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I'm Jules, I'm a solo parent and I run a small business
168 Plays9 months ago
Ceramicist Jules, has her own ceramics studio @caveandkiln, where she runs workshops and creates beautiful pieces for the home, to support herself and her daughter who is almost 6.
In this episode she tells the story of why she created this business, what a career in creativity can look like and what it means to choose flexibility over financial stability.
If you run a small business or thinking about it, it's worth a listen.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Five Hour Club Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
Hi I'm Amy and I'm Emma and this is the Five Hour Club Podcast where we navigate life between the school runs.
Jules' Journey into Ceramics
00:00:20
Speaker
Jules is a ceramicist who became a solo parent when her daughter turned three. At that point she bravely chose to turn her love of ceramics into a business which now successfully supports them both. In this chat we discuss the choice between flexibility and freedom over financial stability, what creativity as a career can look like and the importance of self-care. This is a story of true strength, courage and creativity. And if you run your own business or are thinking about it, it's definitely worth a listen.
Balancing Flexibility and Financial Stability
00:00:54
Speaker
Hi, so hi Jules, so you are a ceramicist and you have an almost six-year-old daughter. Before we get into all of that, we would love to know how you got to where you are today, what did your career and life look like before you had children? Okay, so career was quite different when I was living in London. So we moved down to London three years before having um my daughter. So in London, I jumped around lots of different careers, working in visuals, photography, retail, everything after doing fine art at university. But my last job, I was working as a culture director in a PR company. So it was quite a full on position. I covered maternity leave for the CEO while she went on maternity leave.
00:01:41
Speaker
and And my job was actually converting the business to being an agile working model rather than being a hierarchical system based nine to five. job. So i mean i'm gonna stop with that that's interesting in itself, I mean, from our perspective, but how, because it sounds like you're a creative type, you have to find out a uni. So how did you get into that position in quite a sounds relatively corporate position? It was quite corporate. Yeah, I had to go in and and um be in meetings with lawyers and all sorts, which is quite
00:02:11
Speaker
It was fine. It was good, but it was not what I had come from. But I knew the people that were in the business and I think they just saw an opening for me thinking more creatively and taking down the sort of structure within the business and being able to work with people and create systems that worked for agile working. Oh, wow. Okay. So can you tell us more about them? What did you do then? How did you break down there nine to five? What did the first thing that we did was stopped paying such high prices for office space. So I found us the time, it was quite a long time ago. So these sort of co-working spaces, we had like work, work spaces at work space. Any of those, there was a few of them, but they weren't like everywhere like they are now. And especially since COVID.
00:03:02
Speaker
So I got us into a place called Second Home, which was based like a gym membership type thing. So you don't, you're not paying for like a solid office space. And then it was just about creating meetings at the right points. We got onto, we used a lot of apps and software. So we used like Slack and we like created systems of communication between teams, made sure we were getting enough face to face time, did a lot of coffee shop meetings, which was obviously very much my sort of remit. And just sort of broke down the boundaries of like, if you're paying for an office space and you're paying a ridiculous amount of money, then obviously everyone has to be in the office as much as possible. um And then also it was about taking down this idea of the nine to five model so people could work outside of that nine to five.
Creative Problem-Solving and Career Transition
00:03:51
Speaker
But one thing that I had to do is make sure that people's
00:03:54
Speaker
rights were protected because it's a PR company and obviously there's a lot of people that work very hard and there's a lot of clients that expect a lot so I had to make sure that the employees rights were being looked after as well and that they weren't just you know burning out and exhausting themselves and working all the time.
00:04:18
Speaker
this role, I find that really interesting that you've said there were creatives. So are there any other skills or kind of transferable skills that you bought from your previous role and from your fine art degree that you think helped you with that role? Yeah, i think I think that during the fine art degree, you're not really, so for me at least, going, I went to St. Martin's but it was a university hall by I'm sure School of Art.
