Episode 8: Meet Keri

Keri is a mom of four young children who runs a booming handmade pottery business while educating her children at home in the mountains of Western Massachusetts. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts from MassArt, Keri went through a winding path of experiences and education including online courses, apprenticeships, and Mastermind groups, eventually recognizing that owning her own business would be a way to support her dream of educating her future family at home. Her children, 8 months, 3 years, 6 years, and 9 years old, are starting out their homeschooling journey with a mix of unschooling, passion-led learning, Waldorf-inspiration, and lots and lots of living books & read alouds.  Show Notes 00:00 Opening 02:32 Homeschooling in Massachusetts 05:54 The Journey into Art and Ceramics 06:08 Introduction to the Homeschool Journey 06:08 Challenges and Triumphs in Homeschooling 07:09 Finding a Creative Path: From Hobbyist to Professional 10:54 Building a Business: The Early Days of Sift Ceramics 14:54 The Impact of COVID-19 on Family and Business 18:57 Collaborations and Growth in the Ceramics World 19:23 Igniting a Passion for Learning 27:05 Establishing a Home and Studio in Massachusetts 31:07 Refining Skills and Expanding Offerings 34:47 Success Through Strategic Collaborations 38:44 Embracing Opportunities and Defining Success 44:58 The Journey to Education 48:01 Exploring Homeschooling 52:35 Balancing Work and Family Life 57:51 Adapting Educational Approaches 01:13:30 Creative Fulfillment in Business Table of Contents Definitions Project based learning Project based learning is a teaching method that uses hands-on projects and real world experience to facilitate learning. It prioritizes active learning and inquiry-based learning, sometimes focusing on a given project for an extended period of time. Nature studies Nature study is the objects and phenomena in the natural world through direct and engaging inquiry. It involves unstructured time outdoors to ask and learn about the world around them. Nature study is an integral part of Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy. You can read more at Charlotte Mason Education. org. Living Books Living books are engaging, narrative or conversation books written with factual information that "brings the topic to life." They are usually written by a single author who is passionate about the subject. You can read more about living books at Charlotte Mason Homeschooling. Rituals of Connection Rituals of connections are little actions repeated in sequence that enhance your relationship with your children and set the tone for homeschooling for the day. These can include things like lighting a candle, playing a short game, singing a song, having a dance party, or some other short enjoyable activity you and your child do together. Unschooling Unschooling is a bit of a misnomer. It is not, as its name implies, not doing any school. Instead it is following your child’s interest in facilitating their education. Many families will strew different items and resources, observe their children, and have discussions with their children to find their children’s interest, and then further their studies by helping them find more resources for learning. Strewing is when resources or ‘invitations for play’ such as logic puzzles, toys, games, or potential activities are left in prominent areas of the house where a homeschool child might frequent to allow them to engage with the material or not. Unschooling can look very different such as internships with community members, building or creating on their own or can look very typical such as using a textbook to learn about an interest that a child has. The defining factor in the unschooing philosophy is a child’s autonomy in a child-led educational journey. The parent does a lot of work finding resources, providing opportunities, and facilitating activities to support that journey. Transcript Keri (00:00) we were like, this this is losing the plot. we've lost the plot. We're doing this so that we can be together and we're never together. the real truth is that my oldest is the first person that I've educated at home. I think that it would be silly of me to not admit that I'm figuring it out based on her as a person. I feel very proud of Young Me for doing this. I knew about this ceramics duo and I just walked into their studio one day and I said, Hey, I wanna learn about ceramics. Do you think I could work for you for free? I'm here for the next three months and I'll come whenever you want me to. they taught me how to mix glazes from scratch. They taught me how to recycle clay. They taught me how to design pieces. they helped me design a collection of my own. it was really an important part of the puzzle So got kicked out of the beginning pottery class and this kind of rekindled my love for art making and I was like, what have I been doing all this time? what I love. It is what lights me up. It's fulfilling to make things for other people with their designs in mind and have them go out into the world, but it's a different kind of fulfillment to have my own creative vision come to life and go out into the world. right away I started making money. it wasn't much more than six hundred and fifty dollars a month. It was maybe like a thousand dollars, which was gonna cover my rent and the cost of my clay for my students and maybe gas and that's it. I always think back to that as the most humble beginning. Della (01:39) This week we're meeting Keri from Sift Ceramics. Keri is a mom of four young children who runs a booming handmade pottery business while educating her children at home in the mountains of western Massachusetts. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts from Mass Art, Keri went through a winding path of experiences and education, including online courses, apprenticeships, and mastermind groups, eventually recognizing that owning her own business would be a way to support her dream of educating her future family at home. Her children, eight months, three years, six years, and nine years old, are starting out their homeschooling journey with a mix of unschooling, passion led learning, and Waldorf inspiration, and lots and lots of living books and read alouds. Della (02:32) This is a homeschool journey. Della (03:33) Hi Keri how are you? Keri (03:35) Hi Della. Good. How are you doing? Della (03:36) Good. I'm glad that you're here. Thanks for joining me. Keri (03:40) First. Della (03:40) we've been starting with what state you're located in and the homeschool requirements for that state. Keri (03:46) Okay. so I am in Massachusetts. I live in Western Massachusetts and we have a homeschool law where it's called an approval state. So we have to submit a letter of intent for our child the summer before they're gonna start their grade and ask to get approved by the school district that we reside in. the application is just the letter of intent, that we're of sound mind, our personal qualifications, which can just be that you're the parent and that you have their best interests in mind, and then a proposed curriculum which can be as much information or as little as you want. I have found that it's based really on the town that you're living in, my town and the town over. will have different feedback from that. there's a list of required subjects, probably what you would expect reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, the basic things that you'd expect from public school too. But we have a piece of legislature in Massachusetts called the Brunel decision. And I'm not sure if that's widespread or not, but in Massachusetts particularly it states that You don't have to match the schedule of public school. basically that the suggestion is a hundred and eighty-day school year or nine hundred hours of instruction, but that's a suggestion and you're not required to match that. You just have to have a curriculum that is kind of matching up with the things that the state suggests that you are teaching your children. So it kind of protects against overreach and I don't have experience