The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.
When I first touched clay in 2016, I was hooked. I was taking a class at a local studio and made sure to maximize my use of the hours we were allowed to come in to practice each week. I dreamed about it at night and was inspired by the possibilities
clay provided. But more than that, I could think of nothing else while I had my hands on clay. It was therapeutic for me, and everything fell into place. I had a past career in interior design and did some graphic and illustration work
when my kids were small. But ever since moving to the US in 2008, I hadn’t really had a sense of purpose professionally, until I discovered clay.
Developing a Studio and Technique
Around the same time in 2016, we bought a house that had an unfinished lower level that was only accessible from the outside since it was on a hill. I was assuming it would turn into some kind of man cave, but my husband had seen my
obsession with pottery and suggested I use the space instead. I did not feel ready at all, but went for it anyway and set up my studio less than a year after touching clay for the first time. And then it was figuring things out
as I went—researching how to set up a studio, making plans on how to remodel and finish the space, getting the equipment, a few shelves, tools, you name it.
As I was setting up, I decided to invest time in exploring my aesthetic. In this infinite pool of possibilities, I initially thought I’d take a year to try out any clay, glaze, and technique that appealed to me. Only a few months
in though, I decided to apply to a fairly well-known art show in the area, thinking I’d gain the experience of going through an application process, but not actually get accepted. Instead, I did get accepted. A slight panic
set in, but this forced me to take a look at my experiments. I picked a few I really liked and based a collection on those three looks, making sure the color palette and the shapes were in sync with each other. I had a goal to
get ready for that show and buckled down.
I noticed my aesthetic was very different from what I had seen of American pottery so far, so I was nervous my work wouldn’t be well received, but the opposite turned out to be true. I ended up receiving a best-of-show award and
a ton of positive feedback. This was the last bit of confirmation needed and a huge confidence boost for me to keep pursuing this ceramic dream.
Over the years, my work has often been referred to as feeling mid-century or Scandinavian, which is not something I am consciously pursuing, but these are definitely aesthetics that appeal to me personally. I typically start by laying
out geometric patterns when I’m deciding how to decorate a piece, even when it later becomes botanical decor. Proportion and balance are always part of the thought process. Subconsciously, my interior design background and
graphic design sense seem to be embedded in my creative process. I love making adjustments and iterations on a design, evolving it with each new piece—changing the proportions, seeing what happens if I change the direction
of certain lines, and playing around with it.
Factors and Making a Move
Working as a potter, there are many ways the work stays interesting and keeps me challenged. The challenges certainly present themselves in the work surrounding having my own business. First, it’s choosing an identity for business cards and banners,
determining how to build a booth for art fairs, and deciding how to take payments. Later on, it’s figuring out how to scale up, optimize processes, photograph work, and engage with customers, as well as learning through experience what (and
what not) to do with social media, which shows to sign up for, and which packing and shipping practices work best. Other tasks that have to be addressed include keeping up the website, making listings for the web shop, and choosing what wording to
use to describe my work. All of these factors slowly take shape and may change over time. It’s important to know that while they will need to be attended to, the decisions do not need to be made simultaneously. They can happen organically as
you think about what you’d like to achieve, step by step.
At this point, I’m deep into figuring out all of these things anew. In 2021, my husband and I decided to spend a year in the Netherlands, to have our teenagers (15 and 17 at the time) experience the country they were born in. They
were only 2 and 4 years old when we left, and we had always wanted them to spend more than just a summer to really get to know the Netherlands and be around family.
The kids were never open to this idea when we had brought it up in years past, but this time, after having spent over a year being taught online due to Covid lockdowns and hardly seeing their friends, they were open to the idea, and I started
organizing. I found international schools for them in Eindhoven, the city we wanted to be in. My husband was fine with working from home at odd hours in the evening due to the time difference. And I figured I’d take a break
from my business and find a local studio I’d go to once or twice a week just to keep myself connected to clay. There were some hurdles along the way, but within months everything was set, and we arrived in August 2021. For the
year, or so we thought.
Within months of going to school in the Netherlands, both kids requested we stay longer so they could finish their education, two to three years longer. So, we started looking into it and ended up finding a place outside of Eindhoven where
I could have my own studio again, in a separate building next to the house. Moving away from the city center meant more space, which was our main goal. My husband got an office, my son a workshop to tinker on cars, and there was
a big studio for me. We got the keys in August 2022.
A Day in the Life
My schedule is pretty open and flexible to begin with. After getting up and having my morning coffee (or 2), I get the kids out the door for school, do a household chore if needed, like start a load of laundry, and walk the dog if my husband hasn’t
done so.
It could be anytime between 8:15 and 9am by the time I’m in my studio, which is a separate building by my house, so the commute is easy!
