Dakota Yewen is a Potter. With an appreciation for the imperfect, and after spending many years working to develop her craft, Dakota is redefining what it means to make ceramics for a living.

Just as the world’s thirst for more sustainable products has emerged in recent years, so has Dakota’s understanding of what it truly means to be a sustainable ceramicist. Focusing on delivering a series of one off collections that each carry a unique flare, Dakota is finding her own identity as an artist while working to build a business that will continue to serve her life [read: pays the bills]. With these small batch releases Dakota is building a real sense of artistic nature into her practice and is cultivating the character and charm of a uniquely ‘Dakota Yewen’ piece. Her work is beautiful, she is kind and just has a soul of honey! Dakota talks to us about the path she took to bring her to where she is, the unexpected redirections and the power of one backer leading you to make that leap of faith to get started.

Have you always been around Noosa?

My parents and their parents grew up here, so it’s always been home for me. I’ve never really felt like this is where I’m meant to be though. My dream is to go and live in an old Queenslander on some land in a small town further away from it all.

You mentioned you used to work for a commercial ceramics studio, take me back to how that all started.

I did! It was back in 2016 and another opportunity that found me at the perfect time. The studio was small-scale and focused on production, making all sorts of dinnerware for restaurants and wholesale orders and we also started selling ceramic takeaway cups when they became popular. Slip casting them (with liquid clay) became the main part of my job during my first years there.

I think I’m already stuck on liquid clay, I just want to know all about that.

Slip is essentially clay and water that’s been blended together until liquid and smooth. So when you’re slip casting, slip is poured into plaster moulds and since plaster is porous, it slowly draws water out of the clay and over time you’re left with a layer, the cast, on the inside of the mould. The excess slip is then poured out, the cast is left to set and once firm you can then trim the edges and carefully remove your cup. It’s a fairly simple process but one that’s also really difficult to explain. It’s one of those things that’s much easier to understand when you’re seeing it in person.

And how long were you there for?

Three years in the end. I started out on the production side, and found I was growing bored of the making processes quickly. With my own work now I choose to embrace all of the things that don’t make a piece perfect, whereas when you’re in production everything has to be the same and you’re making set amounts and you need to be fast. I’m a very slow moving and intentional person and I like one of a kind things, so it became obvious that being in charge of creating things that way wasn’t a great role for me. Luckily I was able to move into more of an all-rounder position, managing and fulfilling orders, taking care of photography and content creation and managing their socials, while still doing a bit of clay work too. Then when we eventually expanded into a big warehouse in Noosa I took on more of a studio manager role.

Could you tell me a little more about your working history and what lead you to where you are now?

Before the studio I was only a few years out of high school so I hadn’t built up much of a resume, just a couple of jobs in retail and a short time helping out in a friends floral studio, which I loved. Clay has always been a constant for me though and it was actually in school that I realised I wanted to be a potter. I started noticing how I would always find a way to include ceramics into all of my assignments, and in my final year when we held an art show it really clicked for me then, that I wanted to be an artist. Clay was the medium that I always went back to, and so it ended up being my hobby for a long time. I had a wheel at home and kept practicing and learning through classes online and at local community centres, until I got the job working in the production studio and that’s where I gained more experience in the commercial side of it all.

Was the production studio where you kind of felt like, oh this hobby might actually be commercially viable?

I had such a strong feeling that making art is what I’m here to do, but learning how the studio was run definitely gave me more confidence that I could use it to make a living for myself as well. I saw that you didn’t necessarily need to have a big degree or know a tonne about business to get yourself off the ground, though in saying that, having gone through a lot of development work myself and looking back now, I can see how important a business education is in creating a sustainable practice for yourself and your team. This has largely been my focus for the last year and I know I still have so much to learn! This was also around the time that a lot of new makers were popping up and ceramics was becoming more of a trend again, so it really felt like I was in the right place at the right time. Both of my parents have also been self employed so I’m sure they have influenced me in a way too.

Because you worked across so many different areas of the production studio’s business do you think you learnt a lot there? That you’ve now applied to all the areas of your own business?

Definitely, both positive and negative. Since we were only a small team and my role was so inclusive I was able to take in a lot across all aspects of the business. I got to experience everything being done their way and learnt how I would like to approach things differently myself.

Did you find it difficult to transition from a tight knit team to working solo?

In the end moving on from working there came sooner than I had planned so it was a rough transition period that’s for sure, heightened largely by everything else I was experiencing at the time. I was close with the people I worked with and didn’t feel I had a relationship with them anymore, I was in between jobs and also moving home away from my house mates at the same time. Feeling like I had lost those core relationships and my home base all at once really sent me into a heavy place mentally. Then the pandemic started too.

What did you do when you left the commercial studio?

Before Covid I had decided I was going to head over to New Zealand to travel and spend time WWOOFing on farms but lockdowns quickly put an end to that, so it wasn’t until August 2020 that the dots started to connect leading me to launch my own studio.

So when you didn’t go to NZ what was the catalyst for you to launch your own studio?