teaching homeschool or, you know, instructing homeschools in a different state, but I find it to be very easy to homeschool here and I don't find that the laws are prohibitive or anything Della (05:34) is there any requirements for approval Keri (05:37) the end of the year I'm asked to submit a progress report and it's very flexible. Like submit a a Word document saying what we've done and what books we've read and what we've followed and they just say great. I've never had any pushback and we really s do submit the bare minimum, not because we do the bare minimum, but just because I don't find it important for the government school to be involved in what I'm teaching my kids, for lack of a better word. Della (06:08) This is a homeschool journey. Della (07:09) one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on the podcast today is that you are a working mother who is also homeschooling, You have your own business of making ceramics, pottery, which is my favorite by the way. So I'm interested in how you came to that throughout your life. Keri (07:21) Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. I was very lucky to be at a high school when I was a teenager that had an amazing arts program. so I actually did pottery for the first time in high school. I started when I was fifteen and I was a fine student, but I and like English and history and stuff is not what lit me up. art lit me up. It always has ever since I was a little kid. And then I I went this high school with a great arts program and I was the person who was like, stopping math at algebra two so that I could fill up my schedule with arts classes. So I started ceramics when I was 15. I did it through four years of high school. and I mean, I learned how to do the basics, but I I wasn't pushed to like be great or excellent really. It was just kind of dabbling, doing it a few hours a week and enjoying myself. I continued on in arts education in college and I actually studied painting in college and I went to Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. So I have a fine arts degree and spent four years in college studying fine arts, which think it led me to ceramics because I'm here as a potter making really functional work and work that serves a purpose, work that can objectively s be seen by anybody as good or bad for the most part. And I think that it was a little bit of a rejection of being in art school and making subjective work and having to like defend the emotions behind my artwork and talking about color theory and stuff. it's not so accessible to people. Like a a painting is not just automatically something that anyone is going to appreciate and use in their daily life. after school I didn't really make art for a few years. I rejected that part of myself. being in formal education for art I think made me need to take a break from it in a way. So one day when I was in my early 20s, a friend asked if I wanted to take a pottery class with her. And lived in a small city at the time, and the pottery class was of the woods, in one of the hilltowns that was near where we lived. So we drove out there 40 minutes once a week, and we took this four-week pottery class. I remember sitting down for the first time. It was a beginner class. So I teacher thinks that she's teaching people from scratch that have never touched clay before. And in my mind, I hadn't done clay in like years or maybe even more at that time. So I was like thinking of myself as a beginner and I sit down in the class and it just comes back to me. It was a wheel throwing class. It just came back to me like riding a bike. as part of the tuition for the class, I was supposed to have made like five or six pieces over the four weeks. I think I filled a whole kiln by myself. I made like 60 pieces. it was agreed upon in the tuition that I was gonna get my work fired and be able to glaze it and everything. did it for me, but she told me that I can't take any more classes because I'm not the student that she had in mind. So got kicked out of the beginning pottery class and this kind of rekindled my love for art making and I was like, what have I been doing all this time? what I love. It is what lights me up. And I think it sparked my love for being creative again in a way that I had lost a little bit after school. so from there I looked for something that was more appropriate for my skill level, and I found an apprenticeship studio in my town, and it was just this sweet little community studio in the basement of a row, like like a mini strip wall. They had some storefronts downstairs and there was a community studio there. So I didn't have a lot of money at that time. I was was nannying after college for a lovely family, but didn't pay a lot and I couldn't afford the community membership. So I traded working for the head potter there for my trade for space. So She had a beautiful production line and I would prepare clay for her and sometimes certain like simple forms for her. I would clean the studio. and basic work for her in exchange for my space. was there for two years and I feel that I refined my skill in a way that I had never been able to before because Pottery, a lot of it is about repetition and doing it over and over again. And I was able to do that in that space. I was feeling the need to professionally make a little bit of a pivot. I loved the family that I needed for. I'm actually still in contact with them. I go see these kids that I native for who are now in high school and college. I go see their theater performances. So it was a really hard decision to leave these people that I loved and worked with them for four years. I helped raise these little girls and they were just really important to me. but I was feeling a desire to like out and kind of enter back into the of art. So I split my time. I I also got into farming at the same time, I worked at a farm and then I worked at a glass studio. And glass is similar to ceramics in a lot of ways. they both get fired in kilns, they both use similar materials in terms of chemical composition and stuff like that. that time, I watched this husband and wife duo run a business. they ran a business and they had two young kids and they sold wholesale. They sold direct to customers. They did shows and they made good money. was their entire livelihood. I watched them run a website, I watched them build the back end of a website. they were running a business, and that is something that I had never seen done before. Even working with that potter before, I wasn't really involved with the business side of what she did. time with the Glass Studio, my eyes were opened. I saw them doing that and I was like, that's how you do that. I think I could do that too. While I was working with them, I was still at this pottery studio as an assistant, honing my own skills. And my husband decided that he wanted to pursue higher education. he's a musician, he's a bass player, his background is in jazz bass, but he was interested in pursuing degree in classical bass. so his undergrad was in jazz music and African American music studies. And at this point when I was at the Glass Studio, he wanted to pursue a master's degree so that he could be a performing classical musician that played the upright bass. he applied to a bunch of schools around the country and he ended up getting into all of them, very proud. But the one that he chose to go to was the University of Colorado in Boulder. Which it was a big move for little us that only had ever lived in western Massachusetts. Della (13:56) there's just two of you at this point, right? You and your husband? okay. Keri (13:59) My daughter was born my daughter was one. Yeah, she was one. I had my daughter while I was working at the Glass Studio. joined the family during that time where I was entering into the Glass Studio. And so the three of us picked up and moved to Boulder. And this was in twenty nineteen. she was about to turn two. now we all know it happens in twenty twenty. So my husband has signed up to be a a performance degree and we pick up summer twenty nineteen, moved to Colorado and we obviously COVID