The Newcastle-based business adapting to the Corona virus.
Despite The Pottery Experience recently closing its doors to customers, owner Hazel Stephenson, 33, and her partner are still delivering an artistic experience to anyone wishing to spend this uncertain time doing something creative.
They now offer a delivery service providing customers with a stay-at-home kit. It includes all the materials needed to paint a piece of pottery from the comfort of wherever you find yourself isolating.
“If there was ever a time that you really need a chance to take your mind off things with a spot of pottery painting, it really is now” as stated on The Pottery Experience Website.
With summer around the corner and the prospect of spending weeks, if not months, in lockdown, the UK Populous is trying to adapt. Services such as this are not only a means for businesses to survive but provide a healthy distraction for those cooped up indoors.
“I think community is so important, to actually feel like you live somewhere and you belong somewhere, I’d love to be part of that” says Hazel. In a time where the need to pull together and develop new forms of community is integral to facing the difficult times ahead, her comments have never been more relevant.
One year in business and creating a community.
Before the outbreak of Covid-19 I spoke with Hazel about her first year in business. In under a year Hazel has started to form her own community, with people returning not only to further their interest in pottery but to develop friendships and socialise with new people.
“We’ll have groups of four, so you often get two couples, they’ll do the lesson together having never met, and they’ll be like, we should come back and paint together” Hazel says. “They come back and you’ll see them again, and they’ve been out for dinner and they’ve done all this stuff. It’s something you’d like to happen but when it actually it does you’re like whoa, this is amazing”.
The Pottery Experience celebrates its first birthday on the 19th of April 2020, following a year of local success.
“We have a lot of regulars, who have their own stories with their own clay journeys that have happened alongside our first year. So I want to do something that feels quite symbolic and captures maybe our first year and their first year together,” says Hazel.
Borne out of a desire to share her interest in pottery and create a space where people can socialise without the focus centred around drinking, Hazel hopes to create a hub within the Jesmond community.
“It was so calming there was no pressure, they just wanted you to have fun with it”, says Roxane Saul, 26, an attendee of the classes. “It’s like a calm little corner of your own home, after a little while you forget where you are”.
Hazel’s interest in pottery started from an early age, encouraged by her mother’s love of the arts. She studied art and ceramics throughout school and university, while simultaneously working in a pottery cafe in Brighton, until deciding she wanted to set up something up herself.
“When we were thinking about doing this people would say oh doing that in Newcastle, does Newcastle want that? and I’d say I think it really does'” says Hazel.
When asked why she believes the Pottery Experience has been such a hit, Hazel responds: “There’s definitely a kind of a revival of people wanting to do things. I don’t know whether it’s something to do with the exposure and kind of awareness on mental health and well being but people want to experience more, to learn more, be more and just push themselves I think, it’s really wonderful to see.”
The Pottery Experience is located at 81 Fern Ave, Jesmond, previously an antiques shop, it has the feel of both the traditional and contemporary, mirroring the clientele. Hazel welcomes, young and old, the less experienced and the more.
The Young Creatives of Newcastle 