❄️ Deep Winter 2026 (Full Letter)

I keep laughing at how quickly I threw myself into this. I don’t normally consider myself an artist, though it runs in my family. While I’ve had my hands in clay off and on through the years, it wasn’t until I took a wheel throwing course as a Christmas present that I felt hooked on pottery. Something about it felt different from the start — though I had no idea just how deeply it would matter to me.

When I was practicing in the off-hours at my class’s studio (shout out to Pottery Lane GR!), I felt so … centered — forgive the pun. The act of seeing and feeling clay rise and fall, open and close in my hands was meditative and soothing, and trimming pots is real-life ASMR. While I was frustrated when forms sometimes buckled because I threw them too tall and too thin, I was hyper-focused and determined to leave with a shape I was proud of.

The last class was spent mostly trimming the leather-hard shapes we’d let dry over a few days. After I was satisfied with trimming I took on a few of the instructor’s “Great Throw Down”-style challenges: throwing on the wheel with only one hand, then with only my non-dominant hand with the wheel on clockwise rotation, and finally blindfolded. It wasn’t until after those challenges that I felt truly confident forming clay how I wanted just by feel. But by then, my pieces had already been taken away for firing, glazing, and firing again, and I had to leave the blind-thrown shapes I loved behind.

When I returned from my last class, I thought about how I could continue my practice despite not having access to a wheel, the expense conflicting with a single-income household, and a difficult schedule because of my husband working the nightshift the last three years and a toddler to wrangle in the daytime. I ruminated for about a week before deciding to take the chance on myself and invest all the money I had for myself each month for however long it took to make my art self-sustaining, which meant I would be in business!

I had no idea what it took to be a business. Where did I start? How much would it cost just to get through the red-tape? What did I need to do every year to be in good standing with the State and Feds? What did I need to get started after it was on the up-and-up? It’s surprising how quickly buckets and bins add up when you need a dozen! (And don’t get me started on the sticker shock of pottery glaze! 🫣) When my LLC was approved by Michigan, I knew there was no going back — this was real. I felt so proud, but also so vulnerable; and as silly as it sounds, I thought of drinking coffee out one of my future mugs I designed and built, pretended I was brave, and kept going.

So, I became an accidental student of small business in Michigan in 2026. Nearly the whole month of February I’ve studied and tinkered with web design, evaluated e-commerce options, read legal fine print, and drafted agreements for future consignment partnerships and commissions. And I hadn’t even got around to buying clay or making pottery yet!

With long days and long nights turning into long weeks of building my business’s scaffolding, I worried about losing sight of why I started: to afford to keep my hands in clay and to share pieces I struggle to part with, balanced in my family’s complicated schedule. The decision to purposely keep the business small and embracing my identity as a moonlighting potter culminated into what I affectionally call my moonlight business (or my side quest, because my husband is a little lot geeky). This moonlight business exists because I want to keep creating, and its cozy scale allows it to live alongside the other parts of my life that I love just as much, or more.

I have only a few more adult-y business-y things left before I get to play with clay work on inventory for my first few collections. I’m so excited to set up my studio soon and get muddy again — to see what daydreams take shape in clay, and to meet the friends I’ll make while learning to be both a part-time potter and a small business owner. It feels like a claydream coming true. ♡