00:04:41
Speaker
And when I actually signed up to it, I wasn't on the real rotor. They, I got into Central St. Martins, but they filled their quota. They said, you can go to this other place. And they just said, basically turn up. So that's the type of place it was. It was like, you know, just, just turn up and you'll be on the register and you can get your fine art degree. So it was just, it's so it's not sort of, the corporate world is so like locked down into like straight boxes and straight lines and ways of thinking.
00:05:08
Speaker
And I think the fine art degree, we weren't really taught huge amounts of technical information, but the reason that they do that is so that you can discover things and that you can learn through self-discovery. And then once you have that sort of creative way of thinking, then you can learn to hone techniques. But sometimes if you learn like, this is the way you have to do a watercolor painting, or this is the way that you have to do something,
00:05:35
Speaker
then the creativity is almost taken out of it because you don't think outside of the box because you have a set way of thinking. So it's about like you expand the mind and let the mind wander and play and find ways of doing things. And then you can you can hone the techniques to become more proficient in that area.
00:05:54
Speaker
So cool because I i loved art in school and um that it was for me, I don't think you know this anyway, but for me it was always always like a second option and when I was looking at university places I was actually thinking of the art route. I did not know that about you. Yeah, it was ultimately frightening but But for me, I don't know and if you're right in saying this, book but for me it's like problem solving. Definitely. Like being creative problem solving and thinking it's like the box. And decision making. Yeah. Because when you're creating, and I do this with my daughter all the time, then she starts a picture and then she like takes it too far or whatever, and then she gets really furious that her picture's kind of ruined. And it's like, you've got this, that every time that you're doing anything creative, it's like a decision making of, do you push it further?
00:06:39
Speaker
do you stop somewhere? What is the actual thing that you're trying to retain from the piece? So you're you're constantly like having these tiny little micro moments of problem solving and decision making. Yeah, absolutely.
From Cheese Business to Ceramics Studio
00:06:51
Speaker
and did you find how Did you find that people were receptive to that change? you know and um because that had quite a large change to do in an organization. Yeah, yeah, there was, it was, most people were very, very on board. And I think mainly as well, it was the change had to happen because it was quite top down from the CEO and she was at capacity of, she was involved in every aspect of the business and she was at capacity. So also we were trying to make sure that
00:07:23
Speaker
the business could function without her having to be at every meeting and every and sign off on everything. I mean, you can bribe people with coffee and buns. I mean, and also, because isn't it? I've got good taste in coffee. So I was like setting the scene of like where these things were going to happen. So we I picked a really lovely um place called Second Home as our office and they did great talks and they had a great cafe and restaurant and like just made life a bit more. Prime meetings were great as well because we had permanent hosting space. Like we weren't having to like welcome people into like this little office where we were like but going out and making the teas and coffees. It's like you have
00:08:02
Speaker
a set restaurant space to do, you know, business to business client meetings. So it all worked. It sounds like it's the culture, it's the kind of creating this more comfortable culture where you kind of trust each other to do the things and you sort of trust in your space that it is a comfortable place where you can get on with it. And you know, I started being called operations director. And then I was like,
00:08:30
Speaker
So we had to have a little meeting and I was like, I think I should be cultural director.
00:08:37
Speaker
He has a perfect, perfect title for you. Yeah. And evening your life now. Yeah. So that was just pre, that was, yeah, that was pre moving to Folkestone. And then we moved to Folkestone and I did actually leave that business and, you know, really invested in my life in Folkestone.
00:08:58
Speaker
And after that, we started, I started doing a little bit, i was I've always been doing ceramics, but it's always been like a sideline. So I was at these communal studios in London. I did a bit of it in Sydney, in Australia. I've always, it's been, it's been going for like 13 years, but it wasn't a job. um And then when we got down to Folkestone, my, um my now ex and me ran, he he was a cheese dungo and we ran a business from the harbour on.
