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00:00Our country is full of incredible makers
00:03dreaming of turning their talent into money-making careers.
00:07It would mean everything to be able to do this full-time.
00:10So, with a team of fantastic professional mentors...
00:14I know your talent and I know what you're capable of doing.
00:16I run a one-of-a-kind boot camp, showing them how to do just that.
00:21Perfect. My proudest moment. I'll go share that.
00:23Yes.
00:24Now I'm on my way to catch up with those who have made their dreams come true.
00:28Hello. There he is. Hello, mate.
00:30I'll be hearing about their amazing achievements.
00:33I've been able to put down a deposit on a house.
00:35This is my full-time job.
00:37And finding out how much money they're making.
00:40A little bit under £40,000.
00:42Around £50,000.
00:43£50,000? Yeah.
00:44So join me and meet the fabulous makers
00:47who have transformed their lives and made it at market.
00:50You can kind of say I am living the dream.
00:53I think that's fair to say.
01:02Whether they're trying to grow an existing business
01:05or turn a part-time passion into a full-time career,
01:08the makers that come to my boot camp
01:10all want to make money from their talents.
01:13Today, we'll be catching up with two in their own studios
01:16who have done just that.
01:18Later, mentor Alistair will be heading to Devon
01:21to check in on glass artist Emmy,
01:23who's found worldwide success.
01:26I've got a touring gallery that's taken my work internationally.
01:30It's taken my work to Singapore, Texas, New York,
01:33where I had a sell-out show.
01:35Before that, I'll be visiting wildlife lover Sarah in Yorkshire.
01:40I first met her at my boot camp in spring 2022,
01:44when she came looking for help to make a career change
01:47just a few months after she'd started working with clay.
01:50When the pandemic hit, I was a professional photographer
01:53and obviously everything just stopped.
01:57Birds were singing and the sun was shining
01:58and I just realised that that was what life was about.
02:01I got my hands on ceramics, some clay.
02:04There's nothing between you and the material
02:06and it just feels so raw and so natural.
02:09It's like you're working with the earth.
02:12To help Sarah make the switch from photography to sculpting,
02:16I teamed her up with Belfast-based ceramicist Derek Wilson.
02:21Sarah is really, really interesting
02:23because within such a short period of time,
02:25her work is already at a certain standard.
02:28And I think already, you know,
02:29you can kind of see the potential in her practice.
02:33To work out how Sarah could best make money from her ceramics,
02:37I set her three challenges.
02:39First up, I wanted to see what she could produce in volume
02:43and as a nature lover,
02:44she decided to make a collection of small bird sculptures
02:47priced at £20 to £40,
02:50each one hand-shaped and decorated
02:52with a variety of different coloured glazes.
02:55The first step is to take two bowls of clay
02:58and then what we'll do is create like a little pinch pot.
03:02So you put your thumb in the middle
03:04and then just carefully going round
03:08create a little, little bowl.
03:11Then you make two of those
03:12and then create some score lines
03:16on each of them, like a crosshatch.
03:20And we do this because it'll help them stick together
03:24so it doesn't come apart.
03:27And then I use a little bit of water
03:29just to wet the edges a little bit
03:32and then carefully pop them together.
03:36Once that's set,
03:37the next step is to shape it into the bird form.
03:41Sarah's birds seemed relatively quick to make
03:44but Derek wanted to talk to her
03:45about making their production even faster.
03:48What's quite important about these pieces
03:50is that they all are individual,
03:51individual and they all have their own kind of characters.
03:54Definitely, definitely.
03:55When it comes to producing them,
03:57is there easier ways to kind of speed up
03:59the kind of production range?
04:00I did think about throwing them as like little balls
04:03but by the time I figured out how to throw them
04:07and create spheres and do it consistently
04:10to make them look like spheres.
04:12It's probably just easier and quicker for me
04:14to make them by hand.
04:16They're just nice and easy to form.
04:18It's definitely something to look into.
04:21Whilst Sarah continued making her small birds,
04:24I asked Derek to join me in my marquee
04:26to discuss her second item.
04:29Before she came to my boot camp,
04:31I asked her to make a more expensive high-end piece
04:33and she decided to showcase a sculpture
04:36of a family of hares decorated with a metallic glaze.
04:40As there were multiple pieces
04:42involving a lengthier production time
04:44along with extra material and firing costs,
04:46she priced them at £1,200.
04:50They're really lovely.
04:51They've got a good energy
04:51and they've got a real kind of presence.
04:53She's reflecting this kind of character
04:55of these kind of animals.
04:56It would be quite nice to see Sarah maybe scale up
04:59and to kind of push it
05:00to keep that freedom in her sculpting.
05:02To make a big, massive one.
05:03Yeah, yeah, definitely.
05:04Yeah, I like that.
05:05To kind of challenge herself a little bit.
05:07Sarah's hoping to get £1,200
05:08for the hair with the two babies.
05:10It's probably just a bit expensive
05:12for somebody that's just kind of like
05:13kind of the early stages of their career.
05:16Obviously, she doesn't want to be underselling herself,
05:18but she doesn't want to be overselling her work
05:19at the moment as well.
05:22Down by the Bluebell Woods,
05:23Sarah was working away on her volume piece.
05:26And having finished the wet work
05:28on her collection of small birds,
05:30she brought along some kiln-fired ones
05:32so she could move on to the next step.
