Degree Show 2021

I’ve been wanting to start a blog for the last few months but never knew where to start. So I decided my first post should be where my little business started with my end of uni degree show! I’ve always wanted to have my own business since running a jewellery business with my friend in high school, and the end of uni and my degree show was the perfect time to start.

I’m going to start by talking about my final year collection. This collection consisted of lights and planters which were informed by over 170 testers that I made during my final three semesters at uni. Waste materials were the theme of my final collection and each of these testers was used to see how waste materials reacted to being placed into ceramics and fired. After picking out my favourite outcomes, I then designed planters and lights to compliment the textures created in my testers by the waste materials.

The run up to degree show and my final 2 years at uni was always very uncertain given the pandemic, however, finding out that the plan was to have an in person degree show really helped motivate me throughout the final few months of my degree. Our degree show opened on Monday the 7th of June and getting to see and show my work alongside my course mates to family, friends and industry was so rewarding.

As a result of our degree show, I was lucky enough to win two awards: The Valentine Clays - Award for Excellence 2021 1st Prize and the Potclays Graduate Award 2021. The prize for the Valentine Clays award was a sponsored stand at Art in Clay in Windsor that summer. This was such an exciting opportunity and one that will be the topic of my next blog post!

Having my first craft fair lined up during my degree show week was really exciting and gave me something to focus on with uni coming to an end. This was also my first business opportunity! Around the same time as degree show, I found out that I’d been successful in my application to take part in Staffordshire University’s BeInspired programme, which provides mentoring and funding to start up businesses. This paired with Art in Clay put me in such a good position to start my business.

I’m aiming to write a blog post each month with a little round up of what’s been happening and any exciting updates such as new stock, discounts, and upcoming shows, if you want to be the first to hear, please sign up to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Thank you for reading!

Meg :)