00:09:27
Speaker
in Folkestone. So he was selling cheese, we were both selling cheese and I was selling my ceramics. So then what made you, when you came here, what made you change and do the ceramics more as a focus as opposed to it being a sort of sideline? What was it that made you want to do that? It actually took a while for the ceramics to become the focus because I think when we first started our business, the cheese was the like what we were doing. So it was more like, you know, my ex was running what we were doing it together. But like, that was the thing that Folkston wanted. um And obviously, the harbor arm is like a foodie space and everything. um The ceramics only took center stage when I was when I got a space that I could work in and have my own studio. So it actually coincides with
00:10:19
Speaker
me and my ex splitting up, but I'd just after COVID before COVID, one of my friend of mine had a space in Folkestone, offered it to me to rent. I took it on, it was sitting in the sidelines. And then when I broke up with my husband at the time, i'm I basically needed to have, you know, suddenly needed to make money and be, you know, self-sufficient. So that's when the ceramic studio you know I stopped it from being like, this is my personal studio and I started running the workshops. So that's when it became probably more of a like central business part of my life.
00:10:57
Speaker
OK, so that takes us up, I guess, to where you are now. So you you run a studio, you run workshops. Can you tell us how and what that looks like day to day for you? you know How do you make that work for you and your daughter? Yeah, I i mean, I think I'm enormously lucky because the actual working hours, I do a Monday evening workshop and I do a Saturday morning workshop. So enormously lucky or not like that. Those two things do eat into my time.
00:11:24
Speaker
with my daughter, but you know it's quite a small amount of time to be running workshops and to be getting sort of bread and butter weekly money. And then the rest of my time is studio time. So i yeah, i I work on my own projects. I create my own tableware sets. I work on big art vases with my friend who I went to art school with. She comes over from Brussels. We paint them. They go to Marseille.
00:11:52
Speaker
a few different strands of the studio working. So I've got the workshops that I love doing, and I've had the same people for the last two years. So we really know each other. It's a space where we all talk, we get on really well. And then I've got my own creations that I'm working on day in, day out. And then I've got the art pieces that are more project-based going out to Europe and exhibiting them. That sounds very...
Parenting and Studio Challenges
00:12:21
Speaker
It's so the terrain. So is it as good as it sounds like you're saying? Like you've got it nailed to. Yeah, to be honest, it is. It really suits parenting as well. So like what I always think is When I'm able to talk to my daughter, my job is so tangible. Like I can really sort of say, you know, I host workshops where people learn to do this. She's done it. Like she's been in the studio of me making pinch pots. Like she can understand it. I think so many of our jobs when we're talking to our children are completely mystifying to them. Like they have no concept of why their parents aren't spending time with them and doing something. So this is such an easy, tangible thing where I can go.