05:35He's now ready to underglaze.
05:38Underglazing is designed
05:40so that the colour you paint it on
05:42is more closely what it's going to turn out like.
05:46And there's other things you can do.
05:47You can combine underglaze with glaze
05:50and overglaze and lustres
05:53and the world's your oyster, basically,
05:55when it comes to ceramics.
05:57Despite liking the idea of Sarah's birds,
06:00Derek was concerned that making each one by hand
06:02was too time-consuming for them
06:04to be commercially successful.
06:06But he was a man with a plan.
06:08I just wanted to talk about
06:10some other production methods.
06:12And one idea was to introduce
06:14some press moulds, some simple press moulds.
06:16So I've brought, actually, an example here
06:19from a recent project.
06:21So this was actually just to reproduce
06:23a ceramic spoon.
06:25So for yourself, we would be actually looking
06:26at taking one of your pieces
06:28and making a very simple press mould.
06:31I like handmade because it's personal.
06:33Would this press moulding technique,
06:36do you think it detracts from it a little bit?
06:37You can still add character to these pieces.
06:40You know, they're still one-off pieces.
06:42The smaller pieces, it would make sense
06:44to have them quite similar.
06:47Yeah.
06:47And then I can spend my time
06:49giving them the character and the different...
06:51Exactly, exactly.
06:52They're still handmade pieces
06:54and individual pieces,
06:55and they still have that,
06:57the kind of qualities that you're kind of looking for,
06:59which is really, really important.
07:00It is important to me, yeah.
07:02So the moulds, if I can keep the individuality
07:04of each piece,
07:06then that would make sense to use
07:09because it makes the quality more consistent.
07:14And people will know more about what they're getting
07:16and, yeah, I think it's got legs.
07:19I'll look into it.
07:21Back at her workstation,
07:23Sarah applied the finishing touches
07:25to her small bird sculptures.
07:27One of the reasons why I love ceramics so much
07:30is because you can get lots of different colours,
07:34lots of different effects.
07:36It's just getting really creative.
07:39Sarah's joyful ceramic birds
07:41took her about half an hour each
07:43to sculpt and glaze,
07:45and she priced them at £20 to £40.
07:49Derek, what do you think?
07:50I think they look really good, Sarah.
07:52I think they have a lot of commercial potential.
07:54The one thing that I would kind of say
07:55is that there's kind of a lot of variation in them.
07:58You know, it might be quite nice to see
08:00runs of each one to kind of, like, streamline it.
08:03Very simple press moulds.
08:04It will speed up production
08:05and bring some consistency to your practice as well.
08:08Yeah, to help, mate.
08:09High volume.
08:10About the price, what do you think?
08:12I kind of feel like some of the larger pieces
08:13you could probably go up a little bit more.
08:15Fantastic.
08:19Sarah gave her first two items her best shot,
08:22and for her final task,
08:24I asked her to make her favourite piece
08:26to see if it could become a business-building product.
08:29She chose to create a head study of a long-tailed tit
08:32priced at £600 to £800,
08:35which she decorated with a metallic glaze.
08:39What I'm going to do is I'm going to build the layers up
08:42to start the form of the shape.
08:44So if we've got a solid foundation,
08:47because the clay is still quite wet,
08:49it just makes it easier when we go higher up,
08:52if it's all compressed and quite compact.
08:54You just smush that together to form a join.
09:00OK.
09:06Like so.
09:08And then if we press it down again,
09:11just like we did with the first,
09:12I can press the clay.
09:13What we need to do is just remove this gap.
09:17Over the next two to three hours,
09:20Sarah built up her sculpture one layer at a time,
09:23carefully blending them together
09:24to avoid trapping any air in the piece.
09:27When I'm building the coil,
09:29you see the shape?
09:30That's the shape that I follow.
09:32So we start off wide and then we go in,
09:34out a little bit and then in across the top.
09:37And then I can do things like create the little beak
09:40and then I attach it and on it goes.
09:42And then I'll put the eyes in last
09:45and it just gives it that character.
09:49That'll go in there.
09:51I will leave it to dry for quite a lot longer.
09:54Then I would apply a glaze and then pop it in the kiln
09:58and fire it to 1240 degrees.
10:00Hopefully no disasters overnight
10:02and the kiln gods have been kind
10:05and that's the finished piece.
10:09Sarah finished off her head study
10:11with an eye-catching metallic glaze
10:13and she gave it an asking price of £600 to £800.
10:17What do you think, Derek?
10:18What's really interesting is kind of the concept and the story
10:22and your kind of passion about wildlife.
10:24There's huge commercial availability.
10:26There's also room for development.
10:28I know that you're kind of saying that they're head studies,
10:30but I kind of feel like if they're going into kind of gallery pieces
10:33for kind of collectors that you need to think about
10:35the way that they are presented.
10:38So whether that's kind of like using a plinth
10:40or something that kind of lifts them
10:41and there could be elements where you're kind of carrying on parts
10:44so you're kind of leaving something for the imagination.
10:46I like that.
10:47You can imagine if it's up a little bit higher
10:48and it kind of carries on a little bit.
10:50Yeah.
10:51How about the price set fit, do you think?
