Starting Up

Any new business has its challenges, but starting a new business right before a worldwide pandemic is not recommended.

After dealing with the typical covid-19 issues such as securing a safe place to live, finding material suppliers that aren’t shut down, finding a studio that does not have shared space (oh, did I mention finding a place to live?) I got to overcome and continue with the typical start up struggles.

First order of business: A studio space!

Imagination:

After scrapping the original hope of renting a small shared studio space, my parents offered their garage!

My mind can work with that:

It was a great idea until I really took a look at it:

REAL PHOTOS:

Garage Pics :-0

Hmmmm…Where will the pottery stuff go?!

I am not afraid of hard work, but this was admittedly daunting when I all I wanted to do was make pretty plates! I dove in and began the many runs to Goodwill, Home Depot and the dump!

Working Selfie

There were certainly ups and downs such as the gigantic spider that was likely dead, but I still feared merely sleeping...

Safety Scissors for Scale

After days of physical labor of clearing out old things of my parents and from mine and my brother’s childhood I was able to purchases many many metal storage racks and start organizing. The biggest issue was bins of books taking up valuable pottery space. I began the side project of building my parents wall shelves so I could move all the bins of books out of the garage and into a more efficient space.

Side Project: Shelves

After the books were out I could finally start seeing floor space in the garage! It was as clean as I had ever seen it and now I could create a studio space…my studio space!

I headed to Seattle Pottery Supply and very fortunately got to make one of their very last in-store purchases before they shut down due to covid-19.

I moved in my new equipment!

Half of this garage is now the humble headquarters for Pottery by Eleni! It’s not much, but its mine and I’m very proud!

Storage and Supplies

The table with the big blue wheel is my new slab roller!

The potter's wheel!

Kiln is in the back. Using bakery racks to store projects! And the ever so important space heater is on the table!

I am so grateful to my parents for this space! While we are still practicing social distancing (aka: waving from afar and I am using the restroom in the woodsy area outside instead of in the house) it is certainly nice to be close. Perhaps not as glamorous as I originally thought, but that can be made up with the beautiful products I can now create.

Time to play!