RK Creative Nest
RK Creative Nest is an Edmonton pottery studio offering beautiful handmade pottery mugs. Their bestselling Northern Lights mugs are stunning.
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RK Creative Nest Edmonton Pottery
How would you describe your business?
I am mostly a wheel potter, meaning I form my pots using a pottery wheel rather than hand-building. I generally prefer to make functional pottery – art simply existing as art is wonderful, but one of my favourite things about pottery is how useful and functional it is. I think art, in all forms, should be accessible to everyone, so it’s important to me to know that not only is my art a part of clients’ homes, but it’s a piece they can use and admire rather than putting it on a pedestal. I feel like holding it in your hand, filling it with food and water or plants, or keepsakes – all of this allows you to really connect to the art on a deeper level. I really put pieces of myself in each piece, so being able to give that part of myself to others is a strong feeling.
What inspired you to open your shop?
I fell in love with pottery and ceramics – it’s truly my favourite way to pass the time. Of course, the process of building and creating functional art creates an abundance of pottery, and I only have so much room to store it! I needed to make room for more creations, so I started selling my pottery online. I generally keep to online sales through the year, though I do try to do a couple of markets a year. I work full time in Communications, though, so my pottery sometimes has to take a back seat to “corporate living”.
What’s your bestselling product?
Each piece I make is very unique, as I work on small batches at a time. I have a couple of “styles” of mugs that tend to sell quickly, but I’m always experimenting with different shapes and designs so it’s hard to pinpoint specifics. Mugs tend to be a top seller because they’re incredibly functional, and my Northern Lights mugs tend to sell quickly when I have them in stock.
Why do you think they’re so popular?
With my northern lights mugs, I use special ceramic decals to form a scene of mountains and trees around the base of the mug. I glaze the top and inside to look like Northern Lights in the night sky. Every mug looks a little different because the glazes shift and react with each other in the firing process. Pottery can be very unpredictable, which is another reason I enjoy it so much. Up to now I have been using commercially available decals, but I’ve been learning some new techniques to start creating my own decals – I love that this will give each piece even more uniqueness, and will give me more control on the exact design of a piece.