It was actually an Instagram DM from stylist/teacher/writer Sarah Andrews that played a huge part in getting me started. I had still only been making things for my friends and family at that point and barely had any presence online, but when I came across a call out from Sarah asking for goods for her new home in exchange for a stay at her Airbnb, Captains Rest, I felt compelled to offer what I could. We agreed that I would make some cups and bowls in exchange for a stay, but that quickly changed when Sarah emailed a week later asking for her order to become a 60 piece dinner set with some sculptures and a teapot alongside. I’d never made anything on that scale by myself before but my intuition was telling me that this was my next step so I went all in. I ended up expanding my studio space to make room for the equipment I needed, and after a few learning curves I sent everything down to her in Tasmania and it set off so many things for me. Sarah has such a huge following across her different accounts, which got me some great exposure and when I completed her online school, The Hosting Masterclass, I also connected with so many people who have been incredibly supportive of my work. The whole experience felt like the sign I had been waiting for for years, that I was exactly where I needed to be.

Sometimes you just need one person who you hold respect for to see value in your work, to get you going.

And Sarah has been so supportive, genuinely just trying to help me out in any way she could. Working with someone who was completely open with their brief and who was willing to give me the time I needed was a really dreamy client experience to get started with.

I love your approach to embracing all the imperfections in your work, to just appreciate something as it is and how it’s come to be. How do you see that ethos making your business so different from a more traditional commercial ceramics production studio? Where do you see your point of difference being? How are you leaning into the imperfections of it all?

For me it’s about appreciating all of the qualities of things that are handmade, not just what we’re taught makes something beautiful. When I was working in the production studio we were always pushing ‘it’s handmade and sustainable’ but in reality I felt like I could have been replaced by a machine. I was just pouring things all day and everything needed to be so exact and precise. There was no room for character. Whereas with my work now, if a pot slumps or cracks right down its side I appreciate it even more and choose to embrace the imperfection, the piece has become completely one of a kind and can’t be recreated. I want to work with the clay to let it become what it wants to be and accept things as they are.

Do you think that’s part of what it means to have integrity in your craft as well? These imperfections mean you can actually show that it’s handmade and it’s something that a lot of care and skill has gone into?

I think integrity means sharing and living up to your values, so I guess it depends on what yours are in order to have integrity in your craft. Someone who believes in precision and practices perfection in their work may think my pieces with little wobbles and cracks should have been crushed and recycled into something new, and that’s okay. We all have different ideas of what makes a piece beautiful and I think there will always be someone out there who will appreciate your work for what it is.

This is most likely a work in progress, how are you balancing your desire to make really sustainable pieces with the need to be commercially viable?

Sustainability is a tricky subject in ceramics. I often wonder what actually makes something sustainable? Should I only be digging for local clays and firing them in a wood kiln, or is making my work on a small scale with care and the intention that they will be used everyday and last a long time enough? These are finite natural materials I’m working with and I’d love to explore alternative practices, but for now I think staying aware of my impact, keeping an open mind and making sure to implement changes when I can is a start. On the commercial viability side of things, I’m definitely trying to attract my ideal customer too. Someone who values my work as more artistic pieces and appreciates all of the love I put into creating them. I think with something as universal and utilitarian as ceramics, especially dinnerware, a lot of people aren’t used to seeing a higher price point. In a world where you can order a 24 piece set for $20 online and have it delivered the next day, it can be a shock to see a single bowl for $60 that will take a month to get to you. That’s also why I really try to share the care I put into my work, and how something as simple as a handmade mug can elevate a daily routine and bring calm, joy and connection to your everyday life.

And I think that adding in that personality also builds those relationships where people are more likely to fall in love with you and your work and commission a 60 piece dinner set, not just the cheapest thing you have on offer.

Exactly, a cup of tea is always going to taste better when you know the story of the person who crafted the mug for you. That ties in again with the hand made quality and all the imperfections and if you know who I am and why I made it that way, you will see more value in the piece, more beauty.

So why are you doing things collection by collection?

It just came together that way before my first release actually, maybe it comes down to how awful my time management skills are! It just felt really natural to work in seasons. The process of making with clay really connects you to the earth and that rhythmic cycle. I’ve spoken to a lot of people about it and everyone has a different opinion, but when the day to day management of orders is always constantly there it’s hard for me to be inspired to create. Whereas when it’s one collection every season I can spend a week or so packing orders and sorting out the logistics and spend the rest of my time getting back to making.

How have you settled into the way of working? It sounds like a dream.

There’s just this freedom around it, freedom where I can decide to make and develop my art and business in the ways that work best for me. Everything being one of a kind helps too. With the houses that I released as part of my first collection, I had so many enquiries but only had four available, so when my online store opened they were gone in eight minutes. I’m still getting requests for them now and I think it really helps with building excitement around a release, when people know each piece is individual and won’t be repeated.

Do you think it also gives you a lot of creative freedom to work in this collection by collection model?

It’s the best part of running my own business. Making things requires so much of my physical, mental and creative energy so it’s important that I give myself the space to work in ways that keep me inspired. I’m sure my ideas will change over time but this is the best thing I can do for the integrity of my art right now. If I’m constantly forcing things and working to an intense schedule I’ll start to produce work I’m not a fan of, and then what’s the point of it all.

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