My husband works from home, so he’ll call me in for lunch around 1pm. His meetings usually start in the afternoon and go on in the evening, so I’ll take care of dinner which means I pause working for a few hours around 5pm to get back
in after dinner.
When I’m in my regular workflow, Mondays are usually my throwing days. My goal is always to make a start on 25–50 pieces each week. I don’t always manage that, and I am quite easy on myself if I don’t, but it’s what
I aim for. I don’t throw all day, so I see what else needs to be done and typically unload last weekend’s kiln load and photograph the work.
On Tuesdays, the work I threw the day before is ready for trimming, and I start decorating pieces that need to be done in the leather-hard stage. This means I’ll be applying slip or underglaze and if the work is dry enough, I will start
to sgraffito some of the pieces.
On Wednesday, more decorating is happening on either leather-hard pieces or bisqueware.
Thursdays entails more decorating on bisqueware, laying out the patterns, trailing the lines, applying wax—anything that needs to be done before glazing. I’d say that in the making of my work, no more than 25% of
the time goes into throwing and trimming, while 75% (or more) of the time is spent on the decorating and glazing aspects of it.
On Fridays I finish up in-progress work by applying glaze, cleaning up the work, loading the kiln, packing and shipping orders, and planning for next week.
Handling New Challenges
So, the initial year, I spent learning the clays and glazes available in the Netherlands. You’d be surprised how much is different. Clay of course is locally sourced, and the brands of glazes and underglazes were not familiar to me.
Finding facilities was another challenge; at some point, I was at one communal studio one day a week, at another half a day per week, and eventually, I found another studio where I could work whenever I wanted. I also had a friend
who owned a small kiln that I could fire in. I worked on my clay in four locations. Not ideal, without eyes on my work at all times, so things would dry out before I got to trimming or were still too wet because I wrapped them too well.
I was constantly packing up, cleaning up, and often moving work from one place to another. I’m kind of a perfectionist, so it took me a while to get back to making the quality of work I wanted. I was still working with clay,
but nowhere near the production levels I used to be at. And I was not selling.
Being in the Netherlands has been challenging for my pottery business. It’s a lot harder to make a sale here. The culture is more frugal and the appreciation for handmade items is not as prevalent. I’d like
to make it work here but have to get my mind set on really starting over, which means building my client base again through signing up for shows and building a following on social media in this country, or at least on this
continent. Everything needs to be reconsidered.
I’m also wondering if I need to make changes in my style and price to better suit the budget of the audience here and make less time-consuming, and therefore more affordable, work. But how do I do this without
losing my aesthetic? This phase certainly comes with lots of questions and doubts. But I figured that I’ve built it once, so I can do it again. It’s only been a few months since the move, so my focus has been
on actually getting the studio in working order. We did not move anything over from the US, so I had to purchase everything anew. It’s been crucial to have a budget for this. And it’s been really nice not to have
the pressure of having to make money right away.
Setting New Goals
How I will actually fill in this new life as a working artist will evolve over time; I just need to keep thinking, considering, and exploring options, and will figure it out. One thing I have discovered already is that in the Netherlands there’s
a market for workshops, where groups of friends/family members/coworkers go do something fun together, oftentimes something creative. I’ve just held my first workshop for a group of friends who had never touched clay. It was well
received, and I enjoyed it. As with everything clay, it will be a bit of a learning curve to fine-tune the projects I can offer, manage the time, set expectations, and make it profitable.
Career Snapshot
Years as a Professional Potter 6
Number of Pots Made in a Year 1200–1500 until I moved (1000 in 2023)
Education St Lucas in the Netherlands, which is a college-level general design education (classes in graphic design, photography, 3D design, visual design, store design, and presentation), mostly self taught in clay.
The Time It Takes (Percentages)
Making Work (including firing): 60%
Promotions/Selling: 30%
Office/Bookkeeping: 10%
Favorite Tool Besides my hands and my wheel, it’s definitely carving tools and squeeze bottles
Process Decorating: trailing underglaze lines and sgraffito work
Where It Goes
Retail Stores: 40%
Galleries: 5%
Craft/Art Fairs: 2%
Studio/Home Sales: 3%
Online: 50% (These percentages reflect sales in the Netherlands.)
On the other hand, I also try to consider what I have back in the US. I have already built a following: collectors, a customer base, and shops that still yearn for my work. I think about seeing how to work with that. It would have to go
through a shop though, as shipping single items overseas is too costly. So my plan as of right now is figuring out how to ship a pallet of work to one of the shops in the US and sell through them.
This year’s goals, as they are forming now, will be:
Creating less time-consuming work to better suit the local market and with that comes the freedom to create a different body of work which should be quite interesting.
Continuing with the current body of work and figuring out how to effectively ship it to my US audience.
Exploring more art objects versus home goods, like my torus shapes, because they could potentially be more profitable and certainly creatively interesting.
