Hey, Mandy here. Have you heard of the word "meraki" before? Neither had I until I met artist and owner of Meraki Pottery, Katrina Piercy. "Meraki" is a Greek word that describes doing something with soul, creativity, or love. It's when you put "something of yourself" into what you're doing. Or as Katrina puts it, "it's leaving a little piece of yourself in your work."
How beautiful and relatable is that? Even though you didn't know there was a word for it, I bet you've been living meraki for awhile!
On that note, let's try something new. You guys have told me that hearing the success stories of other creators invigorates and inspires you. So let's start sharing those stories and the lessons that come from them! Who better to start with than Katrina, the owner of Meraki Pottery. That's her at her pottery wheel, by the way.
Your hobby can be a business
Ten years ago, Katrina came to the US from Australia. While working a 9-5 job, she started looking for a creative outlet and stumbled into a pottery class. Katrina immediately felt a connection to pottery because she was creating something beautiful and functional. Eventually, she looked around the house and her pottery was everywhere!
"We were shoving it behind the couch and under pillows. My husband turned to me and said 'you need to sell some of this!'" And that's when Katrina's gears started turning. She was going to turn her hobby into a business.
Ready, fire, aim
Katrina started laying the groundwork to launch her pottery business, but the launch kept getting postponed. Like so many of us, she wanted it to be perfect - the perfect website, perfect product line, and perfect personal timing. But the last part was anything but perfect at the time. As she was preparing to launch, Katrina was hit by a number of personal struggles, one right after the other.
She was far from healed but she knew that if she kept waiting for the perfect moment, her launch would never happen. Instead, she channeled her pain into a pottery line that was inspired by loss and created with hope. It was her first pottery line and the first time she sold something that embodied the spirit of meraki.
Katrina's journey shows us that if you wait for everything to feel perfect before you launch a new business or product, it'll never happen. Instead: prepare decently (not perfectly), launch, revise. Or, as I like to put it, "ready, fire, aim." When I launched Replica, I did all my own graphic design. It was far from perfect but it was good enough. Starting lean allowed me to launch Replica, then hire a professional graphic designer later.
Photos are an extension of your story
Since launching Meraki Pottery, Katrina has released multiple collections. Each collection is an extension of herself and she's going through at that moment.
"What you create is part of you. It's how you put yourself out into the world."
While talking with Katrina, she told us that her Cement Replica Surface is a part of her product, that it's her "signature Surface" and that it's become an "extension of what I create." That may just be the most wonderful thing a Replica user has ever told me.
Find Meraki
Katrina's latest collectiom, Bloom, launched in May 2022. Bloom celebrates growth after brokenness and is one of the most beautiful collections I've ever seen. All photos in this story feature pieces from the Bloom collection. If you love these pieces as much as I do, you can shop them (and learn more about Katrina) here.
If you enjoyed this Success Story, here's another one about how a Colorado-based historian pivoted to find her happily ever after.
Photos by Tara Ashton, featuring the Meraki Bloom collection photographed using the Cement and Biscotti Linen Replica Surfaces.
