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Amy Noel | Episode 465
Amy Noel grew up in Nova Scotia and was certified as an art teacher and eventually moved to Japan. Amy lived in the Japanese countryside for 3 years and was a member of a community pottery center for her last 1.5 years. Amy came back to Nova Scotia and has been making and selling pottery since 2013. Amy is inspired by Wabi Sabi and Nova Scotia culture, attempting to combine the two in her pottery. Amy has a 2 year old and 3 year old (daughters).
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Does your work have a message?
Yes. Basically you need to stop and smell the roses. I am very seasonal. I have a spring line, summer line, winter line, and I am working on a fall line. Those little moments that we experience and that I appreciate. Very simple but very amazing and spectacular moments that you can just reminisce about and daydream about and hope to have again someday.
Who have been your biggest influences in your making?
So, when I was in Japan I could not understand most of what my sensei was telling me, so my sensei was very influential but he is not a professional potter who you would know about, but while I was in school working I would be watching YouTube Videos on how to make pottery and how to do what my sensei was trying to teach me to do in the pottery club. I actually watched a lot of Simon Leach pottery and I studied it religiously. He taught me how to make a handle, how to make a production line, and time reducing strategies, all of that from the Simon Leach videos that he does.
Are you a person who waits for opportunities to come your way or are you a person who seeks out opportunities or makes opportunities happen?
A little bit of both, which is an easy answer to say, I think. No, I go looking. I go looking but you have to be shown the opportunity though and then you have to grab hold of that opportunity. You have to know that the opportunity is there. The stores that I went into, it was Facebook where I saw opportunities of another potter being needed or looking for submissions. Friends would send it to me and I’d jump on that opportunity and approach them.
How did you learn to price your work?
Slowly. Little by little. The first time I started selling my mugs was down on the waterfront. I carted my stuff down and set up a table and sold my mugs for $20 a mug and they flew off the table and I was very excited and I was wonderful. I thought this would be a great business but then I realized I cannot make them that fast. So you kind of adjust. i did a lot of looking around to see what other potters were selling their stuff for that was comparable to what I was making. You adjust so you are not underselling other potters and they are not out pricing you. You kind of adjust it as you go.
How do you track your profit and loss?
Taxes. I do my taxes once a year.(laughter) No really, I want to give a shout out to my father in law Roger Knoll, who is an entrepreneur as well and he has a very successful business. One night at the cottage we were sitting and drinking and he started scolding me, this was about a year ago now, for the way I was running my business and keeping my records and keeping my finances. So basically I started a separate account for my business so I figured out from doing my taxes that 35 percent are my expenses for the whole year. So what I do now is 35 percent of every craft show of every check form the store from every sale off of Facebook, 35 percent goes back into that account for future business expenses. Then my goal is to up that to maybe 40 percent for studio improvements and I can be saving up for new things.
Do you feel like it is important to be giving back in some way and if so how do you do it?
Giving back, yes, it is one hundred percent important. I actually struggle with how with pottery, how can I give back and donate. I am a Christian and I go to church and I try to think how can I serve other people with this pottery with what I do and what I am passionate about. I taught pottery at a daily vacation bible school and so many people ask for donations for fund raisers and they do auctions so you can give a couple of bowls or you can give a mug for the auction or fund raiser, so I try to do that a couple of times a year too.
What is a favorite tool you love to use?
I still have this small set of tools that I still have from Japan and it’s sentimental. It is not the ones I use the most but it is the ones that I pick up and every time I pick them up I think of that time. There is one little bamboo wire cutter that my sensei made for me, like he cut the bamboo and twisted the wire on and everything. He gave it to me one day at the studio and basically said, Shhh, don’t tell the other members that I made this for you. It is those little things that you can’t replace. So that is one of my favorite tools.
What is one of the first steps you take to make a big change in your life?
Just insist that it happens. When we were coming back from Japan I was insistent that I wanted to start making pottery and I knew that I wanted to start selling pottery and that is the direction I wanted to go. So every time we had to make the decision for looking for jobs or where are we going to live I continually kept on saying as long as we know that this is what I am going to be doing. Just keep on insisting to the people around you who you are making your decisions with and to yourself. No, this is a priority. This is what I want to do, and you look for ways. When we bought the house we bought we new that the basement would be taken over by the pottery studio. You just kind of have that focus and that insistence.
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