Have you ever thought to yourself, "well, if I had that many followers, than I could sell more and quit my full-time job. Getting more followers is the solution to all my small business dreams!" Or perhaps, you've been watching a bit of TV and thought, “Well, if I was on the Great Pottery Throw Down, I could quickly increase my audience size, sell loads of pots, quit my full-time job and all of life's problems would be solved!" So, the question is: Is that the key to success? A big break like that? Well, today's podcast guest has some firsthand experience (and perhaps, some surprising insights). Rosa not only got to be on the Great Pottery Throw Down in Season 3, but she won the whole darn thing! And while there's been great interest in the work that she made during the show, that doesn't necessarily mean she wants to spend all of her time making Alice in Wonderland tea sets…

So often I hear makers talk about what they “should” be doing. How they “should” start posting on Instagram or “should” sell at markets, or “should” sell online. But how many of us have stopped to consider what we prefer? What suits us the best? What is the route in business that is most natural to our personalities and our personal lives? Greta Michelle is crafting a business that not only suits her life, but also beautifully uplifts other local businesses from her home of Trinidad & Tobago. Listen in to this episode to get your own brainstorming started on how you might be able to partner with some of your favorite local small businesses to help support each other!

Season 2 is here! We are kicking things off with the one and only Sunshine Cobb. Sunshine and I dig right into it from the beginning. From sharing, oversharing, and the importance of boundaries as makers and educators, to diversifying income streams, to deciding what you are willing to give up to make these crazy full-time artist lives of ours work. We talk about moving cross country, the importance of mental health, self-care and how to sustain your art practice for the long run. This intro barely grazes the surface. There is A LOT in this episode!

Having it all…. Doing it all… it’s the elusive dream. And while I don't think I'm actually doing it all, running 2 photography studios, starting a podcast, and launching an online course all while moving and starting one of the busiest wedding seasons in the history of events, is a lot to manage. In this week's episode I'm sharing the hard-earned tools & tricks I've learned over the last 11 years in business to manage my time running multiple businesses and somehow still get enough sleep at night (not to mention be a decent wife and available friend).

This week I’m chatting with Tamara Bryan, who you might know on Instagram as Tamara B Pottery. Tamara studied pottery in college and has been working out of her home studio on and off for the past 20 years. I say on and off because as the primary care giver for her kiddos, while it may look to some that Tamara had the freedoms of a full-time potter, living the dream, the reality for her felt a lot more like the crazed side-hustle grind. It’s been a constant trial and error not only in finding her distinct style that she gets asked about regularly, online, but also in discovering what business model works for her life - having tested out shows, built a large wholesale client list, and now, focusing predominately on her own online sales.

This week, I’m sharing an incredibly candid conversation I had with Katie Meili, who is a resident potter at The Village Potters in Asheville, North Carolina. We chat about the difficulties of mental health and how it feels when life takes unexpected turns that throw you off a path everyone else around you is on…. The silver linings that brought us to clay, and the importance of having a community that supports and pushes us as artists. Oh, not to mention, how an entire ruined kiln - I’m talking ENTIRE kiln load of completely ruined pots - brought Katie to her distinct style we know and love today.

I thought about cutting this episode into 2 parts, but I just didn’t know where to pause this conversation, so settle on in because Sherród and I just don’t stop. We’re two impassioned Scorpios who didn’t realize we were going to find such a fast connection so needless to say, we got a little carried away. And as two fire signs, we also get fired up, so there is a bit of cursing in this episode. If you have little ones, I suggest saving this episode for later or enjoying the wonders of headphones.

This week I virtually sit down with Alex Matisse, founder and chief strategic officer of the one and only Eastfork Pottery. He shares insights into the pros and cons of growing such a large, successful business and how taking the time to get clear on a vision is the lynchpin of it all.How do you go from a farm with a woodfire kiln and two potters to an industrial warehouse that already feels too small? Vision. And a bit of luck. At least, that's what worked for Alex Matisse, founder and chief strategic officer of the one and only Eastfork Pottery. On this episode, Alex shares insights into the pros and cons of growing such a large, successful business and how taking the time to get clear on a vision is the lynchpin of it all.Alex and I chatted a lot about the importance of having a vision for your business and how that vision drives so many of the day-to-day decisions when a million things are flying at you. If you’re looking for a little help on how to answer all the myriad of questions you have floating in your head when it comes to your own business, whether that business is a weekend side-hustle, full time, or even still just a daydream .

This week I'm catching up with one of my first ever potter friends, Angela Venarchik. As I was properly learning ceramics for the first time, Angela was preparing to quit her day job and go full-time with her pottery business. She taught me tricks to be more efficient with my throwing, and I shared business knowledge I'd learned over the last decade of entrepreneurship. And now... She's built a brand that not only provides customers with a consistent experience across all online platforms but also, connects her work to larger world issues that are meaningful in her own life and the lives of her customers.