10:53I feel like starting off lower, a bit lower
10:55until you see how they sell
10:57and then you can gradually kind of develop
10:59and kind of work your price up a little bit.
11:01Brilliant, thank you.
11:02Amazing. Well, well done, you.
11:03Thank you. Lots of work ahead.
11:06To help Sarah achieve her dream of becoming a full-time sculptor,
11:10we drew up an action plan for her to take back to South Yorkshire.
11:13First, she needed to use moulds
11:15to speed up the production of her small birds.
11:18Next, we wanted her to scale up her large pieces even more.
11:23Finally, she needed to price her work to sell.
11:30For the next two months, Derek continued to guide Sarah
11:33as she worked on her action plan.
11:36She began by scaling up her larger pieces
11:39and was keen to show him how she'd got on.
11:41So, I've got a rather large something to show you.
11:48Oh. Oh, wow. My goodness.
11:51So, this is hair part two.
11:53OK, cool.
11:55And what? The age looks great.
11:57I've not finished his head off yet, but...
11:58Yeah, it's definitely a nice size.
12:03She also travelled to Oxfordshire
12:05to try and sell some of her work at a high-end craft festival,
12:09including the scaled-up hair, which was priced at £600.
12:13It's all my big hair.
12:17Goodbye, Luna.
12:18She's off to a new home.
12:20I'm very pleased.
12:21I'm going to be sad because I'm going to miss it.
12:23But, yeah, I'm so pleased that somebody like my work
12:28enough to take it home.
12:29And I was in shock.
12:31I'll be honest with you, I don't think it's still quite sunk in.
12:37For eight weeks, Sarah worked hard to build her business.
12:41And when she came back to the boot camp to report on her progress,
12:44she had some exciting news.
12:46I did make £870, which I was thrilled with.
12:51It was just so nice to be able to sell my pieces
12:54to people that wanted to buy my pieces.
12:58It's just an incredible feeling.
13:00It's great. It's all very good and very positive.
13:03Well done.
13:04To go from being a novice sculptor to making hundreds of pounds,
13:08even after deducting costs in just a few months,
13:10was a brilliant achievement for Sarah
13:13and a sign of things to come.
13:18Three and a half years later,
13:20I've come to an ever so slightly damp Yorkshire
13:22to find out about the success she's had since I last saw her.
13:26Ah!
13:27John, how are you?
13:29Here she is. How are you doing?
13:30I'm doing well, are you?
13:31I'd love to see you.
13:33Come on in.
13:34The weather might not be too inviting,
13:36but Sarah's studio at the end of her garden,
13:39with its views of open countryside, certainly is.
13:43Can you believe it's been three and a half years?
13:45Oh, I can't.
13:46It feels like it's just gone in the blink of an eye.
13:48You know what?
13:48I cannot think of a better place
13:50for somebody that loves nature to work.
13:53I mean, standing here, looking out at that view,
13:55it must be amazing.
13:57It really is.
13:58And all the birds singing.
13:59Surrounded by nature.
14:00I am, it's amazing.
14:02Yeah, I'm in my happy place.
14:04Yeah.
14:04Yeah.
14:05Sarah's studio is a fabulous place to work.
14:08It's where she does her sculpting,
14:10but she has another workshop in her converted garage
14:13where she does her glazing and kiln firing.
14:16This is the place where I've got the kilns going.
14:18It's all the bigger kilns now.
14:20Yes, not just the kiln, kilns.
14:22Things are getting serious.
14:24Things have got very serious.
14:25This one is huge.
14:26Has that opened up avenues for making bigger sculptures?
14:29Well, I started making some bigger sculptures,
14:31but I found that they didn't sell as well as the little ones.
14:35So I've actually started doing bigger batches of the small ones.
14:39OK.
14:40And filling the kiln and doing it that way instead.
14:43That must help costs,
14:43because you're able to get,
14:44each time you're firing this thing up,
14:46you can actually get more in there.
14:47Well, it's more environmentally friendly as well,
14:49because I don't really want to be running a kiln on half,
14:52because I want to make sure that everything I do
14:53has as little impact on the environment as I can.
14:56And having the bigger kiln
14:57and feeling it making more use of the space
14:59makes complete sense.
15:01Absolutely.
15:01They're so well and good making so many things,
15:03but, I mean, are they selling?
15:04They are.
15:05So I've been really enjoying myself.
15:07They're going everywhere, up and down the country.
15:09They're going to America and Australia.
15:12All over the world.
15:13Yeah, so international.
15:14Critters international.
15:16It's great to hear that Sarah's joyful birds
15:19are selling so well,
15:21and expanding the range is a brilliant idea.
15:24She's also broadened out the material she's working with,
15:27and now makes bronze sculptures as well.
15:30With make times of several months,
15:32including sculpting, casting, and finishing,
15:35the large pieces are priced at £3,000 to £4,000,
15:39and they're also bringing in international sales.
15:43One of my big hares, she's gone to live in America,
15:45and I've just sold a set of three puffins.
15:47Where are all of these sales coming from?
15:49I've actually managed to build up a collection of people
15:53that like to hear from me.
15:55A subscriber list, I suppose you could call it.
15:57Like a mailing list?
15:57Yeah, like a mailing list.
15:58OK.
15:58Got nearly about 3,000 people on that list.
16:01And I've actually had the best month to date.
16:04I took £20,000.
