An extra Substack for you this month, featuring the talented Aimee from Carrick — for a slow Sunday morning read over sips of orange juice and a pot of tea. As always, thank you so much for your support.
I first discovered Aimee’s work through the Edinburgh Mercantile store, a family business which values the heritage of an old general store but fits modern lifestyles today. It’s on NW Circus Place and is a go-to choice for home furnishings and gifts for loved ones, especially around Christmas-time. Aimee’s work was on display there and caught my eye as we browsed the shelves for treasures to take home. I reached out and we spent an hour or so chatting about the appeal of all things hand-made, the power of the Scottish landscape and Aimee’s life as a potter in Edinburgh / rural Galloway.
Tell me about yourself and how you learnt your craft.
So it really started through lockdown. I did all the visual merchandising for Walker Slater Ladies-wear. I was there for eight years and had started to want to try my hand at something different but wasn’t quite sure what to do. I didn’t really want to go from one retail job into another.
When the pandemic hit, I was lucky enough to be furloughed and while at home, I bought a bag of clay and started making things. I followed YouTube tutorials on hand-building and then after the first or second lockdown when things started to open again, I took a beginners course at the Abbeymount Studios and just fell in love with it. I’d found something that I loved and could see myself doing.
When the course finished, another lockdown happened and everything closed again and I just went for it. I spent my savings on a wheel and started throwing every single day. When things started opening up again, I went back to my day-job for maybe two months and then decided to leave and put all my savings into purchasing a kiln.
What pushed you to make the move to life as a maker?
There was something in me that made me just go for it. I had a really fortunate meeting with Jono Smart. His partner Emily is also a maker - they are a really friendly, lovely couple. I chatted to Jono about starting up and my situation. Even though I knew that pottery was the way I wanted to go, I felt quite lost with what to make and my style. Jono gave me some amazing advice, telling me to stick to making a couple of pieces to begin with and then repeat make them. He told me that I’d grow and refine my style in time and that really helped ground me. I was very conscious of not copying anyone else’s work and so it did take me a while to settle on what shapes I wanted to do and colour of glazes and things like that.
There’s an amazing Japanese idiom oubaitori — it translates to, ‘each flower blooms in its own time and it's a reminder that everyone is on their own journey through life.’ I’ve got that stuck in my studio to remind me every single day to stop comparing myself to others because we are all on different journeys.
How would you describe your work?
I specialise in creating hand-thrown and hand-built pieces that are simple and minimal and yet still connected to traditional ways of making. I make very functional pieces - a lot of homeware, tableware, milk pourers, mugs and carafes. I’d like to eventually get into more sculptural forms but that’s a project for further down the line.
I’d say that my work is quite tactile. I’m hugely inspired by the Scottish landscape even though the forms are quite Japanese like and quite simple. The textures and colours are definitely inspired by Scottish landscapes. Initially I found glazes quite difficult to get right — I was also unsure of how much of the piece to glaze because I love the rawness of an unglazed piece. It’s beauty reminds me of the landscape, of rocks and sand. I’ve started experimenting with different clays, including a black clay, which has become a favourite. It’s really coarse and that’s similar to black rocks that you find on Scottish beaches.
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