happens in twenty twenty, so it just upended everything that he was planning. you can't pursue a performance degree when there's no performing because of COVID. the performance venues were closed down, classes were closed down for him. it was just nothing was happening. it's a very destined moment in our lives. because also keep in mind that we're new parents and trying to form our lives around parenthood and having this new human in our life. And he discovered about this program that was a new program in school. It was called an arts administration diploma. So he was gonna end up with his master's degree and also at the same time pursue this diploma. that was an arts administration degree, and his concentration was going to be in development. So for anyone that wouldn't know development runs everything that we know. Hospitals have development people that raise money, colleges have development people that raise money, nonprofits. is a very present job in most places that we experience because people need to raise money. And that's what a development person does. he of saw this as a moment where kind of twofold. This career ladder is like you start at the bottom, you work there for two years, and then you go up and up and up and up and up. So the salary component is easy to, make a lot of money in a short amount of time. And also it would make it so that he didn't have to leave us to go perform. this is why I say it was destined moment. He thought he was gonna be a performer. But that would mean he's gone for weeks at a time. He's not there on nights and weekends. as a new dad, he was like, wait a minute, that is not actually what I want. So it was a big pivot for him in his own life. Now, in the meantime, I'm in Colorado with him, trying to figure out how to make money on my own. And I had that experience with the Glass Studio and with my past. pottery experience. did a apprenticeship with a professional potter also, kind of in the same way that I did with the glass studio. I worked with them just for three months to see what the glass studio was teaching me and how it was applied to ceramics. So how to ship ceramics, how to scale up production in order to go from making two pieces to making a hundred and fifty kind of thing. Della (16:42) I imagine that seeing the business side of that was really integral into you thinking that you had the ability to do the business yourself, especially the scale up portion that you're about. Keri (16:57) it was another husband and wife duo that was running a small business that was mostly in person sales. They had very little wholesale or direct to customer. It was mostly selling at markets and open house studio things that they would sell in person sales. they taught me how to mix glazes from scratch. They taught me how to recycle clay. They taught me how to design pieces. they helped me design a collection of my own. it was really an important part of the puzzle It was very short lived, but I learned so much in that three months. Della (17:29) The other thing that I'm thinking about is that as homeschoolers, we have the opportunity at an earlier age to allow our children to apprenticeship with someone else or get that experience. Like my daughter really enjoys animals and she has volunteered for years at our local wildlife rehabilitation facility and you are going through this apprenticeship after college. Not that that's not useful, but just the advantage of being able to start that at a younger age if the child knows the direction that they're want to go in. Keri (18:00) Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I feel very proud of Young Me for doing this. I knew about this ceramics duo and I just walked into their studio one day and I said, Hey, I wanna learn about ceramics. Do you think I could work for you for free? I'm here for the next three months and I'll come whenever you want me to. And they were like, Yeah. it was a bold moment that I look back and I can see how important it was for me and I feel proud of young me for walking in there and asking for what I wanted. Della (18:37) it does sound like you've got a lot out of it, more than what you had previously gotten, particularly the business side. Like honing your craft is one thing, but to understand the business side of something is completely different part of it. And I think it it helps to see them. Keri (18:43) Yes. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was very interesting to see too about how these two different duos, the glass couple and then the ceramics couple were both running successful businesses, but very differently. Because it opened my eyes, to the fact that I didn't have to replicate my mentors at the Glass Studio or my mentors at the ceramics studio. I could do something that actually just worked for me and not model it after someone. You do it how it works for your own business. Della (19:23) One of the things that I wanted to talk about was your experience with your business coach. Because at some point you had requested help from a business coach to help you scale and facilitate growing your business. Keri (19:37) when I was a student in high school, I was the kind of student where I got good grades and I learned the information to take the test and then I took the test and I forgot the information and I was a fine student but I really didn't care about it. And I think that learning about ceramics and learning about running a business lit a passion for learning in me and I was on fire for learning this information. it also showed me where a love of learning can be influential to my own kids. I was taking classes, I was receiving coaching from the cultural council and a business coach locally to me. some of the things that I did that could be good resources for other people, took a online course called Making Art Work by Emily Jeffords, who's a fine artist and she teaches creative entrepreneurs like myself, whether it's a painter or a photographer or a ceramicist, it's a course that is meant for creative entrepreneurs to make a business that makes money. it walks you through everything. It walks you through photography and setting up a website and reaching out to customers. And there was a really important component of that, which was the mastermind cohort. So I met, think eight or nine other budding entrepreneurs that were creative entrepreneurs and we met weekly to bounce our own businesses off of each other and it was a really amazing community. that was probably one of the most influential things in giving me the confidence to be an entrepreneur. Another one that was really influential was called the MultiStream Machine, which is by Product Boss. And I think that both of those are still being offered, it was similar. to making artwork in the way that it was teaching similar things, but I found it valuable to hear another perspective. also the point of that one is to incorporate multiple income streams into your business and how that can set the target higher. Like you don't have to be making 10 grand. You can be making a hundred grand and buy. incorporating multiple streams of revenue. This is how you can scale that. I live in a town where I share space here with one of the biggest contemporary art museums in the country. So there's a lot of resources for artists in terms of education and our cultural council is pretty supportive of people like me. I received counsel for free through a grant through my town, a one-on-one business coaching with a mentor that we had six weeks of business coaching where I did things like identify what I could delegate and what I needed to do myself, I could outsource my bookkeeping, for example, I now outsource my digital. media design it was kind of identifying how I need to spend my personal time versus where I can save time and give those jobs to other people. We have amazing group of small business owners in the area that did group meetups. That was really valuable for meeting people locally when I first got here and also I really think that one of the most valuable things that you can do as a small business owner is to find community of