We were lucky to catch up with Molly Watson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Molly, appreciate you joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

Looking back on my childhood, I should have known that I would go into a creative field. As a child I would create homes for my dolls instead of playing with them, using every scrap I could find to build furniture for their growing abodes. As I got older, my friends and I would make movies and spend hours writing scripts and storylines, we would create elaborate meals concocted from our parents refrigerators. I was always making, painting, or designing something, my days were filled with creativity and imagination. I’ve always been an artist and a maker, but it took me until adulthood to realize it.

I did what my generation was told to do, work hard and get into college. I spent my first year not having a clue what I wanted to do, bouncing around looking for a lucrative major. That was until I took a drawing class. It was a mandatory elective, I wasn’t even looking forward to it. But something shifted and suddenly I remembered that I had lost my creative passion during the tumultuous days of teenage-hood. By this time, I had decided to ditch my science classes and look into art degrees, I settled on interior architecture, thinking this was the most realistic option when it came to a creative profession. I spent the next four years learning how to draft floor plans and render photo realistic pictures of my designs.

During my senior year of college I started painting for fun, it was a necessary creative outlet while in a world of building codes, measurements, and grades. I started selling my paintings to my friends at school, then to my family and hometown friends, and finally to strangers. I partnered with one of my close friends for my senior design thesis, we created a massive community art complex filled with studio spaces for both art and dancing. While designing it I realized I wanted to be one of the people who worked in this hypothetical creative complex, I didn’t want to be the one designing it. I took this realization into my post-grad life, opting for independent contractor design gigs instead of a full time career in my field.

For six years I spent half of my days designing upscale homes and timeshares and the other half covered in paint and ink. I bounced from one medium to the next during those years, not knowing where or when I would ever land on one. I met dozens of fellow creatives online and slowly started to realize that being a full time creative was possible. Eventually, my time was spent more and more on art and less on design. Then one year for my birthday, my mom surprised me with a three hour pottery class. I made two terrible planters on the wheel that first evening and was instantly hooked.

I enrolled in a ceramics class at a local community college and spent a year using every free moment practicing at the wheel, learning to glaze, and re-designing my small studio space so I could turn my art business into a ceramics business. I had never felt such drive before in my life, I knew it in my bones that I had found the medium I would be spending the rest of my life learning and mastering. What you focus on grows, and that is precisely what happened. I quit my design jobs and pivoted to focusing on ceramics full time, utilizing what I had learned in the design world in my own business instead. It has been two years now and I have not once regretted my decision to pursue this artistic path full time. My days are once again filled with creativity and imagination. I spend my time covered in mud in my growing home studio and I have never felt more like myself.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My design education and background has impacted how I share my work with the online world. I appreciate a clean, well designed space and have made my studio a calm and welcoming sanctuary. My studio is filled with work by my artist friends, trinkets from my travels, and tons of plants and stones. My social media followers have watched me move from a small desk in a tiny apartment kitchen, to a carpeted spare bedroom 1000 miles away, and are now going to watch me renovate a 1970’s TV den into a ceramics studio in a house we just purchased. Being able to mesh a messy medium like clay with a clean, aesthetically focused studio sets the tone for my business and brand.

I enjoy the slow process that ceramics allows for, and sharing said process in a beautiful space brings me joy. I love finding the beauty in the seemingly mundane, wether that be the shape of a stick found at the beach or the way light filters through the blinds of a sun kissed window. Slowing down and taking the time to notice how special life’s little details has become vital in how I present my work. Sharing monthly studio recaps is my way of reminding myself that that documenting the process is just as important as documenting the final outcome, I feel like this can be applied to almost every aspect of life.

My mood is so connected with my surroundings that my work is impacted as well. I change the colors and shapes I work with seasonally, finding inspiration in the nature around me. My collections are themed and experimental, I’ll choose an over arching theme and then play with the idea, rarely making the same thing twice. There is a good chance that what I have available in one of my restocks will never be made again. This has helped me stay excited about working, the controlled chaos of not knowing what will come out of the kiln is exhilarating and keeps me coming back for more. I’ve also found that this experimental way of working leaves me feeling less pressure when it comes to the expectations that my collectors and customers have. They have come to expect variety and seasonal shifts, I no longer feel like I need to explain myself when I create a new design or discontinue an old one.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I feel as if a lot of people in our society have separated creative people from the work that we share with the world. I find so many of my parent’s peers questioning my career path, concerned for my financial wellbeing or judging me for choosing a career that is seemingly “easy” or saturated. We have been so conditioned to believe that the only way to lead a successful life is to make as much money as possible or provide a vital service to our fellow citizens. Unfortunately, many people don’t consider creativity vital.

People worship celebrities, following their every move, but judge the high school graduate who decided to major in music theory. We unwind at the end of the day by reading novels or watching shows, but scoff at people who go into film making or creative writing in college. Our society cannot have it both ways, we can’t glorify the work of successful creatives while putting down the people who are taking the first stumbling steps of their professional creative journey.

Creativity can be found in almost every aspect of human life, from movies to space shuttles and everything in between. The best thing our society can do to best support us creative people is to simply look around and realize just that. Architecture and art is vital when it comes to learning about past human civilization, oral storytelling and visual art was developed long before agriculture and currency was even invented. There is just as much importance in a beautiful piece of pottery than there is on Wall Street. A thriving creative ecosystem is vital to a well balanced society, and we need to start noticing and appreciating all that our creative communities bring to the world.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I have met some of the most amazing, open minded, loving humans through my work. Creative people have such a fresh take on the world around us. We find beauty in every day spaces and notice the small things that a lot of people do not take the time to look around and see. This leads way to a beautiful community of people who are almost always open to connecting. Finding a community of like minded people has been vital to my success. I feel that finding a support system is something a lot of young creatives don’t know to look for.

Being a creative often means you won’t have coworkers or a team to bounce ideas off of, finding a group of creative small business friends is a complete game changer. I’ve created a network for myself filled with painters, illustrators, interior designers, candle makers, and much more. Having friends who are in the thick of it with me is so special. I can send them pictures of a new mug design and ask them for honest feedback and they’re always there for me on the morning of a restock when I am convinced that this is finally the month that nobody will want a new mug. We can commiserate, plan, laugh, and cry together. My creative friends are my most indispensable resource, I love them all dearly and would not have made it as far as I have if it weren’t for their support and encouragement.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mollywatceramics.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/molly.wat/
• Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MollyWatCeramics