We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jacquie Conine a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jacquie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

To be successful I believe you need passion, energy and understanding. I love what I do, with practiced balance separating my home life I find I’m always thinking of my work. Dreaming up more efficient and effective ideas for my work space, ideas for new projects and ways to reach my customers. I feel passion and energy needs to be at a natural flow as I can not imagine forcing these ways to think- and I say understanding because life is short, go for it, what’s the worst thing that happens? Understand that jumping forward can only move you forward in one way or another. I trust myself and the universe.

Jacquie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hello :) my name is Jacquie and I’m a potter located in Shelton CT. I am working into my third year full time and am very excited my business, JQ Clay, is still moving forward. I hand make beautiful unique functional pottery for all occasions and everyday use. I attend over 20 festivals and events a year, along with creating for wholesale, favors and custom orders. I’m Love events is where I have the lost fun talking and getting to know people, it’s where custom and wholesale opportunities are greatest. I’m also active on instagram and Facebook, along with Etsy and my website which I am learning to utilize better this year!
Before my buisness I was a RN working in the wound care specialty. I loved that job, also, helping to heal people is a beautiful thing. After COVID and certain mandations- I figured why not pursue my passion. I had full loved ones support to give this new direction of my life a go! I already had been setting up my pottery at Guardians Farm in Southbury and after trying a few events I felt this, JQ Clay, might actually work- I might be able to financially do more then survive on my pottery work. This was an exciting time – and I went all in. how could I not! October 2021 I quit the hospital and bought a very large kiln! I’m so grateful for where I am and all my customers who like my style of pottery and look forward to this next year as I’m taking business classes for more guidance.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I believe what helped build my reputation in the market was personally selling my own work at events and festivals. Customers wanted to talk and know my story of how I started. Connecting with people makes possible future custom orders, ideas of what my customers are looking for, along with returning customer friends! Being out selling my work, talking about my story and future dreams for my business along with my unique and quality pottery is what I feel built my reputation.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

I hand make the items I sell, design, paint, glaze and carve them. Being creative was never something new, but using and operating a kiln was! Throughout all my clay work from high school to college I had never operated a kiln. Needless to say I read many blogs, watch many YouTube videos and for most I read the manual and went through trials and errors. Pottery, in general, has many steps and many points where things can fail, break or go wrong. I don’t really have a pottery community, though I know folks are out there, I’m abundantly self learned and trying new things all the time!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jqclay.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Jq_clay
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jq-clay-104334508649472/
• Other: https://jqclayart.etsy.com/