small business owners. It doesn't have to be somebody that's doing the same thing as you. Some of the people that I was in community with were people who own a bookshop, people who run a photography business. It could be totally different, but we all have something in common. And sometimes it's just important to hear the perspective from somebody else that is in a similar boat. I took a couple of ceramic specific courses that would teach me the science behind the blaze chemistry Della (23:03) Okay, so now you have your oldest and you and your husband have moved to Boulder, Colorado, for his music education, COVID hits, that switches over and now he's doing different program. Keri (23:20) Yeah, so he's still doing the classical, he still has a master's degree in classical performance. he has the diploma in arts administration with the concentration in development. one of the reasons why we chose to do the school in Colorado is because he was going to receive free tuition and also get paid to do some teaching assistantship while he was there. little naive us. We were like, cool, this sounds great. This oughta work out. And then we moved to Boulder, Colorado, which is one of the more expensive places to live in the country. his stipend from the school was eleven hundred dollars. our rent was seventeen hundred dollars. we had to figure it out. I always think back to these times. the real thing that pushed me to start a business is the desperation of that situation. Because it's not just us. We have toddler at this point. I had to figure out how to make money. I didn't want to put her in daycare. I didn't want to be away from her. I really did feel completely desperate. we were very, very fortunate Boulder has really high taxes and they have incredible benefits. for people who are, low income. we existed off of that. That's the only reason that we ate food, and that's the only reason that we got by. I will never not have gratitude for those services for my family in that time. it really made it so that we could get by. Della (24:40) that is the purpose of the services, to have a safety net. I also share that with you. When I was in middle school, my parents divorced it, put us in the lower income bracket. Keri (24:43) Yes. Yes. Della (24:54) in the schools that I grew up in, I qualified, and can I just say, like adolescence? Going through that in adolescence was a wild channel. But we also had that safety net for a little while. And it wasn't forever, it was just a couple years, but we had that safety net. And then we also had community, which was wonderful. There was a community of people, one person that worked in Keri (24:59) I don't think I'll a look at it. And it'll take a lot of things. that interview the nice reason to do somebody. Mm-hmm. Della (25:18) the middle school program with me kind of sponsored me and air quotes. She made sure that I had my letter jacket. She made sure that I had entry fees for cheerleading competitions. she made sure that I had the little things that made it so that I could participate in the programs at the same level that the other kids were participating. And it's life changing. Keri (25:25) In your thing is gonna find Yeah. Yes, it is life changing. It really is. I don't know what we would have done. I like to think that we would have figured it out, but I don't know how we would have. it kept us on our feet in a really hard time. I'll always be grateful and I'll always support those systems for people who are in need. Della (25:59) Same. you started a studio in Boulder then? Keri (26:02) what happened was when I moved there I had done all this research about the potters in the area and I thought that I would do the same thing that I did before and I would waltz into their studio and say, I'm here and I have skills and I can help you. Please let me into your studio. I met with two pretty successful potters that I had found through online and social media they were like, We're so happy to make the connection, but we don't need anybody else in the studio right now. I kept searching. I looked at some community spaces. we didn't have a lot of money. I couldn't afford to pay a monthly fee when I didn't know that I was gonna be making money right away. what ended up happening, and again, a life-changing moment for me, the life-changing moment for me, is that I found this community studio and I Tried to work there and it was kind of like a reflection back on the teacher that kicked me out of her class. She was like, You can't work here. this is for people who are making five pieces a week. You're gonna be making hundreds of pieces a month. You can't work here. I was like, Well, can I just be here for a little bit, a little bit until I find something different? And she like regretfully let me in. she told me that there was a potter opening up another studio down the street. I drove by this studio that was opening up down the street street is all these single family homes right next to each other, really small yards, the cutest little bungalow style homes in the place where I lived. I found the sign that said her business name Ceramic studio. there was no one in the driveway, and I'm looking in the windows like a creep, trying to figure out is this the place that she's talking about? I see a kiln I see a wheel and I see clay, and I'm like, this is it. I knock on the door and nobody's home. I drove by probably three or four times a day for an entire week, waiting to see this person at the studio. Della (27:46) Keri Keri (27:47) week later, I see her there unloading clay in her driveway. And I get out of my car and I'm like, Hi, I'm Keri Do you have space in your studio? And she's like, Well, hey, let me think about it. and I literally told her, I'm bridging the gap from hobbyist to production potter. if you give me a space in the studio, it will change my life. Please consider it. And I gave her my number and I didn't hear from her for a couple days. So I went back because I was determined to get a space there. she told me, yes, you can move in. It's six hundred and fifty dollars a month. you can have this room in the space and you can fire your work in my kiln. the space was like a bedroom. It was a converted house. She had a bedroom. I would have a potential bedroom and then there's a third space and then a big wide open community room. I said, Yes, okay, thank you. then I went home to my husband and said, I have no idea how I'm gonna afford six hundred and fifty dollars a month, but I have a studio and I'm gonna figure it out. I started my business that day. And the way that I figured it out at first was that I taught ceramics. I put up flyers around town and I taught four week sessions of hand building or wheel throwing. the response in that area was overwhelming. I had more people than I could really take. so right away I started making money. it wasn't much more than six hundred and fifty dollars a month. It was maybe like a thousand dollars, which was gonna cover my rent and the cost of my clay for my students and maybe gas and that's it. I always think back to that as the most humble beginning. All I wanted to do is to be able to pay for my space and then I would grow from there. Della (29:23) That's awesome. I didn't realize that you taught ceramics, but that's a wonderful beginning. Keri (29:29) Yeah, it was the way that I could make money right away. Because ceramics is a long process art form. Something that I made today isn't going to be done for a few weeks. I literally had four weeks to make six hundred and fifty dollars. my students would pay me up front and I would have that money right away. So yeah, I did it. I did it. Della (29:32) Right. did it. That's awesome. what did you do with your daughter while you were teaching with ceramics? Were you altering the time with your husband? Keri (29:55) because of it being COVID, his entire course load was remote. Again, it's like all of these pieces of the puzzle, when I look back at my life and the spirit of my life, it's so strangely meant to be I wouldn't have been able to do this if COVID didn't happen and he wasn't at home. we still