She’s Moving To Portugal To Open A Pottery Business | Nicole Curcio | Episode 1002

Nicole Curcio | Episode 1002

Nicole Curcio is a ceramic artist living in Portland, Oregon but moving to Portugal this year. She discovered ceramics in 1994, in a high school class, and it was love at first clay. Over the years her work has shifted from painted, abstract cityscapes, to a more sculptural and botanical style. She enjoys combining functional wheel thrown wares, with ornate sculptural adornments. Her love of plants and growing things has inspired her current body of work, although her obsession with plants and planters can be traced back to her college sketchbooks. The work is always evolving but the pots she makes are decorative and very, very functional.

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You are moving to another country. Is this courage or is this adventurous?

I was going to say crazy. Is it crazy? I don’t know, I have always had a kind of wanderlust. This is the fourth state I have lived in and I always wanted to try living in another country. So I think it’s curiosity. I don’t know if it’s brave because I am definitely terrified. Yeah, maybe adventure. I am dragging my poor husband along. worst case scenario we try it out and it doesn’t work and we have our house here in Portland to come back to.

How did you have the confidence to work with a “stranger”? I am saying stranger with air quotes because you have visited her but you haven’t lived with her for an extended period. Where does that confidence come from that she’s the right person to partner up with?

That’s a good question. I am not really sure. I guess it’s kind of like any good relationship, when you know, you know. People have said that for the longest time but I didn’t get it until I got together with my husband. We just really hit it off and communicate very well . Even when we disagree about something it’s really refreshing that we can have a conversation and get to a good middle ground.

Did you determine a percentage ratio in your partnership?

Well for the future business we haven’t quite gotten that far yet. For our collaborations depending on where we are. Like here because we did all the work together, she was here for five weeks this year, I was there for seven weeks last year, I guess both last year now. Depending on how much the other person has to do, I ended up doing all the photography and all the web listings and all the packing and shipping so I got a slightly higher percentage and we also put a portion of our earnings into savings for this community center. So it is kind of on a case by case basis.

Are there concerns about culture shock for you? Are you fearful about it?

Very much. There are definitely things that I have experienced already that give me pause. There’s a lot of bureaucracy. A super quick example. We applied for a visa and we had to do cashiers checks. We went in December, I got an email last week saying, We know you applied in December, but now it is 2024 and the prices have gone up so you owe us 15 cents per application and we will not process your application until you give us two cashiers checks for 15 cents per person. So it’s stuff like that. Are you kidding me, you are really going to hold up my visa application for 15 cents? There is definitely a lot of bureaucracy and it is very different.

Are there challenges for you purchasing property as a non-native?

Yes, that is also part of our precarious house of cards. It is easier to buy a house and get a mortgage when you are living here and you have a job. That is why we are trying to buy before we move while we still have provable income here. We do have money set aside but we don’t want to be house poor. We aren’t taking anything with us so we will have to buy a car and clothing and there is a lot of things we will need to invest in there.

Are the clay bodies different where you are going?

I learned that lesson the hard way last year too. I make these plant shelfy book ends and I have been making them for three or four years now and I tried to make them with a “stoneware” I was using as a clay body I found in Portugal. I heard the Spanish clay is better and I was trying to be ” I am in Portugal”. I had things explode spectacularly in ways that I had not experienced since college and it was not that I did anything different, it was just that this clay body was the stuff of nightmares. Yeah, I think there is going to be some trial and error and also with the glazes.