Welcome to my pottery community… If you don’t already know a bit about me- I’m Jess, the artist behind Clay & Canvas.

My journey into pottery was not planned or expected, but after leaving a busy job in film , working 6 day weeks in a hectic environment, I found my peace making pots. I started pottery around 3 years ago at a local pottery studio, I went to a group class by myself as it had always been something I wanted to try. I fell in love with the process as soon as I tried it, and very quickly proceeded to book in to weekly lessons (spending every penny I had on pottery!)

I went to weekly classes for the next 6 months, and I loved the whole process of learning and developing my skills. Each week turning up with photos from pinterest with (far too ambitious) shapes I wanted to make.

I knew way before this point that I had finally found my ‘thing’ and didn’t want to stop doing pottery. So I saved up to buy my first wheel and kiln, this was a scary investment but I knew it was worth it! I bought a small kiln and luckily it had some cosmetic damage so I was able to snap this up a little cheaper than usual.

The next step was finding a space to put these in… I was extremely lucky to have help from family investing in a second hand Shepherd’s hut that we converted into a little pottery studio.

Now this was the scary part, I was on my own! No teachers to help me centre my clay and a kiln of my own to figure out how to fire ! And best believe I madd 101 mistakes working all of this out, but with practice and the help of instagram and youtube, I slowly built up my skills.

After attending a 5 day pottery course at The Leach Pottery, my confidence and skills quickly started to build, and I became more adventurous with what I could make.