We had the good fortune of connecting with Emily Haynes and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Emily, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Ceramics has been a part of my life since I was in my early twenties and living in Brooklyn, but it wasn’t until I moved to LA with my husband and son (and another on the way) in 2016 that I decided to turn it into a business. At that point I had been doing ceramics for almost twenty years and I realized that I either needed to spend way less time on it, or lean into it and take it to the next level. I had just had my second child, I was living in a new city, and for the first time in my adult life I had a garage, which meant I had the space to set up a home studio. So, I decided to make the leap and I formed my company, Blue Pen Ceramics (the name is a reference to my other professional life as an editor)! Once I gave myself permission to really practice and hone my craft, a whole bunch of other challenges came up. What is my style? How do I fit in this intersection of craft and design? How much should I charge for my work? How do I market it? But the first step was just making space in my life for the work.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I think the moment that I started to find my voice and style in the world of ceramics is when I began exploring the intersection of my abilities on the potter’s wheel with my experience in the world of graphic design. While I am not a trained designer (I’m actually a former book editor) I have worked with and around designers for much of the past decade. I was an editor at Chronicle Books in San Francisco, one of the best art and design publishers in the country, and my husband is an amazing illustrator (@gheehappy!). Combine that with a love of the Southern California magic-hour-surf-shack-mid-century-modern design vibe that is pretty much inescapable in LA, and I suddenly felt like I had an area that I wanted to explore with a paintbrush as well as in clay. I love being able to make my own “canvases” by exploring the form and function of wheel thrown pottery. The graphic design side is newer and more challenging, and it has been an ongoing journey to hone my style, while recognizing the shared influences that are all around. The visual culture here is so rich and I feel like it’s important to remember that no design exists in a vacuum–what I make is always a response to my environment. Sometimes it is personal–like an abstract interpretation of my favorite punctuation marks from my days as an editor –or it might be as universal as a retro sunset inspired by vintage surf wear.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I have two boys–a four-year-old and an eight-year-old–so my days of being an expert on the best time to be had in a city are in the past. Add a year-plus of COVID to that and I’m close to a hermit. But I would probably take them to the beach–I love Annenberg Beach House—and out for tacos and the best salsa at Cacao in Eagle Rock, authentic Gujarati food at Ashirwad in Upland (not in LA, but SO good), for a hike in the hills above Studio City, and a bike ride along the coast above Santa Monica.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
The most pivotal moment in my ceramics career came in 2007, when I took a summer workshop at Anderson Ranch in Colorado, as a thirtieth birthday gift from my parents. I’d never spent so much dedicated time working in clay and my instructor, Scott Parady, was a terrific teacher and all around great human being. He introduced me to wood firing, which is a labor-intensive firing method that involves using lots of wood to heat a kiln to very high temperatures over several days, and I was hooked! I wound up traveling out to Northern California to continue firing with him and an amazing crew of artists, and I soon decided that the west coast was where I needed to be. I made the leap, moved from NYC to SF, and discovered a whole new, deep, and fascinating world of craft, design, and clay. The rest is history. Scott has gone on to found the Cobb Art & Ecology Project (@cobbartandecology), an organization that promotes creativity in the ceramic arts and sustainable living in Northern California.

Website: www.bluepenceramics.com

Instagram: @bluepenceramics

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