We recently connected with Jenna Vannest and have shared our conversation below.

Jenna, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

Growing up we are asked by adults: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” My answer has always been “An artist”. At the start of my artistic journey I had learned to knit, crochet & sew by the age of 8 though the urge to learn about other mediums never stopped. At the age of 13 I took my first pottery class and made several ugly little vases and begged my family to let me take more classes but they were too expensive for my family at the time. So I carried on with my other artistic pursuits, but was swayed by family to pursue many other jobs rather than get an art degree. Cut to in 2017, some 16 years after my first ever pottery class, now at the age of 29 I found myself in a new town, had recently lost a close family member and was in need of some grounding. At a local market I saw a flier on a community board for pottery classes. Almost immediately I signed up for the 8 week wheel throwing course. I cannot recall ever picking up a hobby so easily, it feeling so natural while offering a deep therapeutic grounding that I’d so been craving.
Pottery was all I could think about. It was consuming my life and I needed more. I signed up for a college level course at the local community college where I started making mushroom sculptures that looked like they were growing right out of the vessels behind them. My fellow students and professors urged me to continue on this journey so I made quite a few ornaments, sculptures and mugs, signed up to vend at a mushroom festival on the coast of Oregon and completely sold out. This felt like my calling and so I continued making mushroom themed pottery and so named my business: Forest Floor Studios. Several months after my first time vending, the pandemic hit. So, I took my business online, starting out selling on Instagram, then made myself a website. No longer having access to the local ceramics studios I spent my savings on a used pottery wheel & kiln and rented space in an un-heated/cooled space in town and spent almost every night after work at my day job getting my hands muddy. Every kiln full of pots I’d create would then be sold online. Eventually local shops began carrying my products, events started happening in-person again, and 6 years later here I am! I moved my home twice, moved my pottery studio three times, but finally last October of 2023 with the full support of my local arts scene, I quit my day job as an office manager to pursue a job full time as a Professional Artist & Potter. It has by no means been easy. And 2024 almost broke me but, I learned a lot and feel more prepared for what 2025 and beyond will bring me.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Jenna Vannest. I’m a potter & ceramicist in Eugene, Oregon specializing in mushroom themed pottery, sculptures and home decor. I also run a ‘Mushroom Boutique’ on my website alongside my own handmade pottery where I’m able to support other artists and makers by selling their products alongside my own.

When I first got started throwing pots and slinging mushrooms at Fungi Fests, Mushroom Festivals & local markets, the things I made excited people as most had never really seen anything like it so there was no competition & would constistantly sell out of my products. Now, many years after the “shroom boom” things have changed considerably, but the people in my community, at local festivals & events, and my followers/subscribers never stopped supporting my muddy journey.

I’m most proud of my being able to fully support myself by running such a whimsical business. Every so often I’ll be vending at an event, donning a full Amanita Mushroom Costume, a customer will ask to take a photo with me and I have to giggle at how fun my job is some days. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely have bad days. I mean, no one enjoys doing their taxes, accounting or web work. However, never could I have anticipated how much I’d learn about life and running a business when I first started on the pottery journey.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Hanging above my studio work table is a sign I made: “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”. This has been a huge lesson for me in letting go. Pottery as a whole is one never ending lesson to let go of the idea of perfection as there are so many variables that are out of our control. Dropping an entire shelf of pots. Mis-firing the kiln. Storing glaze materials the wrong way. The glaze not working the way you’d hoped or losing thousands of dollars in products. I could go on, but what I had to let go of was expectation. I cannot expect to make a certain amount at an event. I cannot expect a glaze to do just what I wanted it to. I cannot expect customers to buy my newest experimental work. The act of letting go and accepting that items may or may not sell. What breaks breaks. What happens happens. I can just come back into the studio and make it again, make more, learn a lesson and do better tomorrow.

Instead of fussing with something for too long that clearly isn’t working, it’s best to recycle it and start over. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

My 20’s was where I jumped from career to career without a thought. Waitressing & bartending in Boston while teaching partner dance classes at MIT & Harvard, spinning yarn for a small business yarn dyer in New Hampshire, flipping antiques in North Carolina, working as a personal chef to an ambassador in Brazil, transporting vehicles across the USA, managing a restaurant and living inside of Yellowstone National Park, and finally ending up in Eugene, Oregon as an office manager for a Doctor in town. Never did I think my career, or the lack there of, would have taken me to so many beautiful places, but I am eternally grateful that it has. Now, I cannot say what the final ‘pivot’ was that brought me to pursue art finally, but I cannot express how satisfying it is to have arrived to this point.

To be honest, I never expected to have been able to apply knowledge from such an eclectic hodge podge of jobs to selling my art to people at events, but the selling tricks I learned as a waittress, the people managing skills from working in Yellowstone, the navigation tools developed from traveling 20k+ miles back & forth, up & down the USA and the organizational skills of managing a doctors office are just a few. These and more inspired me to sign up for classes at my local Small Business Development Center (SBDC’s are available across the USA) and learned how much fun it can be to own my own business.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://Forestfloorshop.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forestfloorstudios/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ForestFloorStudios/
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/@forestfloorpottery