16:06What, in one month?
16:07In one month.
16:08It was brilliant.
16:09So good.
16:09It was a huge number.
16:11By any standard,
16:13selling £20,000 worth of pieces in just one month
16:16is a massive success.
16:19From her small ceramic sculptures to the big bronze works,
16:23Sarah's business is firing on all cylinders,
16:25and she's going to show me
16:27how she makes one of the bronze puffins she sold recently.
16:31Step one is to make a clay puffin
16:33that will be used to create a wax model
16:35the piece will be cast from.
16:38We start by rolling out sausages.
16:40What kind of sausage are we going for?
16:42Is it a chipolata or a hot dog?
16:43I think it's probably more like a Cumberland
16:45by the time we're doing,
16:46because we're going to swirl it.
16:47OK, I've got my sausage.
16:48What we want to do is form a circle
16:52and join the two ends together,
16:55and that forms the base.
16:57And then we're going to take your sausage
16:59and layer it on top.
17:00OK, you want it?
17:01OK.
17:02That's it.
17:03That's it.
17:05Weld those two together.
17:06That's the one.
17:08Just like the bird's head sculpture
17:09Sarah created at the boot camp,
17:11we build up the top half of our puffin
17:13one layer at a time.
17:16I'm getting the hang of this now.
17:18It's stringy sausage.
17:19And when she thinks the piece is sturdy enough,
17:22it's time for me to get hands on.
17:24If you imagine the shoulders of the puffin
17:27are coming in,
17:27and then he'll have a little neck,
17:29and then his head.
17:30Oh, oh.
17:32I think I'm a bit heavy-handed for this.
17:35There you go.
17:36What do you reckon?
17:37That looks good to me.
17:39After creating the basic shape
17:40of the top half of the puffin,
17:42it needs to dry before we can go any further.
17:45So Sarah's prepared another,
17:47along with a bottom half and feet
17:48that are ready for us to assemble.
17:51So we're going to crosshatch.
17:54It creates a surface for them to stick together.
17:58It's like sanding it down,
17:59keeping a rough surface for a key.
18:01Yeah, rough surface.
18:01That's it.
18:02Right.
18:03Swap over.
18:04Give it a couple of squirts.
18:07That's it.
18:08And then I'll do this side as well.
18:12Just going to put Dom was here on the inside.
18:16Yep, there you go.
18:17All right.
18:18That's it.
18:18So the tail at the back.
18:20There we go.
18:21Hold on to that.
18:22I've got his tail, yeah.
18:24You've got his tail.
18:24Squish him together.
18:26To secure the two halves of the puffin together,
18:28we use another clay sausage.
18:31And then...
18:32And then smoosh it.
18:34Another technical term.
18:35Gently, gently.
18:40Yes.
18:40That's it.
18:41Perfect.
18:43Nicely done.
18:45With the body of the puffin complete,
18:47Sarah adds the feet.
18:49It's a good start to a puffin.
18:51It certainly is.
18:52It's definitely puffin-shaped, isn't it?
18:53Yeah.
18:54After adding the wings and finer details,
18:57the puffin is sent to a bronze casting company in Lancashire.
19:01There, they separate the wings from the bird's body
19:03to make it easier to make silicon moulds.
19:06Which they then pour wax into.
19:08And after leaving everything to harden,
19:10join the pieces back together.
19:12The wax puffin is then given a ceramic coating
19:15before being placed in a furnace
19:17where the wax melts,
19:19creating a hollow ceramic mould.
19:21Hot liquid bronze is then poured into the mould.
19:24And when it's set,
19:26the bronze is freed from its casing,
19:28tied it up and sent back to Sarah,
19:30who uses a chemical called ferric nitrate
19:33and a blowtorch to create a dark reddish-brown patina on the piece.
19:39Can you see it's starting to get darker?
19:41Nice.
19:42There it goes, look.
19:43There it goes.
19:44Yeah.
19:44It's getting there.
19:45Yeah, that's brilliant.
19:46To finish the puffin,
19:48Sarah sands it and waxes it
19:50to give it a lovely shine.
19:52Well, thank you for introducing me to a new technique.
19:54It's good fun.
19:55You'll be going home and trying that.
19:56I'm Wilby, yeah.
19:58With a make time of around a week
20:00plus a three-month casting process,
20:03Sarah sells her large bronze puffins for £2,950.
20:09It's fantastic to see that she's scaled up her work
20:12as Derek suggested.
20:13And I want to know if any of the other tips
20:15we gave her three and a half years ago
20:17have contributed to her success.
20:20When you left the boot camp,
20:22we gave you an action plan
20:24to try and help you to build your business.
20:26One of the things was having a look at moulds
20:28to try and speed up your work
20:29and hope to make things more efficient.
20:32Did you try?
20:33I did try them,
20:34but when they came out of the moulds,
20:36they just felt really fragile and quite lightweight.
20:39So that's why I've stuck with the handmaking.
20:42Yeah.
20:42I feel like you're so attached
20:44and so you've got such a personal connection to your work.
20:48By making one from a mould,
20:50I guess you've lost a bit of that connection.
20:53At least now you know.
20:54You've tried.
20:54It's not for you.
20:55Move on to the next thing.
20:57Exactly.
20:58Another thing was to work on your pricing.
