Looking to re-engage with a hobby she’d had since she was a teenager, Rachel Collyer set up her own pottery studio almost by accident during lockdown. Four years on, she has a thriving micro-business offering a great escape for individuals as well as organisations looking for an alternative staff away day or team building exercise. The unLTD team went along to her beautifully appointed studio in Totley to see if we could discover our inner Grayson Perry as well as find out what made her leave her recruitment career behind…
Hi Rachel, can you tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to pursue pottery as a career?
It was in high school really. Since leaving school, I worked in advertising sales and then directories. I finished with The Yellow Pages in 2000, then went on a grownup gap year. When I got back, I set up a recruitment agency called Rise Recruitment, recruiting advertising and salespeople. We went through various guises, mainly in advertising, then when the bottom fell out of print advertising, I turned to payment and merchant services. I followed a sales manager around as his recruiter and ended up recruiting salespeople to sell mobility products and funeral plans to the older market.
Of course, when COVID hit, those industries suffered tremendously because nobody was going into old people’s homes. So I came to a bit of a crossroads and picked up pottery again. I’d done it for years as a hobby, gone to night school, made friends with the pottery teacher, borrowed somebody’s kiln and brought bags of clay home. I had a break when my kids were little because I was so engrossed in it that there wasn’t much room for anything else! But during lockdown, I picked it back up and just ran with it.
Was it something you instantly thought could be an enterprise, or was it something to keep yourself busy?
Initially, it was something to keep me busy. Meanwhile, I was thinking ‘What do I do?’ I had loads of contacts in the recruitment industry, so I wondered whether I’d go out and resurrect that or have a go at something else? Rather than resurrecting Rise, I decided to give this a go, which was scary, but thankfully, it’s turned out really well.
When did it start taking off as a business, rather than just a hobby?
My daughter Ruby was doing a skydive for a local charity and I started making flower cane toppers to sell to raise money for her. People came to the house to buy them and I was putting them on Facebook, and that was the start of the ceramics company.
After that I opened an Etsy shop, had a brilliant first Christmas, and every time I did a market or met people, they asked if I did workshops. At the time, it wasn’t something I’d considered because I’m not a teacher. I’m a self-taught potter, and although I have been on loads of courses, my home studio wasn’t suitable for people to come and visit. But we tweaked it and have been inviting people to come and enjoy workshops since February 2023.
Tell us about the workshops. What do people get out of them?
People get the opportunity to make whatever they want, whether it’s something that I suggest or something that they have been thinking about and want to see come to fruition. Somebody this morning made a butter dish with a cow handle. Somebody else brought their niece and made a chicken on a skateboard.
I will always give people an idea, and go along with them until they know exactly what they’re doing, but you get the opportunity to come and spend two and a half hours totally zoning out, which is what most people say happens.
I’ve got people who come in as a one-off, or others turn in into a regular hobby. For example, one of my Wednesday morning ladies, her son bought a workshop for her as a Mother’s Day present and she’s been every week since. I only have six to eight people per session, and I’ll only have two new people each session, but I am expanding the studio, so by the summer we’ll have room for double that.
I also have ‘Bring Your Own’ Pinot and Pottery night. That’s when people can come one evening with all their mates and bottles of wine and make pottery. They aren’t set sessions as such, but something informal to enjoy the creative side as well as unwinding and relaxing.
How much do your workshops cost?
It’s £25 per person per session, but you need to come twice, so it’s £50. If you can’t come back, I will glaze them for you, but it’s still £50. You don’t have to book in for a six week course or anything like that.
If your children are over four, which is probably the right age to start doing pottery, it’s £30 per person for two visits.
You’ve mentioned the therapeutic qualities of pottery. Tell us about that.
A lot of people refer to pottery sessions as therapeutic. When I was thinking about the business, I thought, “Right, what is it I would actually like to do?” I read somewhere to think about what takes you out of yourself, what makes time go in a flash and what absolutely absorbs you. And the only thing I could think of was pottery, which has always been my passion.
It’s for everybody. I wouldn’t pretend to be able to teach somebody who’s done lots of pottery anything new, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s enabling people to release their ideas.
