How it started...

People often ask me how I got into pottery. It was in 2014 after years of working in various cafes and pubs, and I was living in Brighton, UK. I had just left a cafe manager position but I saw a job advertised at The Painting Pottery Cafe, Brighton, and I went for it.

At this point I had no knowledge of ceramics, and I hadn't really done much art at all since finishing University 4 years earlier. I was very grateful that I got offered the role but was also nervous about my creative abilities compared to the other members of staff. I needn't really have worried as I soon found my feet with what I could and couldn't paint, patterns and colours - yes, portraits and neutrals - no, and this remains true today. Besides, what most people don't realise it that working in an open-to-the-public pottery studio, doesn't actually involve making much pottery. Thanks to probably already having completed my 10,000 hours in hospo by that point, I was a dab-hand at repeating the same thing to customers 20 times per day, managing the stock and handling a split bill for a group of 20 hen party guests. I became the Assistant Manager here and tried my hand at wheel throwing in the evenings when the team would stay late to practise and work on our own projects at the studio. 

Getting this job proved to be good timing, as The Great Pottery Throw Down, and the ceramics resurgence that came with it started around this time. In 2016 I moved to Naarm, (Melbourne) Australia where I continued to sink all my earnings into taking wheel throwing courses at local studios, and I eventually went onto work at a couple of them - first as a studio hand and later teaching wheel throwing courses, at Sarah Schembri and then at  Bisque Studios, where I was the Studio Manager for 2 years.

I moved back to Manchester in 2023. Since then I slowly but surely got back into making and selling at markets here in the UK, but my real goal since Australia was always to set up my own learning studio in Manchester. I was pleased to be able to finally open the doors to Familia Studios in September 2025.