00:13:08
Speaker
you know, this is how we get this, you've done it, you know what it's like, this is what I have to do. The only one thing is that she doesn't love coming to the studio, which is my big, every other kid wants to be at the studio, but no, she doesn't love it. And I think probably because when she's been there, instead of me running a workshop with her, I'm trying to get on with my own stuff. So say but yeah she's she's definitely not kind of like,
00:13:35
Speaker
Wow! Mummy's got a studio! Which my boys love coming to your studio but I would say yeah is that the biggest downside for you then? Is it that kind of she doesn't love that part of work and you feel that sometimes you don't want to go to that or you can't go to the studio if you've got her that sort of juggle because it sounds like you know when you've got those yeah eat those workshop times you know he looks after her? do you How do you make that work? Yeah, so we've got I mean, I've got grandparents in the area. So I'm really lucky there as well on both sides. um And then her dad takes on my Saturday workshops. So the workshops, they they are pretty covered. It's not it's not a massive downside. I'd say downsides are financial stability. um And then also sort of growth scale. um And then but like, also, I'm working at
00:14:28
Speaker
my capacity so I can't really, there's not, it's I'm doing everything to make money in the studio so how does that get bigger? and And then also that I am kind of locked down to weekends so we don't, I mean i I thought about it the other day and I thought we just don't have, now my daughter's in the school model because I really loved preschool and I loved like the freedom of it and spending lots of time with with my child and like going to the beach and very romanticist you know way of living. um Obviously hard as well but loved it but now she's at school and then I do work on weekends that sort of free time where there's no agenda where we just get to spend time together it gets sort of smaller and smaller
00:15:16
Speaker
So definitely I love being at school and I get to go to the studio and I get to like work on my projects and I get like my own time and space and I get to reconnect with friends but you know you're also losing this kind of undiluted experience based time with your child. I think it's really really good and really important to hear like both sides you know so that ah it does stay incredible and I think you're doing an amazing job of it but it's also good to hear
00:15:46
Speaker
the challenges as well. yeah and I always say to people like if you think about how many mugs I have to sell if my roof went bad. I had to prepare a roof. How many mugs do you have to sell to get a workman in to fix your roof? It's so true but I love what you were saying earlier about that concept of work and I love that your daughter can see like your work and a beautiful one is something that you love and you're passionate about and that can inspire her to do something that she knows and you can make work work but it's like when I am, I mean my poor children when I say like what I'm doing for work I'm like okay wait
00:16:23
Speaker
it's it Like you said, it's a really hard thing. It's not a tangible thing for them to really understand what it is, but like I said, it's visible for her. And would you say then, is there anything, would you prefer, as you said, the financial stability is something that then you know is a concern for you? who Does that, because obviously for a lot of people have to, a lot of mothers particularly, choose to run a small business or a business for themselves because there's no other way to make it work around their family and their life.
00:16:50
Speaker
But obviously that has this financial issues and you know the lack of that, that support. Would you think, I would prefer actually to have a job where I know I've got that financial income, that support versus doing something which yes, okay, we you know it's like it's harder to earn money and to have that sort of security there, but I do get that flexibility and freedom with my child. sort of I think you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming back to a nine-to-five. Because we'll say I really enjoy not working for someone you know I really enjoy working for myself and being able to I think like when you become a mother you suddenly are like you just boss it like you are in charge and like something definitely kicked in for me where I was like
00:17:34
Speaker
I kind of know what I have to do and I know what needs to be done and I need to be able to do it and then that kind of bled out to the wider world and I kind of run my studio that way and I don't know how I would be living within this energy of like You know, no, I know what's right for me. I know what's right for my daughter. I mean, I already have it slightly with school. Like I feel a little bit like, no, you know, I know, I know what's right for my daughter. And sometimes that we get, I get on really well. I love the school, love the teachers. I do a clay class there, but suddenly there's like another authority basis that is getting involved in your decisions as a mother for what's best for your child. And I do find that like,
00:18:16
Speaker
quite hard And I think if you were working for someone else and they were saying, you know, no, you can't leave at this time because you've got this or like, you know, if you're having to negotiate these really significant things for me, like I feel like the role of mother is really, really significant. And if I had to like plead and beg and like negotiate around these things that I think are, you know, completely essential, I think I would find that really difficult.
00:18:42
Speaker
I think, yeah, I completely appreciate that. And especially it's it's a
Full-Time Ceramics Post-Divorce
00:18:46
Speaker
minefield, isn't it? And making sure that you're working for that right employer that, you know, has the same, you know, values of you in terms of flexibility and, you know, making it work around your family. But when you were saying earlier, so you were talking about financial independence, Amy, and and I was just thinking back to that moment that you decided I'm going to get this and I'm going to make this like my business, my job, this is where I'm going to earn my money from. Was it?
