A Booth For Markets | Kim Johnston | Episode 1254

Kim Johnston | Episode 1254

Kim Johnston is a South Australian graphic designer and part-time ceramicist. Drawn to clay as a way to step away from the screen and reconnect with a more hands-on creative process, Kim creates functional ceramics that celebrate everyday rituals. Through her work, Kim is exploring her artistic voice while building her ceramics practice.

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Somebody said that a great pottery booth doesn’t just display pots, it tells a story of your pottery. Do you take the approach to try to communicate your story through your booth?

I don’t know if it tells my story, but I guess I take that opportunity to tell my story to people. Like I find people are always fascinated when they come up and, oh, did you make this? So I always take that opportunity to educate people about ceramics and what is involved. And I’ll answer any question anyone throws at me about the process. So I guess the booth does tell my story because it’s my work. But like I said, it’s more than just how it’s displayed. It’s how I interact with people.

Do you feel that you’ve set your booth up in a way that becomes an invitation to enter?

I think so. I always have mine front facing so people don’t have to step in. And that’s maybe just the types of markets I do do that just seems to work the best. Yeah.

Something as simple as shelving can make or break the aesthetics of a booth. What do you use to be able to set your pots on for display?

I have a bit of a wooden A-frame style system for my table. So to start with, that stands out from everybody else because it’s quite different. And then I use a series of wooden shelves that all go together. So everything’s easily accessible. And you can see each individual piece, nothing sort of hidden by something else.

Do you try to set up your booth so you have a mug collection and a dinnerware collection, or a blue collection?

Yeah, I have very distinctive setup where all the colored mugs are together. My colored range I pretty much just do in mugs, but then my other pieces I do white or black and white. They’re all sort of grouped together. So, and it’s funny, you can see a group, you’ll see a husband and a wife. The husband will go to the color, the husband will go to the black and white. And so you’re kind of drawn to what you naturally like, I think. Makes it easier.

Do you try to put a “wow” piece into your booth so that it kind of stops people to come in?

Yeah, I will always have some pieces that I don’t often expect to sell very often. It might be a large, really large platter or a big vessel or something, but I think it’s really nice to have something that’s a bit of a conversation piece. A bit like we spoke about earlier about the black and white doesn’t sell as often, but it’s a conversation starter. Yeah.

Are you an encourager of touching pots?

Absolutely. Maybe not the little children, but I definitely encourage people to pick it up, especially with mugs. It’s all about how the handle feels. Yeah.

You set up a booth every weekend or not every weekend, but every month. That booth has to be transported and stored. So how do you handle the storage of your booth?

It packs down fairly simply. And like I said, my husband who moves it all for me, it just all sort of squeezes in the garage. So it’s not too bad. It all folds pretty flat, fits in one car load, but quite a big car load. So it’s not too hard to store. It’s all about having Smart things that fall down and lots of storage boxes.