21:01Firstly, pricing your work to sell
21:03and then trying to work on increasing it.
21:05With all of that in mind,
21:06have you come to a new price
21:07for these little characters now?
21:08I have, yes.
21:09They're roughly about the £70 mark now.
21:12Are they selling well?
21:13They are, yes.
21:14They are?
21:15Yes.
21:15So it sounds like you've found that sweet spot.
21:17Yes.
21:17At the boot camp, Sarah's small birds were £20 to £40.
21:21But they're now more refined.
21:24And with material and workshop costs of £24 each,
21:28she's raised their price.
21:30She's also spent that time developing and expanding her product range
21:34and investing in equipment like her kilns.
21:36And it's time to find out what impact it's all had on her bank balance.
21:41Come on then, let's talk figures if you don't mind.
21:43How's this year's accounts looking so far?
21:46There's been a lot of investment involved.
21:48But I've paid myself £20,000 this year.
21:51£20,000?
21:52Yeah.
21:53And that is purely paying you,
21:55taking up all of the costs and everything else out.
21:58Yeah.
21:58Pure profit.
21:59Yep.
22:00So that pays my bills and puts food on the table
22:02and means I can go on a holiday.
22:04I am so pleased.
22:06It's something that I always wanted as a kid.
22:09And now I'm doing it.
22:11I am living the dream.
22:13And you know what?
22:14It is thanks to the hard work that you've put in.
22:17Clearly very talented, but you've really worked for it.
22:20Well done.
22:21Come here.
22:22Well done.
22:24Starting a new career from scratch is a daunting prospect.
22:29But thanks to a lot of hard work,
22:31Sarah now has a successful and rapidly growing business.
22:34When I look back at how I first started to what I've been doing,
22:42sometimes I have to, like, pinch myself because it's like,
22:44did I really do that?
22:46It's been hard work, but it's also been a lot of fun.
22:54The second maker we're catching up with today is Emmy from Devon.
22:59In the spring of 2022,
23:01she'd recently returned to glassblowing
23:04after taking time off to focus on being a mum.
23:08I used to think of myself as more of an artist in glass,
23:11whereas I'd like to build the skills to be a maker
23:14as well as an artist to combine the two.
23:18I could really do with some guidance
23:20on where my target audience is and what I'm making.
23:25To help Emmy kick-start her business,
23:28I teamed her up with professional glassblower Alistair Malcolm.
23:32Based in the National Glassblowing Museum in Stourbridge in the West Midlands,
23:37Alistair sells his pieces in galleries and museums
23:40in the UK, Europe and America.
23:45I really think I can help Emmy.
23:47She comes across a little bit timid and not too confident.
23:50We need to kind of inject a bit of more confidence
23:52so that she can, you know, stand there proud with her shoulders back
23:56and just say, here I am.
23:58Like Sarah, I set Emmy three tasks
24:01and for her volume piece, she chose to make a glass pit.
24:05It was something she created in the hot shop
24:08and once cooled, cut the top off with a diamond saw
24:11and then polished to create a beautiful ornament,
24:14which she planned to sell for £60.
24:18I'm picking up a little bit of rod colour,
24:20which is cobalt blue,
24:22and I'm going to go quickly into the furnace to warm it in.
24:29So I want to melt that.
24:31So, yeah, that's getting nice and molten now.
24:34With Alistair's guidance,
24:36Emmy was hoping to launch her own business,
24:38but it wasn't going to be easy
24:40after only recently returning to the craft she loved
24:43following an eight-year break.
24:45I had two little girls, Lily and Daisy,
24:48really close together,
24:49which was a marvellous plan.
24:52But unfortunately, Daisy got really poorly, really quickly
24:57and she was diagnosed with a mitochondrial disease,
25:02which was a deteriorative disease
25:04and I had to become a main carer.
25:07She became really medically complex
25:10and in 2019, Daisy passed away.
25:16And, yeah, so then I've been slowly, as a family,
25:20we've been building our lives together.
25:23It was so important to get back into glassblowing,
25:26to do something for myself,
25:28to be able to build a work life again.
25:32I'm going to use the marvellous
25:33just to point it up a little bit.
25:35I'm going to get that nice and warm
25:36and then I'm going to blow it and thumb it
25:37so I get a little bubble in the middle of it.
25:43I'm going to just let that cool down a little bit
25:45before I gather over the top of it.
25:48Gathering is the process of collecting molten glass
25:51from the furnace on top of the colour
25:53on the end of the blowing iron.
25:56Whilst it was hot,
25:57Emmy shaped it and then gathered more molten glass
25:59to build up her pit.
26:01These are good for the speed challenge
26:03because I can make them quite quickly.
26:09And then neat little things
26:12that doesn't take a lot of time to make
26:13and then it's got a nice shiny rim.
26:15And it's just cute.
26:17With Emmy making good progress with her glass pit,
26:21I sat down with Alistair to talk about her high-end item.
26:24She brought along a piece she called Copo
26:27or Knit One, Pearl One.
26:30Decorated with a knitted design,
26:32which she sandblasted off
26:33to leave a delicate white enamel pattern.
26:36It was priced at £225.
26:39It wasn't cheap,
26:40but with a three-hour plus make time
26:43along with the material and energy costs involved,
26:46I was concerned that Emmy wasn't going to be able
26:48to make any money from it.