somewhat do tag team parenting. he comes in, I go out, which is hard. definitely one of the harder parts of the way that we live and work. so he would be with her. Sometimes I would actually take her to the studio with me and she would play with clay or bring books with her. I'd have pillows set up on the floor. but as you can imagine, it's a little bit distracting to be covered in clay and have to answer the questions of a two year old all the time. that was just every now and then. Della (30:37) How did you move into producing pottery? Keri (30:40) I worked out of the studio for a little bit over two years. during the first year that I was there, I honed my skills. I practiced and practiced and practiced and I developed my first personal collection of work. a lot of ceramics revolves around glaze chemistry and it's pretty complicated and it's not like mixing paints where you can choose, red and blue and mix it together and make purple. it really is chemistry and there's a lot of unexpected results that can come out. I spent a lot of time developing a palette of glazed colors. keep in mind I've never done this before. I learned a little bit about it from my mentorship with the husband and wife couple before I had moved, but I really didn't know what I was doing. I had taken an online class to kind of wrap my head around what even is glaze chemistry. but that first year I really spent teaching private lessons and also group workshops and then mastering my craft. actually I'll never forget this. I was there with the owner of the building and I had gotten this collection together and it's actually where the name Sift Ceramics comes from is that I was collecting clay samples to find out what clays I wanted and glaze samples and literally sifting through the materials of creating this collection, quite literally, sifting through which pieces I wanted to put into production mode, which glazes I wanted to scale up and use on my work. that was the time where I named my business because I was sifting through the process to try to find my collection. but the part that I'll never forget is that the woman that owned the building was such a cheerleader for me. She was also running her own extremely successful business, all e-commerce based. she really pushed me to do this. I think that she saw in me that I could, but that it's hard to start a business from scratch when you feel like you don't actually have the experience and you don't know what you're doing. so I Put my stuff on Etsy. That was where my first collection went up. three minutes after I put everything up, I hear ching. That's what happens when you get a sale on Etsy. was like, my God, it just went up three minutes ago. And I look over at her. I was like, Lindsay, it just went up three minutes ago. I have a sale. then I look at who bought it and it was her. I felt really rooted on by her in that moment. I actually don't even remember how I did it, but I sold everything in that collection. I didn't have a social media following but the people that I knew showed up and they bought stuff and I made a a few thousand dollars that day, my first collection launch. So yeah. Yeah, yes. Della (33:10) wow, in one day with I mean I know it's all the work is not one day. I know it took weeks and weeks Keri (33:16) Yeah. stuff of the photography and the staging and the marketing and all of the stuff that goes into the business side of it. But Della (33:21) Mm, right. the descriptions that you have to upload and the photographs, right. Keri (33:29) Yep. But I felt rich. when you make no money and suddenly you've made three thousand dollars selling your artwork, it was like a fire was lit underneath me. and shortly after that I had another really life-changing moment, which was that a woman online that a lot of people that know my work are familiar with. Her name is Kate and she runs a online subscription program called Venison for Dinner, among many other things. she put out a call for potters. I just happened to follow her and she put out a question box on Instagram that said, Anyone know any potters? I'm interested in doing a product collaboration. And I sent her a message. And she Yeah, that's it. It's as simple as that. And she said, Great, this is what I'm looking for. I want mugs with my logo on them. Send me a sample. And so I made Della (34:09) That's awesome. I've always wondered how you guys hooked up. Keri (34:23) four or five samples with different colors, different shapes, different ways of having her logo on the front. I sent them to her and she chose me. We just had our tenth launch together. we've been doing this for five years now. it's become a cornerstone of my business. It started out with kind of humble starts. I think we made a hundred and fifty mugs that first time, which to me, having never made more than twenty of something, I thought that it was the coolest thing of all time. now at our peak, we made 500 mugs was our biggest launch. it really grew. this is the collection that sells out in a day. it's been such a blessing for my family because it has been a cornerstone of my business and has allowed me to feel a lot of success in what I'm offering. that was one of the biggest moments the early stages of my business. Della (35:12) And that's a wholesale account, right? Keri (35:14) I do wholesale, but this is a little bit different. I have kind of a couple things that I offer. I do wholesale where it's like a fifty-fifty split essentially, where I send a box of mugs to someone else and they sell them. This is I fulfill the orders and so because of that it's a different split. So it's a percentage split it's a basically paying like a commission to my collaborator essentially for doing the marketing. Della (35:18) Okay. Keri (35:38) and marketing it to their audience. Della (35:40) makes sense. And where are the children in this now? Do you just still have your oldest? Keri (35:45) So I have an oldest daughter, and then my second daughter, she was born in twenty twenty. that period of time where I was mostly focused on teaching, she was born. that was the first time that I was pregnant and doing this all with a baby. I have so many pictures of her on my back or in the sling. Asleep on the couch at the studio in Colorado. She's my studio baby. Della (36:07) Wow, I am just amazed, Keri that you could do all that while having two children those ages. So how old was your oldest when your second was born? Keri (36:16) Yeah, they're three years apart, almost exactly. Their birthdays are just a couple weeks apart. Della (36:17) Okay. So you have a three year old and a newborn while you're teaching pottery. That's amazing. Keri (36:27) Yes. Della (36:30) Okay, so what happened after Boulder, Colorado? 'Cause you're obviously not still in Boulder. Keri (36:37) Yeah. we did like it there, but as you could imagine, it was really weird to be in a place that wasn't our home away from our family during a time where everything was closed. I don't know how it was in the rest of the country, but even Boulder, it's known for its outdoors spaces and parks and hiking trails They were like roped off. We couldn't go anywhere. We were stuck inside. It was a really bad year for fire, so we couldn't even go in our yard without choking on the smoky air. it was a hard couple years. right at the end of college, he had applied to a bunch of jobs. During this particular time the job market was incredibly saturated in all fields, but especially in his field. he didn't hear back from anyone. he had this job offer at the Philharmonic Orchestra and we were like, All right, I guess we're here. we signed a lease for a house just to rent. But it was an improvement in our living situation. We had a little bit more money to spend and we could live a little bit more comfortably now that we weren't existing off of a student stipend. we thought that we were settling in to live in Boulder. then one day he got a call from this college that he had applied to. Pretty much every college has a development department. most of the ones that he applied to were in our region where we're from in Massachusetts, but