00:19:12
Speaker
challenging to get from that moment of, okay, this is my side thing to this is going to be my no business. And did that coincide at the same point at which you split from your ex? Yeah, it was pretty much the same week. So like, I i was, you know, told that we were splitting up. And then, I mean, obviously, there's a huge amount of instability around that moment, you, you have no concept, what's going to happen, what you're going forward into, what's going to happen to the family home, you know,
00:19:42
Speaker
you just have no idea. So it throws huge amounts of uncertainty at you when all you really want in young parenting age, like from age one to five is like certainty and stability. So I definitely went through like a massive shift of what's life going to look like? How am I going to make this work? You know, are we all going to stay here? Are we going to go back to where I'm from in Gloucestershire? Like what, what's life going to look like? And luckily I had the ingredients to make it work because I already had the studio and I've got a good support network. And I think all the time, like I really think about how people do this without a support network because I've got a support network and I was able to make it work mainly based on who I could reach out to and like pull myself up to that next level. If you haven't got that, I don't know what you would do. But luckily, I mean, i I think like I had the experience as a ceramicist.
00:20:42
Speaker
I actually want and enjoy doing workshops because I think that could have been very different. A lot of artists, creatives don't have the skills to host classes or that's not the area that they want to work in. Whereas I'm quite lucky that that is something. So that's quite an easy financial exchange that you've got a space and you can teach people how to work with clay. Whereas if I didn't have that skill set and I had to just sell stuff,
00:21:11
Speaker
you know, it might be a harder, it might've been a harder fix. I think, so Amy and I, and Amy, you know, did have a previous business before this and kind of in our many, many conversations we were saying that, well, you know, like, again, such an important blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but one of the things that, like, that women and parents shouldn't necessarily have to set up their own business, but I think it's such an interesting, positive story of how it can work. And at the same time,
00:21:39
Speaker
of being present for your daughter. But you do sort of think forget things as well, because my daughter was very, very, very dependent on me. And she used to find it very hard being apart, even for those sort of workshop, the evenings, no one did any evenings until she was like four maybe, because she was so, I mean, I didn't have any overnights, any people taking her and stuff, because she was very like, it took hours to get her to sleep. Usually she'd be crying and screaming and blah,
00:22:09
Speaker
And if she went with other people, like it was like, they can take over this tiny little window and then, you know, we have to go back. So it's, so we, I had a really good support network, but it was still hard kind of having that sense of separation of like, right, I'm going to work now. And this is actually more important or not more important of equal importance because up until then it had been like everything.
00:22:32
Speaker
was child important first, if you know what I mean. It's a change of mind, sir. So I guess you had to make that choice, didn't you, in terms of I have to work now. And it was the first time I'd had like a need to be apart from her, yeah rather than ah I'd like to go and have time with my friends, or i'd like to which is which is flexible. you know You can go out with your friends, and if your child is screaming and upset and wants to see you, you can come home. Whereas when you're doing a workshop, it's like,
00:23:02
Speaker
I'm doing this, you know, I have to do it, I have to earn money. And I think from the outside, I remember feeling very, you know, thinking, and looking at your situation in terms of seeing how successful you're able to make your business work and I always like to have thought it's because what you're doing is something you're really passionate about and something you're really good at. Like you say, you're you are really good at the workshops, you're really good at teaching other people how to use clay, you're really good at you know creating your own things but you've got lots of different avenues and I think you can see that in your work and I think that's how you're able to make it a success because you kind of got that passion which drives you through plus you've got that need I have to make money but I think that's what makes it maybe more sustainable than like with my business it was a case of
00:23:46
Speaker
Okay, well, maybe I didn't have as much passion behind there. It wasn't, you know, it was there, but it wasn't ingrained within me that sort of made it as a sort of, I want to make this work because I have to, and actually I really enjoy doing it all the time. And it looks like from the outside that you do, you really enjoy your lifestyle now and you've created it. I've set it up for me and how it works for my family as well, like for me and my daughter. So I think if I'd been younger,
00:24:14
Speaker
I might have done the workshops in a slightly different way where I would feel like i have to over like I have to do something different every week and I have to be you know scheduling things in and it has to be like the best of the best. Whereas this time I was like, I need to go along and I need to facilitate people with learning, but I gave a lot of space for them to do their own thing because I wanted like a sustainable model that my energy levels could keep up with. And I just think you're a bit more nonsense, aren't you? Like after you've had a child, you're like, this is my time. And I only want to spend time doing things. If I'm going to be away from my child, it has to be valuable to me as well. Whereas I don't think I had
Valuing Time and Self-Care
00:24:52
Speaker
that before. It's so true. It's so true. It's definitely so innovative. It has to be how your perception change when you become a mother. And I think that's probably the biggest thing.
