything. About a third of my sales come directly through my commercial website, thesoucyshop.com. These are often smaller pieces and custom commissions, usually for individuals, including interior designers sourcing work for private collectors or public spaces like hotels. My direct-sale customers are all over—everywhere from around the corner for local pickup to shipping to the other side of the world in Australia, Saudi Arabia, Ireland, or Singapore. Another segment of sales are through wholesale and retail purchases, which includes my gallery partner, Tappan Collective in Los Angeles, interior design shops like Brenda Friday’s Shoppe B here in Pittsburgh, and Buck Mason clothing stores (see my work decorating their retail locations around the US).
These customers usually order a large number of pieces a couple of times a year and have been great ongoing partners for years. My final big segment of sales comes from my main wholesale customer, Holly Hunt Design. They are an international design firm, part of MillerKnoll, and have commissioned an exclusive line of work—five large sculptural pieces are available in their showrooms now, with a sixth available in early 2025. They make bulk orders throughout the year and are the most consistent part of my income.
Instagram is my main social media platform for marketing, and I showcase and promote my work in the ways galleries and exhibitions do for many artists. Since graduating from Cranbrook, my following there has grown from several hundred to over 36,000. Instagram is definitely part of my full-time job—posting regularly, interacting with followers and other creators, and just staying consistently active. My account is true to myself— finished works beautifully shot by professional photographers like @adammilliron and @erinashkelly, alongside reels from my iPhone camera of works in progress, with lots of my life outside the studio mixed in as well.
I’ve also been really fortunate to find and build genuine friendships with people in the real world who have helped boost my presence on socials. Early on, a childhood friend bought his wife a piece as a gift and she showed it off to her 100,000-plus followers on her @thefoxfamilyden account, prompting my first whirlwind blowout of sales and wiping out my entire existing inventory in a matter of hours. A friendship with Pittsburgh local and HGTV star Leanne Ford has been a boon to my business as well. She’s helped connect me to a lot of opportunities near and far. Honestly, I kind of hate marketing, so forging these kinds of real friendships with people like Adam, Leanne, and others has been really important to my growth.
Mind
In my time off, I hang out with my wife and daughter, take our dog hiking in the woods, clean the house, and work in the garden— regular family life. With a two-year-old and a puppy in the family, there’s not a lot of free time for reading or research—outside of Ceramics Monthly of course! Since I’m lucky enough to be in the studio every day, travel is important for me to recharge. We explore near and far whenever we’re able to carve out the time and budget. My work is my life; just being away from it gets me excited to dive back in and get back to creating.
I’m also lucky that I don’t often feel stuck creatively—while I do fulfill a lot of bulk orders of the same pieces, individual website sales and commissions keep me on my toes creatively, giving me space to stretch and explore different shapes, forms, and clay bodies. My work keeps me in a continual liminal space, a constant inversion, where I can maintain creative inspiration and excitement from wholesale orders to one-of-a-kind sculptures, coiling along down my own errant path.
I don’t know if it’s the right advice for everyone, but time and again, what’s worked for me is to just take the big leap. Having a partner that’s onboard has been important, but trusting myself to make it happen has been the key. Don’t wait for the perfect studio, or for a time that feels easy. Go for broke. Buy the kiln. Quit your job. Do your thing.
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Just the Facts
Clay
551 V.P. Porcelain from Standard Clay Company
Primary forming method
hand-rolled coils
Primary firing temperature
once fired to cone 6 in an electric kiln
Favorite surface treatment
hand-rolled coils
Favorite tools
Hard to say—my bucket probably, but my spray bottle is a close second.
Playlist
Playlist changes all the time! NPR in the mornings and music all day.
Wishlist
plumbing and more power
Studio
My studio is not fancy, but it is an upgrade from the basement corner I worked in for years ducking air vents and furnace parts. It’s an unfinished three-car garage with poor lighting and no temperature control. It’s a far cry from the floor-to-ceiling picture windows of previous workspaces in Cranbrook’s studios or the Korean vistas at ClayArch Gimhae residency. There are no windows, the door is held closed by a rock, and it’s sweaty in the summer and freezing in the winter. It’s a good size, with enough storage for clay, glazes, in-progress work, drying work, and finished inventory. This space was the biggest reason we bought this house—detached garages are hard to find in Pittsburgh!
Walking through the door, you’re greeted first with stacks of boxes of Standard & Laguna clays, and then with my inventory of finished works. I have a custom worktable dominating the center of the space so I can move around the pieces while working. The table, built with my father-in-law, is divided in half for light- and dark-clay use to allow me to work on multiple projects at the same time. Walking around the center workspace, dry materials, glazes, hand tools, order sheets, and shop management supplies, as well as my command center for music, notepad, and cigars all live in the handmade workbench built into the back wall by previous homeowners. That leads into the firing area, with two kilns and their furniture. An old wood stove vent protrudes from the wall and will eventually be converted into proper ventilation, but for now, I fire mostly at night and air out the space in the morning. There are always plans to improve the studio—better electricity would be the first priority, so I’m able to add another kiln. Hopefully, the T3418 L&L. L&L recently sent me a new test kiln, which together with my custom eQ2827 L&L maxes out the power that’s currently available. Plumbing would be a huge improvement, and insulation for temperature regulation sure would be nice.
