We (Lois and Marcus) would have loved to have started our creative career sooner, but it’s been a process that we’ve had to work through over the 33 years of our marriage. We both bring a lot of creativity to the business. Our earlier years out of college lacked focus as we attempted to navigate our relationship and establish a family. I (Lois) focused on teaching and Marcus attempted to become a published author while navigating his way through a corporate career. It took about 15 years before we were able to build our studio when we moved to our home in Olympia, Washington. Saving up for, finding, and purchasing equipment took another 10 years. Finding the time to do anything with it brings us up to today. We had no idea how to start a pottery business, though Marcus had short stints as an entrepreneur doing marketing and content development. It was during the first year of COVID that we connected with our mentor, Darby Huffman of Laughing Gnome Pottery in Port Townsend, WA, a small town we discovered on our honeymoon. We’d been collecting Darby’s pottery for years, and wanted to support him during the pandemic. We met up with him at a farmers market and started sharing our vision of building a big red barn that would be a studio and a place for artists, musicians, and creatives to make and sell in the community. Darby invited us to his studio for a chat. From that conversation, we established a mentoring relationship that is growing into a business partnership between two creative studios. He has trained us in his techniques for building, glazing, and firing clay. We have joined him at farmers markets where we learned marketing techniques and helped him sell his pottery. This has given us a clearer vision for how we can turn our creativity into a business.

We started attending craft fairs and Christmas bazaars shortly after that, selling a mix of Darby’s products, our products, and our daughters’—both of whom are art students of design and illustration. The girls and I took the lead while Marcus helped haul pottery to and from the events. The second year into these events, Marcus tagged along to help run the booth. He saw his family in a new light. His bashful girls were talking with customers and glowing with excitement at the compliments and sales they were making. The whole family was engaged as a team encouraging and supporting each other. To him, it felt more like a family connection than any vacation they had every taken. He wanted to be part of it and wondered if he might be able to learn how to throw pots on the wheel. He kept that to himself because he wanted respect my ownership in the business.

At the time, Marcus was supporting the business financially working in the tech industry to make ends meet. In 2022, I was diagnosed with melanoma that required surgery that I’m still recovering from. This put a long pause on my ability to work in the studio doing anything more than hand building and glazing. I had an epiphany and asked Marcus if he would like to learn how to throw pots and take over production on the wheel. Marcus jumped at the opportunity and began spending time with Darby in Port Townsend learning how to throw pots.

We recognized that doing seasonal markets wasn’t sustainable. Pottery is heavy, bulky, and fragile. Getting to markets and setting up and tearing down was taking its toll on the family. We realized we needed a more permanent location with a presence in the community.

Tumwater’s Craft District Market caught our attention. We watched the construction during the pandemic as the barn-like structure emerged. When it opened in October 2023, we saw cider and beer taprooms, an ice cream parlor, a fishmonger, and two studios set up shop. Our curiosity grew and after a date at the Finnriver Cider Taproom, Marcus contacted the market owners via their website.

Their response the next day was encouraging. They had peeked at our website, saw our products, and new that we were a good fit for the community destination they were building. They didn’t have a store that would fit our budget, so they offered a permanent pop-up store in the inner corridor of the market. We did a trial run on Valentine’s Day and received a positive response from the community and other businesses on site.

At the same time, Marcus was experiencing employment misalignment at work. The direction his job was going was moving further away from his expertise and passions in communications and training. He left his job to help me launch the pop-up store and focus on expanding our product line. In March, we did a soft launch of our pop-up store two days a week. We expect to expand our days in the summer when more vendors will be open, the market will get busier, and our daughters are available to take a shift or two.

Our focus in the store has been to connect with the community. We share our stories and listen to theirs. People have responded to this approach, and we often see return customers eager to collect our products.

We’ve also had to consider our environment. We don’t run normal business hours (9 to 5) because a big draw to the market are the craft beverages (cider, beer, liquor) and those venues remain open till 9 p.m. We started with hours from noon to 7 p.m., but quickly discovered that many people were just arriving as we were packing up. We tested a 2 to 9 shift, which paid off. We frequently see spikes in sales an hour before we close and on more than one occasion, we’ve made our biggest transactions minutes before closing.

Much of this is covered in the first question, but I’ll add some more detail about our products. We make artisanal pottery using a high-fire process that makes the pottery food, dishwasher, and microwave safe without glazing the interior of mugs, cups, and bowls. We call it naked pottery, a technique developed by our mentor, Darby Huffman. This technique has the unexpected quality of being able to enhance the tasting experience of beverages/liquids contained in them by a process called nucleation. We often tell people that it’s like magic, but there’s science behind it. While people are amazed by the science, many enjoy the idea that it’s magic.

Our long-term vision is to start a non-profit with a mission to foster creativity, facilitate growth, and promote freedom of expression in the art industry. We believe in the power of creativity to establish belonging, build community, and encourage innovation. Having raised two talented artists, we recognize the importance of creatives having a safe place to produce and share their art. We look for local artists and encourage them to create and share their talents. We want to instill in them the value that art brings to the community—both as a community of artists and introducing local art into the broader community.

The big red barn (whether literal or figurative) will be a place where local artist can gather to create, share, and sell their art. We want to include visual, performing, and culinary arts that bring the community together for events that encourage connection through sharing of stories.

My diagnosis of melanoma was a pivotal moment as I recognized I wouldn’t be able to run to pottery business alone. We also pivoted when Marcus left his job to focus on launching the pop-up store. This has been particularly challenging as Marcus still needs to get a job until the business can sustain itself and our family. As he refreshed his resume, he struggled to decide what type of role he wanted to take. He’s worked corporate jobs for 33 years and his roles have been diverse. As he looked back at his experiences (education, design, communications, marketing, process, multi-media, program management), he realized how his jack-of-all-trades career was an ideal fit for a small business. He could bring all of these skills together to help me launch the business. The important thing is that we both want to work in the community that we live in.