this one that he applied to was close to his hometown and close to the town where my family lived and where my parents grew up. far enough away that we weren't super familiar with the town, but it felt like home. he took the interview and they offered him a second interview and a third interview and a fourth interview. I think you might get this job. And he did get it. he took the job and they said, You have two weeks to get here. So we ripped up our lease and he quit his job with two weeks' notice, it's funny, we still live in that town and we have pretty deep roots here and we really like it here. But we thought of our move as a transitional place where we would go until he got to the next thing. we moved back for this job that he was at for two years and he's no longer there but came back for this job basically and we're we're so happy that we got to come back and be closer to family and a place that feels a lot more like home for us. Della (38:51) And you have stayed in that place even though he's not at the same job? Keri (38:56) Yeah. So kind of funny. before we even found housing, I found a studio that I'm in right now and my studio space is in a old mill building. It's an old cotton mill that was built in the late 1800s and they transitioned it to artist spaces. we're still in the same town all this time later. I've been in the studio all along. It was been almost five years. Della (39:20) And when was your third child born, your son? Keri (39:24) Yeah, so my third child was born in twenty twenty three. And at that point in my business I started being able to look ahead because of the collaboration with Venice for Dinner, I was getting more and more accounts that were finding me organically just by her success and her realm online. people started to reach out to me without any effort on my part and ask me if if I could design something for them. I started being able to like look out a whole year. plan my production calendar for the entire year in January. that was a turning point for me as a business owner because I could project my income and I could project my workload and my production calendar pretty far out. Della (40:09) If you're new here, I'm Della from The Beauty of Play. I'm a marine biologist turned homeschool mom who now coaches others to homeschool and teach math. I write math and science guides that you can find in my shop at thebeautyofplay.com forward slash shop. Both the science and math guides are teaching in a hands-on, experiential, whole child way. They are full of activities with art, movement, and labs. It's a different way to teach both math and science. If you want school to be more than just workbooks, you've come to the right place. You can check out my work on my site, thhebeautyofplay.com, particularly my blog, forward slash blog that can be searched by subject and age, and you can see what's available for purchase at thebeautyofplay.com forward slash shop. Della (41:07) this is a big shift. I remember when I released Quality of Numbers, which was the first math guide that I ever wrote, I was just so happy anybody wanted to buy it, right? I wasn't particularly focused on income You're just so happy anybody wants to purchase what you have. But eventually there is a shift where you can look ahead. I don't bring in as much as you and I don't do as much as you but I do have a kind of idea of what the likely sales will be. Keri (41:24) Yeah. So do it and do it for the same thing. I could have been Della (41:41) But there is this shift where you can start to look ahead. So can you talk about that a little bit? Keri (41:47) Yeah. So when I was leaving Colorado, I remember frantically trying to finish up the second launch that I did with Venison for Dinner. we had a moving truck that was being packed and I was packing mugs at my studio. I was trying to wrap that up. then I had something lined up for when I got to Massachusetts. It was a collaboration with a woman named Bailey Van Tassel, who's a master gardener. She now designs landscapes for fancy people, we designed a tea mug that had a strainer pocket on the inside so that you could put your tea into the strainer pocket. It was very fancy and so much work to make one piece. and then it had a lid up top. it was a mug with the strainer pocket and the lid. that was lined up for me for when I got to Massachusetts. that really feels like the first moment where I was like, okay, I'm starting to get work that's backed up instead of searching for the next thing. it's just sitting there waiting for me. working with Venison for dinner, I now had two launches under my belt that sold out very quickly, in a matter of days, less than a week. then with this launch of Bailey, that also sold out right away. now I'm starting to be this potter that made work people wanted to buy. it wasn't just sitting on the shelves. It was actually going to people right away. that was because I make good work, but also because I'm working with these people who are visionaries and who know their audience and know what their audience want and are expert marketers. That combination all together, had a lot of success. more and more people started to find me in that same way. And for a little while I took anything that came my way. then I quickly learned that not everybody has that skill set, not everybody knows their audience so well. Not everyone is a master marketer, and not everybody is a visionary. that's like the combination of when I'm looking to work with a new partner or a new collaborator, it's clear if they have a clear vision of their ICA, if you really know your people and you are in conversation with your community, actually using social media as a social tool to get to know these people who are wanting your product or wanting your service, that is the situation that puts you into like a successful collaboration with somebody like me who's making a product. A lot of the products I make are not for me as the artist, it's for somebody else's community. through working with these people, I began to be able to sense that out when we're in discussions about designing a piece. slowly over time, I began to say no to things that didn't feel aligned with me as an artist or as a business person. And I began to say yes. only to things that were more in alignment. now I'm at a place where I say no to a lot of stuff actually. the things that I'm saying yes to I'm obsessed with because it's like the coolest stuff ever. I feel fortunate because I know not a lot of artists get to do that. So it's really pretty cool. Yeah. Della (44:39) Yeah, I really enjoy your mugs. is venison for dinner, the ones that have the little sayings on the the front. I have several of those from you. And I have your soap holder as well. So let's shift to homeschooling and where this fit in. Keri (44:44) Yep. Yep. Mm. that was a really fun collaboration. Yeah. Yeah. Della (45:00) So at this Keri (45:00) Sure. Della (45:01) point, your oldest daughter is around six and your youngest daughter must be two or three and you have Yeah. Right. So you're starting to homeschool first. you've homeschooled from the beginning. How did you come to know that you were gonna homeschool? Keri (45:07) She's yeah, three. Yep, and a newborn. Yeah, a baby. Yeah. Yeah. this goes back a little bit from before I had kids. a lot of creative people or people with a background in art or music find themselves called to teaching, other people what they know. I saw that as a path And this is absolutely not to belittle anybody who chooses this, but it felt like an easy path for me to go to school and get a degree in education and to be an art teacher. I had a lot of really influential art teachers in high school that I could see myself modeling my career after. when my husband was applying to all of his master's programs, I actually applied. A master's program myself in arts education and I didn't get in. I was really sad about it. I thought, what I'm gonna do. now we just talked about all the things that I did between now and then. But I thought, I will see how else I can teach. I taught at Montessori school. I was kind of learning