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Hannah Shipway | Episode 616

Hannah Shipway has worked as a professional potter for the past five years. Hannah has her own studios in Oxford, England, and also in Dorset on the South Coast of England. Hannah makes wheel-thrown, functional tableware in small batches, all of which are sold exclusively from the iconic Albatross Cafe in Bristol.

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Do you enjoy having your work represented by others?  Because you are not selling your work, your daughter is.

When you say do I enjoy having my work represented by others, I don’t really quite know what you mean.

What I mean is, you are not out there making the sales, you are not going to  the craft shows, you are not trying to sell it online. You have someone else who is purely doing all the representation for you and making the sales. 

Before I sold at my daughter’s cafe I did craft fairs and I really have admiration for potters who do, you know, regularly go to craft fairs because it is hard work. I mean, you have to get your stuff there, and pack it all up and it is breakable stuff so you have to take it carefully and you have to have the means to get it there and you have to be strong to pick up all the boxes, etc. etc. And then you have to stand there while people look at your stuff and I found that really embarrassing actually. I found it really uncomfortable taking money from people for things I have made. It is a strange contrast, yes, I want my things to be sold in person, but I don’t want to be the one who is there taking their money. I am not a sales person, at all. So yes, it is wonderful to not have to do that anymore.

At what point did you decide that you were no longer going to sell your work at all and that your daughter was going to do it all?

Well, basically it was selling out at the cafe so quickly that I wasn’t able to…I didn’t have time to make enough for nay of the markets really because I would get a message saying the cafe was sold out of mugs, could you make some more. This would happen all the time. So I suppose that was the driver, I didn’t need to because I wouldn’t have been able to make enough to do those as well. Yeah, it really suits me because I love making, I love designing, I love creating, and it is so exciting when you open your kiln to a finished piece  when you have tried a new style or tried a new glaze, and it’s worked! That is such an exciting thing to have that thrill maybe once a week. That’s what I am about. So I am so pleased that I don’t have to and I am so grateful to my daughter and her partner for taking that burden off me.

If this were not your daughter, do you think this could work outside of your family relationship? Could you do this with someone else?

I have actually done it, there is a very lovely independent shop in Oxford whom I sadly had to turn down in the last few years, who when I was starting out, did that same thing. She would sell my work for me and similarly was really great. It is different with the Albatross because we developed it together and I have developed more things that would complement that range and it just feels a wonderful opportunity to have an outlet where they have integrity and fit in with the environment. It just feels right.

Does having it in a cafe rather than a gallery work better for selling out because people are actually experiencing the work while they eat and while they drink?

I think so. I mean, who knows, I think that’s the case. There is an area in the cafe that has my pottery and then they bring it to the counter to pay for it. Nobody is standing there telling them anything about it or selling it to them. It sells itself. but what happens when the shelves are sold out the girls who work in the cafe will frequently be asked,Do you sell these cups? Can I buy one of these?  So yes, I design my cups so that people can have this real physical experience, and feel what they like and see them function and enjoy them.

Does the shop ever sell the pieces that they are serving with?

They don’t sell the actual pieces, they sell the same things as I make several of them. They only sell things that have not been used before. They don’t sell it if it has been used. The other thing is which is really important my daughter and her partner are very specific about the volume of coffee that goes in their flat whites and their lattes so I have to make a flat white cup exactly 6 ounces and I have to make a latte cup precisely whatever. So because I am a potter who is not interested in measuring precisely I like to make without those things, by eye, basically. So the ones that are not precise are the ones that are sold because they don’t use them, they sell them. The the ones that they have in the cafe are precise so they wouldn’t dream of selling those.

How do they deal with staff breaking or customers breaking the work?

Well, it doesn’t happen too much. My stuff is very dishwasher safe. so it goes through the dishwasher, but it does happen. The most annoying thing is when they break the lid of a teapot. That is sort of really annoying because it is really hard to make because my teapots are all individually made and not made to measure. I cannot easily re-make a lid for something. You know what is like with the shrinkage factor. So that’s annoying but it doesn’t happen too often. The thing that I have to remake most frequently are the tiny little milk jugs. I do wonder if people think, Oh, I could fit this in my pocket. I am being very cynical there. (laughter) But they run out of milk jugs more than anything.

What is your favorite tool in the studio?

My favorite studio tool is the one I use to trim the base when I make a neat edge against the wheel before I wire it off. It is one that I accidentally put in my bag about 20 years ago from the school that I was in and I forgot to take it back so I really must go back there and give it back. (laughter)

Book

The Doll Factory by Elizabeth MacNeal

Contact

Instagram: @jerichostudiopottery