When I first started learning photography, what made it so overwhelming was the number of variables. So my friends, I’d like to present you with an alternative, on this 4th and final week of the Photography Extravaganza. I want you to learn how to systematize your photography approach. Because once you do that, I promise you will slice in half the amount of time it takes you to photograph your work.This week on the podcast I touch on what systematizing your photography can look like, but I also dive deeper on an even bigger subject - How to vet educators online. Now, I realize, I'm clearly biased. After all, I'm an online educator. But over the last 11 years of entrepreneurship, I've also (more often than not) been the person buying from online educators. Some have been amazing. And some… well… Less than amazing. I know firsthand that learning from people who have been doing this longer than the rest of us is one of the fastest ways to accelerate your growth as a business owner. But I also want to help make sure that you don't make the same mistakes I made when it came to deciding which of those educators to listen to.

Have you ever thought about WHY you're taking the photos you're taking of your pots? Do you pull out your camera and just start shooting because you feel obligated? Or do you start photographing knowing what the photos you're taking are specifically going to be used for? This week, week 3 (out of 4!) of the Photography Extravaganza, I'm talking about the 3 primary purposes of photography for makers and how each requires a very different approach to photography.

“What camera should I buy to have better photos?” It's a question I get asked more times than I can count. And if it's not that question then it's a close version of it: - “Can I take good photos without a real camera? Only with my cell phone?”- "But I don't have a swanky kitchen with marble countertops to make my photos look like that..."All of these questions boil down to one: "Can I take good photos without..."and then insert whatever it is you feel like you don't have. Here’s the spoiler and Cliff Notes of this entire episode: Yes. yes, you can take good photos without a fancy new camera, without a swanky kitchen or sunlit studio. Yes, you can take good photos without spending hundreds of dollars on props. Tune into this episode to find out the solutions to all of these common questions.

The other week I asked all of you to tell me what you struggle with the most with photography over on our Instagram stories. One brave person said - “I”m not sure I even know what a good photo is.”So before we dive into this month-long extravaganza of all things photography and specifically photographing your work, here on the podcast, I thought it best to start at the beginning.

It's a bonus episode! Normally this is our "off" week for publishing the podcast, but I have something very exciting in-store... I'm preparing a month-long series of upcoming episodes specifically about photographing your work. In order to do that, we'll be taking the next 2 weeks off, so I cued up this very special bonus episode with the one and only Ryan Durbin of RD Ceramics to tide you over in the meantime.

Do you ever think about what happened BEFORE the Instagram photos? Or BEFORE your favorite potter hit 25 thousand followers? Off and on, many people will talk about the real-life vs. Instagram life, and there are plenty of hilarious memes floating around the internet about them, but I’d wager a bet that while many of us (myself included) are scrolling through IG, we are never actively reminding ourselves of what that maker’s life looked like before that photo… The years of saving money, the months of trial and error, the delays because of things outside our control, and the sacrifices made because we want this crazy dream - to make a living from the things we make - so freaking badly… Well, that’s exactly what Sophia McEvoy and I sat down to talk about.

Have you been dreaming of taking your ceramics work full-time? That’s probably a stupid question, isn’t it? Don’t we all dream of that? I’ve discussed with a number of our past podcast guests about what it took for them to go full-time. Some of their stories were planned transitions and some just kind of happened... But, there’s been a common thread between everyone in all of these various situations: It’s a big scary leap. However, there are some tangible, tactical, finite, specific things we can discuss and measure when it comes to asking ourselves the dream question: “Should I go full-time?” And that’s exactly what I want to talk about today.

I have a great conversation in store for you today with our 2nd episode ever featuring a non-potter! Like so many of us, Dwight’s journey into being an art-reprenuer (his word, not mine. Although I think it’s a genius word), is a windy one. He’s embraced some serious life changes over the years and yet continues to lean into the uncertainty of being an art-reprenuer with confidence I envy.

Ever wonder what it might be like in your very first year of full-time ceramics work? Take a peek behind the curtain of that very moment in time with Rachel Russell of Upper Call this week on the podcast.

At its core, I started this podcast to help the maker’s community with so many of the business struggles I’ve had to learn and overcome over the last 11 years of entrepreneurship. But frankly, my chat today with Soula Pefkaros of Golden Ratio Clayworks feels like exactly what I needed to hear for myself. We talk about managing customers expectations as a one-woman shop and solo maker, the struggle to find the right rhythm for a business that not only needs to provide for your livelihood but also support a healthy life for ourselves personally, and how long it’s taken both of us to start truly practicing the importance of genuine rest in our lives.

This week, Tom and I talk about the struggles of mental health, particularly in being self-employed or trying to create and put things out into the world, we talk about identity and how maybe the goals we don’t achieve are just signs that they were the wrong goals. We share how we’re both coming back to being true to ourselves, and we battle the worse case scenario “what ifs” that plague anyone’s brain before the start a new venture. And eventually, we do finally talk about the band he started and produced an album with all amidst the UK's on-again/off-again lockdowns over the last 12 months.