a little bit about public school and thinking that it didn't really seem like the right fit my personal ideas about education as someone who didn't have kids yet and somebody who was a product of public school. I'm just want to see what else is out there. So I tried teaching at a Montessori school and it just didn't really feel good. it felt like a lot of managing behavior, which is how I imagine also public school is for teachers a lot of the time, managing behaviors and personalities so for me it didn't feel like a good fit. when we got to Colorado and I was kind of trying to grasp at straws and see like how in the world can I make money, they have a amazingly well funded and just beautiful Waldorf school there. I tried subbing at the Waldorf School. at this point, my daughter had been born and she was young I was trying to see how I could incorporate Waldorf ideas into our home and into her play I was becoming more personally invested in the idea of different forms of education. I taught at this school and again, it almost felt like the same thing over and over again, with a different mask on. I didn't feel a connection to teaching in that setting, really. I was trying to find what felt right. being in this school, it was beautiful and they had a very sweet community, but it just didn't really feel right for what I wanted. I didn't want to send my kid away for school. I was starting to feel the desire to be a little bit more intentional about school or education being in my hands in the home. my husband and I both were on that journey to try to find what was gonna work. when she was very young, we found that homeschool was probably going to be the path for us. Della (48:01) Both you and your husband are working. Your oldest is getting ready to formally start homeschooling. How did you manage that with both of you working in the home? Keri (48:11) I was a part of a mastermind group of amazing women. they all are social media influencers and YouTube people by profession, and they're all homeschool moms and they're all running businesses that are way more successful than mine one of the best pieces of advice that I ever got as a homeschooling mom of young kids from these women who, had kids all the way up to high school was To not be too hard on yourself in the early years and that if they could go back and do it again, that they would unschool their young children, meaning that they would allow their kids' interests in early elementary school to be the leader of the education at home. that really stuck with me because with the age of my kids and the laws in my state, were required to submit a letter of intent and the curriculum that we use, but we do have a lot of freedom in that. I also at this time met someone who's been really influential to me who was the founder of an unschooling cooperative I don't really identify as an unschooler, but I do think that my kids' early childhood education, eight and under, was heavily ins influenced by unschooling philosophies. a lot of people think that unschooling is just letting them do whatever they want. but for me and the way that I used that philosophy in my house, it was very much letting their interests lead what we were learning in the home. that looked like my daughter learned to read by reading graphic novels. And At this point, almost nine years old, she's read all of them in the library that's in our town. she learned to do math. Actually, we use your quality of numbers curriculum, and it was a huge milestone for both of us, I think, to see how we could incorporate that into like an unschooling setting where we're using it as a guide, but not like a Bible. and taking the suggestions and the activities and using it in real life as opposed to just a thing that's on paper that we're reading. so we did a lot of unschooling in the early days and it's really beautiful to look back on because I think that it's been a real foundation for my oldest for a love of learning. for me for a love of creating a home environment that is full of beauty and respect and goodness. it feels good to be around each other and to learn. so those early years, it was a lot of that vibe at home. Della (50:43) We started out as unschoolers as well, and it's a huge misnomer because it sounds like you're doing no school whatsoever, no education, no learning, but it couldn't be further from the truth. the whole philosophy is really child led. Keri (50:52) Yeah. Della (51:00) so you're doing a lot of strewing, which is leaving materials in different places to gauge interest and then go into the library and checking books out buying games and products or borrowing games and products of what their interest is as well. it also was really wonderful start for our homeschooling. We didn't stay Keri (51:00) Mm-hmm. Yeah. November. Yeah. Della (51:22) that way when he entered third, fourth grade, we started doing more formal education. Keri (51:26) Yeah. my oldest this year is in third grade, and she'll be going into fourth grade this coming fall. the amazing thing that makes me be like, yes, these women that were guiding me were so right is that I listened to them a group of women, there's seven of them and they're all saying the same thing. If that hadn't been my experience, I don't know that I would have just done that on my own. all I know from school is that I'm public schooled and that I had some experience in these two alternative-style classrooms, and then what I've read. I didn't have any first-hand experience. when my daughter got to be going into third grade, It was like her brain was telling me that she was ready for more challenge. she was asking for it, not by saying, Hey mom, I want to do this, but her body and her language and the way that she was interacting in the world was asking for that. And I think that by being so tuned into what she is needing in this way of unschooling, that it was really easy for me to see. what she needed when she was ready for a little bit more structure Della (52:30) that rhythm that you're setting up with your oldest that'll cascade down through everybody else as you go. logistically, how did you and your husband handle that? Because you're both working. Who's doing the more formal schooling? how is that working? Keri (52:36) Yes. Yeah. let me start off by saying that my husband is amazing he's a really good dad and he is a really good partner. we are really lucky that his work is non traditional in terms of the schedule. for. He's now the executive director at a non profit music school. It's a standalone music school it's a small community school that's been around for a really long time. he has a very unconventional schedule. sometimes he'll have to work from like noon to ten PM because he is needing to be there for a recital. Sometimes he randomly will have to work on Saturday because there's, something that needs to be delivered. Because of the flexibility that he has to have for his work day, it allows some time freedom, which is one of the most important parts of why we're doing any of this is the time freedom in our jobs, to be with our kids and to be together as a family. because of the flexibility that he has to have to fulfill his needs at work, it gives him the flexibility on the other side for me to be able to get my work done. he also has some flexibility with remote work. we do block scheduling. one of the most important tools in our life, we write squares on a piece of paper for the days of the week and we plan out breakfast and dinner, and we plan out who's gonna go to the gym that day, and we plan out an AM and a PM block. that's what works for us. Della (54:09) this is block scheduling for you and your husband, 'cause there's also block scheduling in home schooling, but you're talking about block scheduling for you and your husband. Keri (54:13) Yes. We're ta We're talking about the logistics of the household. Side note, we also do block scheduling for homeschooling, but that's a different schedule. some time our schedule is just crazy. Every moment is planned out. And I don't mean crazy bad. we have a full life and the way that it works is by