We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Arthur Judson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Arthur below.

Hi Arthur , thanks for joining us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

I am generally happy as a business owner. Though sometimes, I envy those who have a regular job. Actually, I envy the pay and the benefits of the people who have a regular job. What I do love about having our own business is the flexibility. I enjoy working with my life partner and take lots of opportunities to spend time with our children.
As a co-owner of three businesses, I wear many hats, including: Sales, Accountant, Project Manager, Production Manager and Laborer. If I put too much focus in one area at a time the other areas suffer. Generally, I need to spend most of my time producing, this is what clients pay me for. But if I focus all of my time there I get behind on “priming the pump”, meeting with prospective clients and putting together proposals. Or, I fall behind on bookkeeping, billing, sales tax and quarterly filings. The most challenging part for me is staying organized and striking a balance between the work and… the rest of our lives. Its easy to become reactive to my inbox, or a client’s needs or a project that I don’t really want to do but feel that it would be irresponsible to turn down.
My work is very physically demanding so after 30 years, my body is paying the price. Recently, after suffering, significant back problems, shoulder and knee issues, I was starting to think that getting a “regular” job to have benefits and steady income started to seem pretty attractive.
I may eventually have to seek employment, but for now I’d prefer to stay engaged in re-envisioning the work we do. I realize that working for someone else could be just as stressful, without the flexibility. We are blessed to have plenty of work that comes to us by word of mouth. Our clients are patient and a joy to work with. So, I continue to trust that this is the right path and I just need to slow down find balance and be gentle to my body.

Arthur , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I had a unique upbringing. My parents were potters until I was about four, then they became ranchers. I grew up on a cattle ranch where I learned to drive tractors, work cattle, ride horses, fix things and work hard. I fell in love with the outdoors, I spent my free time roaming the countryside and soaking up the natural wonder. All of my life I have been surrounded by handmade pottery, the pots that my parents made and the many pots they collected over the years. I studied the shapes, colors and textures, trying to understand the subtle differences and which qualities made the forms successful. We had a mug rack on one wall in the kitchen, all of the mugs were unique, I loved how people got so much delight in choosing a mug to use. In high school, I fell in love with making pottery, spending any free minute in the school studio. My parents made arrangement for me to spend a spring break with a potter who was a family friend. Todd Piker has a large wood fired kiln in Connecticut. I spent the week watching him and his apprentice load and fire a kiln large enough to host a dinner party in. My mind was absolutely blown. By the time I graduated, I set my sights on being a professional potter. My parents had kept all of their pottery equipment. They helped me to set up a studio in a large barn that we had on our property. As a high school senior I built a 30’ tall steel reinforced brick chimney to serve the three kilns that I eventually built. I attempted to establish a business making functional pottery with limited success. I had passion and drive, but lacked formal training and mentorship.
Needing income to fund my dream I took a job working for a carpenter. Here I found mentorship and quickly developed the skills to earn good wages. The work was interesting and engaged my creativity.
Soon my dad joined me in my ceramic endeavors. We build several large wood fired kilns and started making and selling lots of pots. We made our own clay and our glazes used local materials, wood ash, clay, sand. The work was a continuation of the line of pots my parents had made many years before. For me the shapes and decoration were intuitive, and I took to it naturally. It was an exciting apprenticeship. We made pots together on and off for the next 10 years or so.
After meeting my life partner, Brandy I started Sol Built, our residential remodeling business in 2007. Starting a construction business was relatively easy. We have a broad social circle and through word of mouth the business took off. I really enjoy helping clients identify their needs and finding creative solutions. Kitchens and baths are the main focus. I especially enjoy designing kitchens. Cooking is one of my passions and I really see the kitchen as the heart of the home. The best way for me to stay engaged in the work is to be learning new skills and techniques. I have been fortunate that many of my clients have trusted me to execute technical and interesting projects with integrity. The secret sauce is that I really enjoy the process of working with clients in a co-creative way. I see it as a mutually respectful and beneficial process. I care very deeply about the clients, their spaces and the quality of the work.
Many times, Brandy or friends of ours would ask if I missed making pots. I would reply, dismissively, “yes, maybe I’ll get back to it in retirement”, and then I would proceed to recite a long list of reasons why “not now”. After a 2nd back surgery for a ruptured disk in 2015 I was pondering if, possibly, I should consider a different profession. I realized that making pottery was still my top choice as a profession and even though it didn’t make financial sense yet, it was the work that I really craved and desired. So, in 2016 we started Chinook Pottery. It had been nearly 15 years since I had made pots professionally. We didn’t have our own studio space, so I would drive 30 miles to work at the studio that my parents helped me build. I had big hopes that I could ramp production up quickly and that sales would follow. It has been a more challenging endeavor than I expected. We made quite a few pots, many of them sold, but not enough to be financially viable as a full-time job. Thus far, selling pots has been harder for us than making them.
We have dialed back our expectations and had a few pauses since then. We are just finishing a studio at our house. I am still engaged in remodeling; it provides the steady income we need. I’m careful about the work that I take on and listen to my body. Having a studio close by means that we can get in to the studio more often. Soon we can begin steadily producing pots and then we can begin marketing our wares online and at local markets.
I believe deeply in the importance of using handmade objects in our daily rituals. The pots that I love to make are honest, simple and durable. They are intended to be used daily. We have a set of dishes that I made before we had kids (over 15 years ago) they have cycled though the dishwasher thousands of times. We have only lost a few to careless mishaps. I prefer earthy muted colors. I get really excited by the effects of wood firings which can look crude to the un-initiated. My wife loves brighter colors on the pots that she makes. I enjoy collaborating with her. We are working on developing bright lively and durable glazes. Our pots are not signed, instead we stamp them CHINOOK, because everything we make is a collaboration.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Initially I took any job that came along. Each job was an opportunity to earn loyalty and get my name out there. There are some negative stereotypes of people in the construction industry which are fairly easy to overcome by being thoughtful, giving good value, and never trying to sell someone something that they didn’t want or need. I take responsibility for my mistakes.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

We don’t do any marketing at this point, so word of mouth has been so crucial. We get all of our new remodeling clients by referral. But, because these projects are larger, five or six referrals a year can sustain us. The pottery business is completely different, for this we will need to develop a marketing strategy, because we need a much higher sales volume to reach our goals.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @ChinookPottery
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/Chinookpottery
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/arthur-judson
• Other: [email protected]