Teaching, either professional workshops or consumer events, and possibly moving to teaching online as a paid subscription model to be able to tend to a bigger audience.
It’s about finding a balance in the things I enjoy doing and staying open to changing course along the way.
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The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.
When I first touched clay in 2016, I was hooked. I was taking a class at a local studio and made sure to maximize my use of the hours we were allowed to come in to practice each week. I dreamed about it at night and was inspired by the possibilities clay provided. But more than that, I could think of nothing else while I had my hands on clay. It was therapeutic for me, and everything fell into place. I had a past career in interior design and did some graphic and illustration work when my kids were small. But ever since moving to the US in 2008, I hadn’t really had a sense of purpose professionally, until I discovered clay.
Developing a Studio and Technique
Around the same time in 2016, we bought a house that had an unfinished lower level that was only accessible from the outside since it was on a hill. I was assuming it would turn into some kind of man cave, but my husband had seen my obsession with pottery and suggested I use the space instead. I did not feel ready at all, but went for it anyway and set up my studio less than a year after touching clay for the first time. And then it was figuring things out as I went—researching how to set up a studio, making plans on how to remodel and finish the space, getting the equipment, a few shelves, tools, you name it.
As I was setting up, I decided to invest time in exploring my aesthetic. In this infinite pool of possibilities, I initially thought I’d take a year to try out any clay, glaze, and technique that appealed to me. Only a few months in though, I decided to apply to a fairly well-known art show in the area, thinking I’d gain the experience of going through an application process, but not actually get accepted. Instead, I did get accepted. A slight panic set in, but this forced me to take a look at my experiments. I picked a few I really liked and based a collection on those three looks, making sure the color palette and the shapes were in sync with each other. I had a goal to get ready for that show and buckled down.
I noticed my aesthetic was very different from what I had seen of American pottery so far, so I was nervous my work wouldn’t be well received, but the opposite turned out to be true. I ended up receiving a best-of-show award and a ton of positive feedback. This was the last bit of confirmation needed and a huge confidence boost for me to keep pursuing this ceramic dream.
Over the years, my work has often been referred to as feeling mid-century or Scandinavian, which is not something I am consciously pursuing, but these are definitely aesthetics that appeal to me personally. I typically start by laying out geometric patterns when I’m deciding how to decorate a piece, even when it later becomes botanical decor. Proportion and balance are always part of the thought process. Subconsciously, my interior design background and graphic design sense seem to be embedded in my creative process. I love making adjustments and iterations on a design, evolving it with each new piece—changing the proportions, seeing what happens if I change the direction of certain lines, and playing around with it.
Factors and Making a Move
Working as a potter, there are many ways the work stays interesting and keeps me challenged. The challenges certainly present themselves in the work surrounding having my own business. First, it’s choosing an identity for business cards and banners, determining how to build a booth for art fairs, and deciding how to take payments. Later on, it’s figuring out how to scale up, optimize processes, photograph work, and engage with customers, as well as learning through experience what (and what not) to do with social media, which shows to sign up for, and which packing and shipping practices work best. Other tasks that have to be addressed include keeping up the website, making listings for the web shop, and choosing what wording to use to describe my work. All of these factors slowly take shape and may change over time. It’s important to know that while they will need to be attended to, the decisions do not need to be made simultaneously. They can happen organically as you think about what you’d like to achieve, step by step.
At this point, I’m deep into figuring out all of these things anew. In 2021, my husband and I decided to spend a year in the Netherlands, to have our teenagers (15 and 17 at the time) experience the country they were born in. They were only 2 and 4 years old when we left, and we had always wanted them to spend more than just a summer to really get to know the Netherlands and be around family.
The kids were never open to this idea when we had brought it up in years past, but this time, after having spent over a year being taught online due to Covid lockdowns and hardly seeing their friends, they were open to the idea, and I started organizing. I found international schools for them in Eindhoven, the city we wanted to be in. My husband was fine with working from home at odd hours in the evening due to the time difference. And I figured I’d take a break from my business and find a local studio I’d go to once or twice a week just to keep myself connected to clay. There were some hurdles along the way, but within months everything was set, and we arrived in August 2021. For the year, or so we thought.
Within months of going to school in the Netherlands, both kids requested we stay longer so they could finish their education, two to three years longer. So, we started looking into it and ended up finding a place outside of Eindhoven where I could have my own studio again, in a separate building next to the house. Moving away from the city center meant more space, which was our main goal. My husband got an office, my son a workshop to tinker on cars, and there was a big studio for me. We got the keys in August 2022.
A Day in the Life
My schedule is pretty open and flexible to begin with. After getting up and having my morning coffee (or 2), I get the kids out the door for school, do a household chore if needed, like start a load of laundry, and walk the dog if my husband hasn’t done so.
It could be anytime between 8:15 and 9am by the time I’m in my studio, which is a separate building by my house, so the commute is easy!
