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For so many of us, perimenopause shows up quietly (and often years before we expect it), scrambling the energy, focus, and follow-through our creative businesses depend on, while the people around us either miss it entirely or chalk it up to us being “cranky.” What if this season isn’t your capacity breaking down, but an invitation to finally stop pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and start asking what you actually need?

In this special Kiln Me Now takeover, Community members Debi Stoliar and Nadine Winsor sit down with ceramic artist Lori Elling. Lori shares how brain fog left her one-woman business without a “manager,” and how loosening her grip led her toward a simpler, unexpectedly joyful body of work without compromising her voice.

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Looking for support in building your own creative life? Come join over 100 other makers from around the world, having these very discussions, inside of The Community. Click here to learn more.

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Some days the clay is calling and you still can't make yourself go down to the studio (and the story you tell yourself about why is rarely a kind one). For potters in perimenopause, that tug-of-war gets louder: bigger feelings, words that won't come, and fewer spoons to spend. It's easy to read all of that as proof you're falling apart. But what if this stretch isn't a slow decline at all, and is instead a kind of fermentation period where you're quietly becoming someone new? In this Kiln Me Now takeover, Community members Debi Stoliar and Nadine Winsor sit down with Taylor Swilley of Backyard Kiln to talk about how perimenopause collided with neurodivergence, why spoon theory changed the way they think about rest, and how caring less about outside opinions led Taylor to value their time and price their work like it matters. Could giving less flux be what finally makes room for your most meticulous, confident work yet?

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Looking for support in building your own creative life? Come join over 100 other makers from around the world, having these very discussions, inside of The Community. Click here to learn more.

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Have you been waking up at 3am wondering where the focus and stamina you used to have has disappeared to? Did you use to accomplish 100 things in the first half of your day, and now barely manage 10 things in 3 days? What if the real conversation us small, handmade artisan business owners need isn't another productivity system, but an honest one about what's happening in our changing lives (and bodies) while we're also trying to run a creative business?

In this special season-break handoff, potters and podcast co-hosts Debbie of Curiosibee Ceramics and Nadine of Calgary Clay Co. introduce Kiln Me Now, a new side-quest show exploring the messy, funny, and often unspoken overlap of perimenopause and making a living with your hands. It's a reminder that our businesses were never meant to run separately from our bodies. And that naming the chaos out loud is often the first step toward feeling less alone in it.

If you love this side-quest, come follow along @kilnmenowpodcast on Instagram!

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Looking for support in building your own creative life? Come join over 100 other makers from around the world, having these very discussions, inside of The Community. Click here to learn more.

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There's a strange kind of irony in selling something made entirely by hand using an image that wasn't. This episode sits inside that tension… What happens to the meaning of handmade work when AI creeps into how we market it, photograph it, or talk about it online? We’re not taking a moral stance on AI in this episode though. Rather, let’s consider a deeper question: Why did you start making what you make? And why did you start selling it?

The real cost of forgetting that question isn't just a missed sale; it's losing the thread that made creating the work worth doing in the first place.

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Looking for support in building your own creative life? Come join over 100 other makers from around the world, having these very discussions, inside of The Community. Click here to learn more.

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Many makers treat consistency as the goal and cyclical creative rhythms as something to fix — but Shalya Marsh, of Shalya Marsh Studios, has built a three-decade career on making, unmaking, and remaking herself: sculptor to potter, employee to entrepreneur, solo maker to (almost) business owner with an assistant. Her conversation digs into whether "balance" is really the wrong word for what most working makers experience, and whether cyclical bursts of energy — not steady daily habits — might be the more honest model for a sustainable creative practice. Shalya shares how she draws a personal boundary between the designs she keeps for herself and the ones she eventually releases as tools for other makers, and how a single "launch dirty" moment reshaped both her business and her sense of urgency around sharing new work. It's a reminder that protecting your creative practice and running a business aren't the same job — and that giving yourself permission to work in fits and starts might be exactly what keeps you making for the long haul.

Take the Maker Archetype Quiz and find out what working rhythm works best for you by clicking here!

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Looking for support in building your own creative life? Come join over 100 other makers from around the world, having these very discussions, inside of The Community. Click here to learn more.

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You already know what it feels like to open a cupboard, see a mug, and know exactly who made it before you ever check for a signature. That's the instinct artists have always had. So why does the word "branding" make so many of us tune out? Jessie, one half of the duo behind Inkpot Creative, breaks it down: That same kind of recognition (built on purpose) is all branding actually is. Consistency matters more than any single logo. Niching down doesn't mean turning people away. Instead, it can create the version of your business that feels most like you, which is usually the one that finally lets people trust you enough to pay you what you're worth.

Come join us for a masterclass on branding with Jessie & KP of Inkpot Creative inside of The Community on July 21st. Learn more and join at makersplaybook.com/community

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Looking for support in building your own creative life? Come join over 100 other makers from around the world, having these very discussions, inside of The Community. Click here to learn more.

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As makers, we're told to define our ideal audience and nail our strategy before we ever start — but what if the real strategy reveals itself only after you've already begun? Robin Corradino of Rob Ceramics joins to unpack how she built a thriving wholesale and consignment-based business almost by accident, never doing a single craft market until years into selling her work. Her approach challenges the conventional wisdom around audience-building entirely: by simply making what she loved and paying close attention to who responded — and where those orders were coming from — her path revealed itself gradually instead of through any grand plan. It's a reminder that strategy doesn't have to come first; sometimes the most sustainable business decisions come from trusting the slow burn and letting your people find you.

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Looking for support in building your own creative life? Come join over 100 other makers from around the world, having these very discussions, inside of The Community. Click here to learn more.

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Most of us have been told (or have told ourselves one way or another) that building a successful creative business means picking a lane and staying in it. But what happens when the lane you've built starts to feel more like a cage, and the work that once lit you up becomes just another obligation you can't motivate yourself to do? Christina Orthwein's journey from production potter to sculptor to jewelry maker and back again is a raw and honest look at how the pressure to monetize our work can quietly separate us from the reason we started making in the first place. The real tension isn't whether to niche down or stay flexible, but instead learning to trust that the creative restlessness pulling you toward something new might actually be pointing you somewhere worth going.

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Looking for support in building your own creative life? Come join over 100 other makers from around the world, having these very discussions, inside of The Community. Click here to learn more.

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