My Journey in Pottery

When people ask me how long I have been doing this, I don’t know what to tell them. Do they want to know when I started selling my work? When I started making work I was proud of? When I first touched a ball of clay? Well, this is the long-winded answer summed up in one place.

I grew up in Parishville, New York in a super tiny town and a super tiny school. My school did not have AP classes or fancy electives. For the most part, we only had the necessities. I have no idea how my tiny school was able to get a pottery wheel and kiln setup, but it actually changed my life (not to be dramatic). We started doing ceramics in elementary school art classes and I was obsessed with it. I had a great art teacher who encouraged me to try new things and allowed me to explore my creativity. I remember being so fascinated with the clay projects but nervous to make mistakes. My teacher patiently taught me how to recycle the clay and start over again. I loved how each mistake could still be turned into something beautiful. I continued taking art classes throughout high school and never lost the excitement I had for the pottery projects.

I spent four years in engineering school in Worcester, Massachusetts (2017-2021), where I studied long hours and spent my time preparing for my future career. I earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering with the plan to go into the medical device field. It wasn’t until I was working at my first job post-grad in Manchester, New Hampshire (designing medical devices) that I rediscovered the love I had for art. My mom got me a 10-week pottery class at a local studio (shoutout Studio 550) for Christmas in 2022 and the rest was history. I was hooked, again. I started up my Instagram account, @madeby.hannahgray, and used that to share my progress with my friends and family who wanted to follow along.

Shortly after that, in 2023, I moved to Knoxville, Tennessee. I started a new job at Oak Ridge National Laboratory where I design equipment used in the production of radioisotopes. I found a new studio, Mighty Mud, and spent a lot of time there when I first moved here. I have since started my own home studio, but still stop in at Mighty Mud to glaze and drop off my pieces for firing. It was around this time when I started selling my work. I was hesitant to start selling at all because I didn’t feel like I was good enough yet (story of my life), but friends and family members started to ask me to make them things! I continued making pieces upon request for a while, not really planning to make a profit, just seeing if I could cover some of the costs for my hobby.

So far this year, 2025, I have been getting more and more messages from people that I don’t know personally. I did a commission project with Fellowship Church in Knoxville where I made them a collection of pottery pieces and their photographer documented the process for a workbook that accompanied their sermons. The photos from that photoshoot turned out so beautiful and are the reason I took the leap to make this website (shoutout to Chloe at chloecate.com). That project is also the reason that I applied for an official business license!

I’m not sure how far I will take my pottery as a business because I don’t want to lose the love I had for it as a hobby. As a hobby, it gave me freedom and excitement. I don’t want to get to a place where it feels like a job. This has been and always will be about passion for me. I work full time as an engineer and am fortunate enough to not rely on income from my art right now. Who knows where this will grow to in the future!