00:25:02
Speaker
you realise how valuable your time is. So you can be, and and and like you're saying, you would have done it in a different way when you were younger. I think definitely we would have done this in a different way. And and you because you need to, and you have to.
00:25:15
Speaker
get your work to fit or arrange your family. Like there's no choice. Yeah, I think it's really good. It's so lovely to hear how you got to this point, Jaws, because obviously I see the great side of it now and how much you enjoy your life, but it sort of, it is hard work and it is, you know, it isn't easy. You know, there's times where I know that you're like, actually, I need to do some more workshops and I need to, you know, make some more big vases. And all of that is still in the back of your mind. I know. Yeah, still pressure. That's, yeah.
00:25:43
Speaker
it's not the thing that drives you but it's a thing that you need to make happen. So finish off then and we're going to let Lisa sit nicely onto her two final questions which is with everything you know now about your life and your career if you could tell yourself one thing from the past from your career and what you knew when you were younger what would you tell yourself now?
00:26:04
Speaker
So I think it's slightly to do with the, what we were talking about with the value return on time. So when I was younger, I always always sort of knew I wanted kids and I always knew that when I had kids, they would be like a very big priority. But I think from living life as an artist, you have a lot of space in your head where you get to be independent and you have a lot of freedom and you're making certain life choices. And I was always slightly concerned that I would feel like a little bit like that I might feel tiny bit resentful that I'm like losing a side of myself. And I think I would say not to worry about that because actually I think the, the value of me learning to how to say no to things that I don't want to do is actually more beneficial to me.
00:26:56
Speaker
living the life that I was living before which was just saying yes to everything because I wanted as many experiences as possible and I wanted you know to keep everything being like bigger and bigger when actually time now the way that I think about time is is sort of makes me a happier person if you're not with me yeah I do does that make any sense I love that so much because it's like you've It's not that you've lost something and you thought your past self might have felt like you're going to lose something by the becoming a mother but actually you've gained something. I've gained. and youve yeah and you've help you I might The fun doesn't stop. You just find new ways of having fun. Exactly.
00:27:46
Speaker
yeah So with that in mind, if you could do or say one thing for yourself tomorrow, what would it be? um I am actually pretty good at self-care, if I'm honest. I go for a coffee every morning, which I do do admin sometimes with my coffees, so I um i bribe myself with my coffee. Don't justify it. I mean, I like a bath. A sea swim, I like a sea swim. If I'm honest, I'm quite good at self-care.
Reflecting on the Journey
00:28:12
Speaker
I got quite unwell.
00:28:14
Speaker
um ah quite a while ago and part of that was sort of learning to be kind to yourself so actually you know recovering from a like chronic illness or whatever you learn to be kind to yourself and it does put those building blocks in to kind of go actually I need to do things for myself so yeah i've I've taken up the rowing I've taken up the climbing I go see swimming coffees baths glass wine if I want it Yeah, I know, you just make me walk yeah, I mean, there's obviously a lot of emotional meltdowns after school. I mean, my child has just started social care after school. The school, she
00:29:12
Speaker
Maybe go home and cook dinner? Maybe. Go and get a glass you Jaws. So thank you for sharing your story with us. Oh, thank you guys. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.