26:50If we're going to make a success of this,
26:52we really want to make sure
26:53that she's got the prices right
26:55because if she's looking at £225 in a gallery
26:59and then they're going to take a cut,
27:00then it's...
27:01It's not even going to cover her costs.
27:02And at the end of the day,
27:03we're trying to set Emmy up
27:04to have a successful business.
27:06Absolutely.
27:06And so she needs to price her work accordingly.
27:08Yeah, yeah.
27:10Back in the hot shop,
27:12Emmy's glass pip was quickly taking shape.
27:15Blowing the bottom out a little bit more
27:16than I would usually,
27:17so a little bit thinner.
27:19But that's just my critical eye.
27:21It's always tricky in a new studio, though.
27:24You know, things are a little bit out of place
27:26and temperatures look different
27:28and particularly outdoors.
27:29If you're looking at producing these in volume,
27:31what sort of palette of colours
27:33do you like to go for?
27:34I can see you're not afraid of colour.
27:36Yes.
27:37So I love a good rainbow.
27:38One from each kind of turn of the colour wheel,
27:41should we say.
27:43I like having a combination
27:44of two different tones of blues,
27:47pinks, yellows, reds, greens.
27:50Yeah, yeah.
27:51Just paper in the bottom to cool the bottom
27:53so it doesn't blow out too much on the bottom end.
27:56And I'm going to neck it in
27:57to create a weak point
27:58where I can break it off from
28:01using the jacks.
28:03I'm going to pull out the points.
28:04I'm going to use my tweezers
28:05to create the shape of the pip.
28:17After being cooled in a special annealing oven,
28:20Emi's pips were cut with a diamond saw
28:22and then polished.
28:23Each one took her around 50 minutes to make
28:26and had a price tag of £60.
28:30Emi, these look absolutely beautiful.
28:32I love that you brought down
28:33some other examples of different potential colours.
28:35What do you think, Alistair?
28:37Well, what a brilliant approach
28:39to a volume challenge, really.
28:40It's perfect.
28:41It's perfect.
28:41She's proven that she can produce
28:44numerous in the same style.
28:46There's a very minute variation in shape size,
28:49but that's the beauty of a handmade object.
28:51And they're perfectly within
28:54everybody's tolerance levels.
28:55You could easily market this as a set.
28:57You know, it's perfect.
28:59Yeah.
28:59How about the price point?
29:00It's a good price.
29:01In terms of protecting you for the future,
29:04it may be that we need to look at those costings
29:07and make sure that we future-proof them a little bit.
29:09We need to get them out there.
29:10Get them in galleries, shops.
29:12I think they'd sell really well.
29:15Both Alistair and I were impressed
29:17with Emmy's first two items.
29:19And for her third challenge,
29:21her favourite piece,
29:22she made what she called her Del Mar,
29:24or of the sea creation.
29:27Inspired by her coastal home in Plymouth,
29:29it featured knitted copper wire
29:31representing fishing nets
29:33encased between two layers of glass,
29:35which were then cooled, cut and polished
29:38and priced at £150.
29:41How long does it take you
29:42to actually knit the object you're going to pick up?
29:45Half an hour.
29:46It's a lovely thing in itself.
29:50So you have to squeeze it on there
29:52so the glass sort of bites into the surface.
29:55Yeah.
29:57There must have been a lot of trial and error
29:58with this to begin with.
30:00So what can go wrong?
30:02Large trapped bubbles
30:04that great big pockets are there in the glass.
30:07It's where they're not quite adhered
30:09to the glass actually melting slightly back.
30:12Just waiting now so you can look on.
30:14They're just waiting for it to cool down.
30:15I don't want to gather over it while it's too hot,
30:16so it's unstable.
30:18Once it had cooled,
30:19Emmy gathered her second layer of molten glass
30:22and encased the knitted copper wire mesh.
30:26After being cut and polished,
30:28Emmy's Del Mar piece had a price tag of £150.
30:33I love it.
30:34It's certainly a desirable object.
30:35I think really we could do with some exquisite photos
30:38so that we can kind of then start to showcase
30:41what we're doing online.
30:42What about the price point?
30:44I think the price could be a little bit higher,
30:45particularly if we're going to be retailing these
30:47through a gallery.
30:49If they take a cut,
30:50we've got to think about how much is left over
30:52and whether that's something we need to think about,
30:54increasing the price on them as a result.
30:56Is that where you think Emmy has the best chance in selling?
30:58You can run around trying to do a lot of retail shows
31:01and try and sell direct.
31:02We can attempt to try and set up an online store
31:05and retail that way.
31:07But either one of those routes will keep you extremely busy
31:10and so it may be a good opportunity
31:12to sort of delegate some of the retail to galleries.
31:17Yeah, I completely agree.
31:18It's going to free up a little bit of time
31:19to spend time with your family.
31:21And get in the workshop.
31:23Absolutely, yeah.
31:24Because that's the love, isn't it?
31:25That's why you do this.
31:26Absolutely, yeah.
31:27We can maybe look at boxes with branding
31:29so that the whole marketing looks like
31:31it's a very special package.
31:33You know, I've got ambitions that we're going to be aiming
31:35for some very high-end retailers for you,
31:38you know, so that you really do shine.