I do think it’s important to remember that a beautiful finished studio is not required to find success as an artist—I make what I can, where I can, and hopefully (eventually) I’ll have that picture-perfect studio I’m dreaming of.
Paying Dues (and Bills)
Ceramics is my only full-time job, which I’m truly grateful for. I earned my BFA from The Cleveland Institute of Art and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and, after graduating from Cranbrook, I spent six months in South Korea as an artist in residence at the ClayArch Gimhae Museum. I started at the Cleveland Institute of Art thinking I would be a painter or maybe a sculptor, but met Bill Brouillard and the ceramics department and fell in love with the material and the process. I’ve been a practicing artist for about a decade and was able to quit my day job to do this full time starting in 2021. It was difficult to let go of the stability and normalcy of a “regular job,” but we’d reached a point where it made more sense both financially and from a time-management perspective for me to focus fully on my art. Right now, I work between five and ten hours a day in the studio, basically every day of the week, depending on orders and what phase the work is in.
Marketing
My sales are a bit of everything. About a third of my sales come directly through my commercial website, thesoucyshop.com. These are often smaller pieces and custom commissions, usually for individuals, including interior designers sourcing work for private collectors or public spaces like hotels. My direct-sale customers are all over—everywhere from around the corner for local pickup to shipping to the other side of the world in Australia, Saudi Arabia, Ireland, or Singapore. Another segment of sales are through wholesale and retail purchases, which includes my gallery partner, Tappan Collective in Los Angeles, interior design shops like Brenda Friday’s Shoppe B here in Pittsburgh, and Buck Mason clothing stores (see my work decorating their retail locations around the US).
These customers usually order a large number of pieces a couple of times a year and have been great ongoing partners for years. My final big segment of sales comes from my main wholesale customer, Holly Hunt Design. They are an international design firm, part of MillerKnoll, and have commissioned an exclusive line of work—five large sculptural pieces are available in their showrooms now, with a sixth available in early 2025. They make bulk orders throughout the year and are the most consistent part of my income.
Instagram is my main social media platform for marketing, and I showcase and promote my work in the ways galleries and exhibitions do for many artists. Since graduating from Cranbrook, my following there has grown from several hundred to over 36,000. Instagram is definitely part of my full-time job—posting regularly, interacting with followers and other creators, and just staying consistently active. My account is true to myself— finished works beautifully shot by professional photographers like @adammilliron and @erinashkelly, alongside reels from my iPhone camera of works in progress, with lots of my life outside the studio mixed in as well.
I’ve also been really fortunate to find and build genuine friendships with people in the real world who have helped boost my presence on socials. Early on, a childhood friend bought his wife a piece as a gift and she showed it off to her 100,000-plus followers on her @thefoxfamilyden account, prompting my first whirlwind blowout of sales and wiping out my entire existing inventory in a matter of hours. A friendship with Pittsburgh local and HGTV star Leanne Ford has been a boon to my business as well. She’s helped connect me to a lot of opportunities near and far. Honestly, I kind of hate marketing, so forging these kinds of real friendships with people like Adam, Leanne, and others has been really important to my growth.
Mind
In my time off, I hang out with my wife and daughter, take our dog hiking in the woods, clean the house, and work in the garden— regular family life. With a two-year-old and a puppy in the family, there’s not a lot of free time for reading or research—outside of Ceramics Monthly of course! Since I’m lucky enough to be in the studio every day, travel is important for me to recharge. We explore near and far whenever we’re able to carve out the time and budget. My work is my life; just being away from it gets me excited to dive back in and get back to creating.
I’m also lucky that I don’t often feel stuck creatively—while I do fulfill a lot of bulk orders of the same pieces, individual website sales and commissions keep me on my toes creatively, giving me space to stretch and explore different shapes, forms, and clay bodies. My work keeps me in a continual liminal space, a constant inversion, where I can maintain creative inspiration and excitement from wholesale orders to one-of-a-kind sculptures, coiling along down my own errant path.
I don’t know if it’s the right advice for everyone, but time and again, what’s worked for me is to just take the big leap. Having a partner that’s onboard has been important, but trusting myself to make it happen has been the key. Don’t wait for the perfect studio, or for a time that feels easy. Go for broke. Buy the kiln. Quit your job. Do your thing.
philipmsoucy.com, thesoucyshop.com
Instagram: @philipmsoucy
Photos: Adam Milliron.
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