My husband works from home, so he’ll call me in for lunch around 1pm. His meetings usually start in the afternoon and go on in the evening, so I’ll take care of dinner which means I pause working for a few hours around 5pm to get back in after dinner.
When I’m in my regular workflow, Mondays are usually my throwing days. My goal is always to make a start on 25–50 pieces each week. I don’t always manage that, and I am quite easy on myself if I don’t, but it’s what I aim for. I don’t throw all day, so I see what else needs to be done and typically unload last weekend’s kiln load and photograph the work.
On Tuesdays, the work I threw the day before is ready for trimming, and I start decorating pieces that need to be done in the leather-hard stage. This means I’ll be applying slip or underglaze and if the work is dry enough, I will start to sgraffito some of the pieces.
On Wednesday, more decorating is happening on either leather-hard pieces or bisqueware.
Thursdays entails more decorating on bisqueware, laying out the patterns, trailing the lines, applying wax—anything that needs to be done before glazing. I’d say that in the making of my work, no more than 25% of the time goes into throwing and trimming, while 75% (or more) of the time is spent on the decorating and glazing aspects of it.
On Fridays I finish up in-progress work by applying glaze, cleaning up the work, loading the kiln, packing and shipping orders, and planning for next week.
Handling New Challenges
So, the initial year, I spent learning the clays and glazes available in the Netherlands. You’d be surprised how much is different. Clay of course is locally sourced, and the brands of glazes and underglazes were not familiar to me. Finding facilities was another challenge; at some point, I was at one communal studio one day a week, at another half a day per week, and eventually, I found another studio where I could work whenever I wanted. I also had a friend who owned a small kiln that I could fire in. I worked on my clay in four locations. Not ideal, without eyes on my work at all times, so things would dry out before I got to trimming or were still too wet because I wrapped them too well. I was constantly packing up, cleaning up, and often moving work from one place to another. I’m kind of a perfectionist, so it took me a while to get back to making the quality of work I wanted. I was still working with clay, but nowhere near the production levels I used to be at. And I was not selling.
Being in the Netherlands has been challenging for my pottery business. It’s a lot harder to make a sale here. The culture is more frugal and the appreciation for handmade items is not as prevalent. I’d like to make it work here but have to get my mind set on really starting over, which means building my client base again through signing up for shows and building a following on social media in this country, or at least on this continent. Everything needs to be reconsidered.
I’m also wondering if I need to make changes in my style and price to better suit the budget of the audience here and make less time-consuming, and therefore more affordable, work. But how do I do this without losing my aesthetic? This phase certainly comes with lots of questions and doubts. But I figured that I’ve built it once, so I can do it again. It’s only been a few months since the move, so my focus has been on actually getting the studio in working order. We did not move anything over from the US, so I had to purchase everything anew. It’s been crucial to have a budget for this. And it’s been really nice not to have the pressure of having to make money right away.
Setting New Goals
How I will actually fill in this new life as a working artist will evolve over time; I just need to keep thinking, considering, and exploring options, and will figure it out. One thing I have discovered already is that in the Netherlands there’s a market for workshops, where groups of friends/family members/coworkers go do something fun together, oftentimes something creative. I’ve just held my first workshop for a group of friends who had never touched clay. It was well received, and I enjoyed it. As with everything clay, it will be a bit of a learning curve to fine-tune the projects I can offer, manage the time, set expectations, and make it profitable.
Career Snapshot
Years as a Professional Potter
6
Number of Pots Made in a Year
1200–1500 until I moved (1000 in 2023)
Education
St Lucas in the Netherlands, which is a college-level general design education (classes in graphic design, photography, 3D design, visual design, store design, and presentation), mostly self taught in clay.
The Time It Takes (Percentages)
Making Work (including firing): 60%
Promotions/Selling: 30%
Office/Bookkeeping: 10%
Favorite Tool
Besides my hands and my wheel, it’s definitely carving tools and squeeze bottles
Process
Decorating: trailing underglaze lines and sgraffito work
Where It Goes
Retail Stores: 40%
Galleries: 5%
Craft/Art Fairs: 2%
Studio/Home Sales: 3%
Online: 50%
(These percentages reflect sales in the Netherlands.)
Learn More
www.julems.com
Instagram: @julemsceramics
On the other hand, I also try to consider what I have back in the US. I have already built a following: collectors, a customer base, and shops that still yearn for my work. I think about seeing how to work with that. It would have to go through a shop though, as shipping single items overseas is too costly. So my plan as of right now is figuring out how to ship a pallet of work to one of the shops in the US and sell through them.
This year’s goals, as they are forming now, will be:
It’s about finding a balance in the things I enjoy doing and staying open to changing course along the way.
Unfamiliar with any terms in this article? Browse our glossary of pottery terms!
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