31:43After an eight-year break from glassblowing,
31:46Emmy excelled in every challenge she was given
31:49and it was time for her to build a business from her work.
31:52To help her do that,
31:53we gave her an action plan to take back to Devon.
31:56First, she needed to get some top-notch photos taken
32:00to show off her work.
32:01Next, we wanted Emmy to get some luxury packaging
32:04for her pieces.
32:06Finally, she needed to find some galleries
32:08to sell her work in.
32:12For the next two months,
32:14Alistair continued to support Emmy
32:16as she worked on the advice we'd given her,
32:19starting with sorting out her packaging.
32:21So I just started doing a video
32:23and the doorbell rang.
32:25And my box has arrived!
32:29This is my recycled tissue paper,
32:33which is pink.
32:39And these are my boxes
32:40that I'm going to be wrapping my picks
32:42and my Dalmar in.
32:43I got beautiful, black, sturdy gift boxes
32:51that are going to have the pink tissue paper inside.
32:54And then I have some logo-branded stickers
32:58so you know who it's from.
33:00Having sorted her packaging,
33:02Emmy found some galleries to stock her work.
33:05She also took her pieces to a makers' fair,
33:07which helped her make a decision
33:09about the shape of her business.
33:11Alistair was right.
33:12It was really hard to find balance
33:14with my girls and my husband.
33:18And to be away for that amount of time
33:21on a regular basis
33:23doesn't make sense
33:25when I could be putting my work
33:27in a gallery where it sits well
33:29and those people can do that for me
33:33so that I'm not spending
33:34lots of time away from home.
33:38In the eight weeks after boot camp,
33:40Emmy threw herself into building
33:42the foundations of her business.
33:44And when she came back to give us an update,
33:46she had encouraging news.
33:49I've sold £1,255 worth of my work.
33:53Really?
33:53Really.
33:54You should feel really confident
33:55about making some more approaches
33:57to getting more galleries.
33:58You know, and I can see, for instance,
33:59you get yourself in another ten galleries
34:01and all of a sudden you're reporting to Dom
34:03and I you've made £10,000 of sales
34:05because you're more than capable.
34:07I love Alistair's optimism
34:09and he was spot on about Emmy.
34:11Even after deducting her costs,
34:13she'd proven she had what it took
34:15to build a money-making business.
34:23Fast forward three and a half years
34:25and I've asked Alistair to visit her
34:28on a farm on a slightly grey and drizzly day
34:30in the Dartmoor National Park in Devon
34:32to find out what she's up to now
34:35and how much she's making.
34:36Hi.
34:37Hello.
34:38Lovely to see you again.
34:40Come on in.
34:40This place isn't her usual workshop.
34:43It's the home of a pioneering community project
34:46aiming to reuse waste glass
34:48by combining cutting-edge technology
34:50with traditional methods.
34:54So tell me about this.
34:56Ian Hankey, master glassmaker locally, is retiring
35:00and he's given me this sustainable glass studio to manage.
35:05Wow.
35:06Wow.
35:06I mean, I follow Ian and so I know this is groundbreaking stuff.
35:11Yeah, absolutely.
35:12It's groundbreaking research into melting down waste glass
35:16to make it a usable product.
35:19At the moment, it's running on propane
35:21and I'm working in association with the farmer Andy
35:24to transfer over to methane gas
35:27produced by the cows on the local farms.
35:30Wow.
35:31So the ultimate goal is to produce carbon-neutral glass?
35:34Yes.
35:35Taking over this established business
35:38will provide Emmy with an extra income stream.
35:40But I want to know how she's getting on with her own work.
35:45How's your existing business going since boot camp?
35:47Oh, it's going really well.
35:48It's grown ridiculously.
35:50So you've got some nice repeat customers
35:51that keep coming back, which is lovely.
35:53It's a real compliment.
35:54Yeah, yeah, yeah.
35:55I want to order again.
35:56And then I've got a touring gallery
35:58that's done fantastic for me
35:59and taken my work internationally.
36:01I've taken my work to Singapore, Texas, New York,
36:04where I had a sell-out show.
36:06Of all the pieces that you produce,
36:08which are the best sellers?
36:09So I think my Pips and my Dalmar are the best sellers.
36:12You've made them in the hundreds now, do you think?
36:15I think so.
36:16Wow.
36:17OK.
36:18It's fantastic to hear that Emmy's Pips and Dalmar pieces
36:21are selling well and driving her business forwards.
36:25Since I last saw her,
36:27she's raised the prices of her Dalmar pieces
36:29from £150 to £160 plus, depending on size.
36:34And her glass Pips from £60 to £80.
36:37She's also developed a new product.
36:41Over this year, I've done a lot of side quests
36:43that have led to new ideas, which have been fantastic.
36:46I did fishermen knitting with a project
36:49with the local museum.
36:50And I started knitting sea creatures
36:53and encasing them in the glass.
36:55And I'm in the same method as I've used for my Dalmar,
36:57but just slight development.
36:59Wow.
37:00Emmy sells her new knitted sea creatures for £280.
37:04And back at her regular hot shop half an hour away,
37:07she's going to show Alistair how she makes one.
37:11Having collected clear glass on a blowing iron,
37:14she starts building up the colour.
37:17I've just put a little bit of shard colour on there.
37:22And I'm having to use the marble just to smooth it back in.
