Ah yes.
The question.

Delivered with a friendly smile, a slight head tilt, and just enough condescension to make you wonder if you imagined it.

“So… how’s your little hobby going?”

My little hobby.

You mean the one that pays the bills?
The one that employs people?
The one that has a waitlist of students, wholesale orders, a retail shop, a website, a kiln schedule, and approximately 20 tonnes of clay cycling through it every year?

That hobby?

I’ve been asked this more times than I can count. Usually by a well meaning person who has absolutely no idea what running a creative business actually involves.

And I smile politely while my brain quietly whispers:
Shut the f*** up!!

Because here’s the thing.

Running a ceramics studio is not a hobby. It is logistics, spreadsheets, risk, payroll, marketing, scheduling, ordering, cleaning, teaching, glazing, packing, lifting, designing, problem solving, and occasionally remembering to eat lunch.

It’s also joy. Real joy.
The kind that comes from making something with your hands and watching other people fall in love with clay too.

But a hobby? Well it was!!! Now its my lifestyle. I am a potter.

My favourite follow up question is usually some version of:

“So… who’s looking after the kids while you do all this?”

And I always wonder…

Would you ask my architect husband that?

Would anyone lean over his desk at a job site and gently inquire:
“So… who’s looking after the children while you’re doing your little architecture project?”

No.
No they would not.

The kids, by the way, are at school. Like most kids on a Tuesday.

And sometimes they’re here in the studio, covered in clay, sitting on a stool eating a biscuit and watching an iPad. Because that is life!

So yes. The hobby is going well.

The hobby has a team.
The hobby has a growing community.
The hobby won multiple business awards.
The hobby pays tax and insurance and electricity bills that would make your eyes water.

And the hobby has given hundreds of people the chance to sit at a wheel, take a breath, get their hands dirty, and make something they didn’t know they could make.

Not bad for a little hobby.

Now if you’ll excuse me,
I have a kiln to unload.