Why I Decided to Sell My Pottery — And How I Almost Talked Myself Out of It

The internet told me to sell my pottery. I didn't believe them. They proved me wrong.

It started on TikTok. Then Instagram joined in. Then Twitter got involved and things really got out of hand.

Every time I posted something I had made for myself — a honey jar sitting on my counter, a bowl I threw on a Tuesday because I felt like it — the comments said the same thing. I would buy that. When can I buy that. Please tell me that is for sale. I need that on my counter immediately.

Hundreds of people. Swearing on their lives they would hand me money.

I smiled, said thank you, and went back to making things for myself like a completely sensible person who was absolutely not about to build a small business based on comments from strangers on the internet.

And then I caved.

I built a website, photographed my pieces, wrote product descriptions, learned what MSRP means and how to negotiate with marble suppliers. I became, against my will and with very little grace, a small business owner.

First collection — sold out.

Second collection — sold out.

Turns out the internet was not lying. They just needed me to actually let them buy something.

The guilt around pricing

Let me say the uncomfortable thing first.

Putting a price tag on something handmade feels audacious in a way that is hard to explain. It feels even more audacious in this economy; when people are watching every dollar, when the cost of everything has climbed, when asking someone to spend $150 on a honey jar feels almost like an act of nerve. I constantly feel horrible about pricing.

I felt that guilt for a long time. I still feel it sometimes.

But here is what I had to teach myself to say out loud: what you are buying when you buy a handmade ceramic piece is not just an object. It is hours. It is the clay, the glaze, the kiln firing, the trimming, the drying time, the second firing, the pieces that cracked or warped or came out wrong and never made it to your hands at all. For every piece I sell, there are others that did not survive the process. You are not paying for the one that made it. You are paying for everything that went into learning how to make the one that made it.

That reframing did not happen overnight. It came slowly, through making, through understanding what the work actually costs; in time, in materials, in the physical reality of spending hours with your hands in cold water, your back bent over a wheel, your attention completely consumed by a lump of earth that may or may not cooperate with you today.

Pottery is hard. I do not say that for sympathy. I say it because I think most people do not know, and I think not knowing makes the price feel arbitrary when it is anything but.

What people do not see

When you buy one of my pieces, you are not seeing the Thursday nights I stayed in the studio until it closed. You are not seeing the batch that came out of the kiln wrong: the glaze that crawled, the piece that cracked clean down the middle after weeks of work. You are not seeing the calluses, the perpetually dry hands, the clay that finds its way into everything no matter how carefully you clean up.

You are not seeing me standing at the wheel at 7am before the rest of the day starts, because that is the only quiet time I have to make.

I am not telling you this to make you feel sorry for me. I love this work. I love it unreasonably, in the way you love something that challenges and humbles and rewards you all at once. But I want you to understand what handmade actually means — not as a marketing word, but as a physical fact. Every piece I make passed through my hands dozens of times before it reached yours. That matters. It is why it looks the way it looks, feels the way it feels, sits on your counter the way it does.

Handmade is not a style. It is a commitment.

Why I actually started selling

Here is the honest answer: I did not decide to start a ceramics business. The people around me made that decision for me, slowly, over time, by refusing to stop asking about my work.

I made things for myself first. A honey jar because I wanted one on my counter. A low bowl because I liked the shape. A pitcher because I was tired of the ones I could find in stores. I was not making for a market. I was making for my own kitchen, my own table, my own sense of what I wanted to live with.

And then people started seeing those things and wanting them.

There is also a less romantic reason, which I will tell you because I think honesty matters: pottery is an expensive hobby. Clay, glazes, kiln time, tools, a wheel — it adds up faster than you expect. Selling is not selling out. It is how you keep making. The two things are not in tension. They are in support of each other.

But the reason I kept going; the reason I built a website and named a studio and started thinking seriously about what Salmat's Table could become; was community. The people who followed my work, who asked questions, who sent messages saying when can I buy one — they made it feel like something worth building. I did not find an audience and then make work for them. I made work for myself and the right people found it. That order matters to me.

The tension I have not fully resolved

I want to be honest about something I am still figuring out.

There is a real tension between making what you love and making what sells. Between the piece that comes from somewhere deep and instinctive and the piece that you know will photograph well and move quickly. Between your creative vision and the practical reality of running a small business.

I do not have a clean answer for how to balance this. What I have is a practice. I try to make things I would want in my own home first. If I would not keep it, I probably should not sell it. And so far — not always, but mostly — the things I have made for myself have been the things people have responded to most.

The honey jar went viral on Twitter. Over 150,000 views, with zero paid promotion. It was not made for an audience. It was made because I wanted a beautiful jar for honey on my counter. That is the best example I have for why staying close to your own taste is almost always the right creative decision.

Almost always. I am still learning when the exceptions are.

The part I genuinely hate

I want to be honest about something that nobody talks about enough: I hate marketing.

Not in a it's hard but I'm learning way. In a visceral, this-makes-me-feel-like-I-am-begging way.

Every time I post about my work with the intention of selling it, something in me cringes. Especially right now, in this economy, when I know that people are stretching every dollar, when I know that a handmade honey jar is nobody's bill payment. Asking someone to spend money on something I made feels presumptuous in a way I have not fully made peace with.

I grew up in a Nigerian household where you did not talk about money and you certainly did not ask people for it. Selling feels like asking. And asking feels uncomfortable in a way that goes deep.

The content that comes naturally to me — the making, the process, the quiet satisfaction of a piece coming out of the kiln right — that I could share forever. It is the and now here is how you buy it part that makes me want to close the app and go throw something on the wheel instead.

I do not have a cure for this. What I have is a practice of reminding myself that nobody has to buy anything. I am not begging. I am showing. The right people will find it. The wrong people will scroll past and that is completely fine.

But I would be lying if I said I had figured out how to market without feeling like I am performing. I have not. I am still learning how to share my work in a way that feels true rather than transactional.

If you have ever bought something from me — thank you for making that part easier than it looks from the inside.

The thing that made it all worth it

I love the idea of being a creative whose work people own.

Not consume. Not scroll past. Own.

There is something that moves me deeply about the thought that something I shaped with my hands — something that started as a lump of clay on a wheel in my Austin studio — is sitting on someone's counter right now. Being used. Being touched every morning when they reach for the honey. Becoming part of the rhythm of someone's day.

That is not a business motivation. That is a soul motivation.

It is why I almost talked myself out of selling — because it felt too precious to commodify. And it is exactly why I am glad I did not listen to that fear.

If something I made is in your home, thank you. Genuinely. That means more to me than I know how to say.

And if you have been thinking about owning something made by someone who almost talked herself out of all of this — you know where to find me.

Salmat is a Nigerian-American ceramicist based in Austin, TX. She makes small-batch functional ceramics from her home studio. New collections drop a few times a year. Join the list for early access at salmatstable.com