37:25So I've heated it in in the reheating chamber
37:27and I'm just smoothing that colour back in.
37:34And getting it to a nice shape,
37:35because in a moment I'm going to put some trails on it,
37:38which will look a bit like seaweed.
37:40Emmy's friend and assistant Holly drizzles on trails of colour.
37:47Yeah, go on.
37:48If we're quick enough.
37:50It's so nice watching other people work.
37:57Next, she puts the piece back into the reheating chamber,
38:01then repeats the process
38:02and rolls it over her knitted copper octopus
38:05to incorporate it into the glass.
38:08Just making sure that all that is stuck on there properly.
38:11Yeah, because we want it to adhere to it.
38:14And I want to kind of even it up a little bit
38:16because it does end up distorted.
38:18As long as I haven't got any massive indents,
38:20I shouldn't get any massive bubbles.
38:23I've just got to let that cool down a little bit
38:25before I gather over the top of them.
38:27I think he's good to go.
38:29After collecting more molten glass from the furnace
38:32over the top of her knitted octopus,
38:35Emmy shapes the piece again
38:36and then blows it to make it bigger.
38:39Right, now that moved.
38:41It's at this point that this process gets really tricky
38:44because the colours are all pulling in different directions.
38:47Meanwhile, the copper's absorbing the heat at different rates,
38:51so it's quite tricky to then get a nice round object.
38:54And as I blow it further into the piece,
38:56the copper distorts the bubble as well.
38:59So I have to go gently to start off with
39:02because I don't want to blow too hard into the end
39:06before I'm ready.
39:08To get her piece to the right shape and size,
39:11Emmy continually reheats shapes and blows it.
39:15I see your octopus in there now.
39:17Can you see him?
39:18He looks quite well-spaced, actually.
39:20Doesn't look too bad.
39:22He does stretch out with the glass,
39:24but I don't want to blow it out so far
39:26that it distorts too much
39:27because I don't want the wire to start to pull apart.
39:30Once Emmy's happy with the finish,
39:33she cracks the neck off with the help of a diamond saw
39:39and heats the end
39:40so she can mould and smooth it into a rounded rim.
39:43There you go.
39:45Yeah, I love it.
39:46I love the fact that you've pushed your glassmaking skills
39:48as well as developing a new concept,
39:50so it seems like the right way forward.
39:55To finish, Emmy knocks the piece off the rod
39:58and leaves it to cool in an annealing oven for a few days
40:01before polishing it.
40:03With material and hot shop costs of just under £135
40:07and a make time of around four hours,
40:10the knitted sea creature is priced at £280.
40:15It's clear Emmy has come a long way since we last saw her,
40:19and in addition to sorting out her packaging,
40:21I'm keen to know what role the advice we gave her
40:24three and a half years ago has played in that.
40:28Emmy, when you came to boot camp,
40:29we gave you an action plan.
40:31One of the things we asked you to do
40:32was to get some professional photographs done,
40:34and I know you did that, but did you find that useful?
40:37I think they were fundamental, really, to my success,
40:40and I think having those photos on my website
40:43really made a difference to my marketing.
40:46Another thing we wanted you to do
40:48was to contact some galleries and retailers
40:50so that they could represent you,
40:52allowing you to get on with the creative stuff
40:55and free up your time.
40:56Did that work out OK as well?
40:58Yeah, it went really well, actually.
41:00It's fantastic having those galleries representing you
41:02because people who wouldn't necessarily see your work
41:06go to those galleries.
41:07It's fantastic to have that money coming in on a regular basis.
41:12Emmy couldn't have worked any harder
41:14over the past three and a half years
41:16building her business and taking on a second one.
41:19But what does it all mean for her bottom line?
41:22I know we were aiming to turn a passion
41:25into a sustainable business,
41:26but are you actually making enough money
41:29to survive as a glass artist?
41:31So I'm definitely able to make a living.
41:33I'm earning about £25,000 a year.
41:36I know that this process had the ability
41:38to give you a leg up
41:39and you just needed that help.
41:43So to hear that this process has elevated you
41:47to the point that you're selling at that level
41:50is just some magic to my ears.
41:52Prior to boot camp, I was selling in a few places
41:55and glass was just about paying for glass.
41:58The boot camp made the world a difference
42:01to my business.
42:03Every maker dreams of being able to sell their work,
42:06but to make an income of £25,000 a year
42:10after costs is life-changing.
42:12And with a new second business on top,
42:15things are only going to get bigger
42:17and better for Emmy.
42:18The past three and a half years
42:20have been wonderfully overwhelming
42:21and just beyond what I thought I could achieve.
42:26Now I have an established business
42:27and I'm making money doing something that I love
42:30and want to continue doing forever.
42:33When they came to my boot camp,
42:35both Emmy and Sarah weren't selling their pieces.
42:38Thanks to a few key suggestions
42:40and an awful lot of hard work,
42:43they've now got brilliant growing businesses
42:45and very bright futures indeed.
42:50Inspired by I Made It At Market?
42:52Go behind the scenes with The Open University
42:55to discover bonus interviews exploring new insights
42:58into how makers have sustained
43:00and grown their businesses.
43:01Scan the QR code on screen
43:04or go to connect.open.ac.uk
43:08forward slash I Made It At Market.
43:31I Made It At Market.
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