we plan out All those blocks of time throughout the week. So today is Sunday and I'm working all day. Yesterday was Saturday and I worked in the morning and then we had family activities together. on Monday, he worked all day. On Tuesday, I worked in the AM block, he worked in the PM block. On Wednesday, he was remote and I worked all day. Thursday it was a him day at work, and Friday, we split the day again. it's just little chunks of time here and there. I should say when my third child was born, my business really took off during that time. I experienced a high level of burnout because we were doing an AM block a PM block. nighttime block and a early morning block and trying to just squeeze in everything that we could. It was too much. my business was also earning the most revenue that it's ever earned in the history of its existence. I had an employee at the time. We were obviously outputting so much ceramics that year. in response to that, when my third child was two, we were like, this this is losing the plot. we've lost the plot. We're doing this so that we can be together and we're never together. And so we took a complete very sadly let go of my amazing employee who had been with me for over three years, who was so awesome. I'll always be heartbroken that she's not here with me anymore because it was really great. But it was hard for me managing her workload, which was also related to my own workload. to do my job so that she can do her job. just became too much. when I got pregnant with my fourth child, we cut way back on everything. We were needing to prioritize family time. needing to remember that we're doing this so that we can have healthy family and not so that I can work myself to the bone trying to make ceramics. And it's a really interesting and hard thing to have done to my business and to our life because I could probably make and sell five times as much as I did in my busiest year. it's interesting to have a product or to have a business where your products have the potential to be in high demand, but also recognizing that this time in my life where I'm a mother of young children, that's not where my priorities need to be. So yeah. Della (56:47) I have that same thought. There are several times throughout my business that I know I could have hired someone, I could have outsourced the minor things and focused on writing and production, but it would be at the expense of the time that I had for my children. that is just one of the things that I'm just not willing to sacrifice. Keri (56:55) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good for you, really, because I feel like I see so many people who are like, they're in high school now, I have some time back to myself. I'm speaking from someone who was a teenager but has never had teenagers before. in a way they need you just as much, if not more. it's good that you could remember that while she's still here with you and and not after the fact. Della (57:09) I get that. Yeah, I do have more time than what I used to, but there's that balance and I'm not willing to go over a certain threshold because it would influence that time that I have with her. So I understand that. So tell me how having this last baby influenced your homeschooling. Keri (57:36) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So this is my third year of intentionally homeschooling. I say that because we really have been homeschooling forever since my oldest was a baby. But in terms of being a little bit more formal in terms of reporting to the school system and everything like that, this would be our third year. I think one of the biggest changes that we made in terms of when my third child was born and then when my fourth child was born is we been kind of toying around with year-round schooling versus summers fully off versus what does that look like for us and how does it work. again like we're doing this because it works for the the whole family, for my husband's schedule of work, for my schedule of work and also for the kids. And so something that we do that is maybe a little bit unconventional but works really well is that we school year round. It looks a little different in the summers, but we choose to do that so that we have a little bit more time freedom during the year. Especially for me being a product based business, I have a just stupidly busy holiday season. instead of taking three months off during the summer, we take six weeks off in November and early December so that I can take advantage of the holiday season. It's my biggest sales season by far, quarter four. So the first year that we were schooling, we just normal, like nothing changed. We just went right through the summer. it didn't really feel great for me. Because there's so much fun stuff to do during the summer. I wanted to shift it up. The next year, my at the time, second grader said, Everyone else is off during the summer. We want to try being off during the summer. So we tried that. That also didn't feel great. It was a little bit too much freedom I think my kids really thrive in structure. So this year we're kind of meeting in the middle where we're not doing very much formal sit-down work. but we're doing things like more project based learning or nature unit studies. my oldest is taking a creative writing fellowship course online with teacher Emily, with Gather Make Art, who's an amazing resource for homeschool families. We love her so much. a little bit more fun and playful, but also education based learning things that are hopefully gonna be enjoyable for the kids and also a good change of pace during the summers. but that's kind of one of the logistic changes that we made. It's been hard actually. when my third was born, I don't think that I had as much of a hard time with school and this year between my oldest having a little bit higher demands in terms of learning and what she's needing from me and having unfortunately a very clingy and high needs baby, it's been challenging to be perfectly honest. go ahead. Della (1:00:35) Can I say that that is completely normal and to be expected? And I've actually had a few people contact me when their second in line hit homeschooling and they were like, This feels like so much more work. can you please help me? there's a bell curve of energy. Keri (1:00:55) Yeah, yeah. Della (1:00:56) that goes and when your kids are really young, it doesn't take a huge amount of effort on your part. The largest focus if you're going a along the path of normal child development, because they'll develop those fine motor skills from it different interactions with you. They'll develop the gross motor skills through playing and balancing and climbing trees. Keri (1:01:17) Mm-hmm. Della (1:01:19) So if you're going through that normal trajectory, the biggest focus is teaching phonics for reading and teaching basic mathematics. but when you hit formal education, it's a different level, like third grade, it's a different level. And then when you have your next in line join in on the homeschooling, it Keri (1:01:26) Mm-hmm. Well you take my finger. Mm-hmm. mean? And if you put it here with two things, I'm not in here. Della (1:01:44) increases the amount of time that you have and you did that and then had a baby in addition to that. Like that that's pretty big. Yeah. And it so it is hard. Keri (1:01:52) Yes. That's where that's where we are right now. We you'll heal Yeah. I would say that the main that we all love doing together is learning through living books and discussion of said living books. So we spend a lot of time doing that. And I can read to them while I'm holding a baby. And we can talk while my third child, who is very high energy and very into getting into things that he shouldn't, is off drawing on the couch, whatever horrible thing is going on. can read at that point. But there's certain things that we're doing in school that you'll hear me say during the week. Della (1:02:22) Yeah. Keri (1:02:29) This is the time that I have to focus on you and it has to happen now. we need to sit down and do our tablework right now because the baby is asleep and my toddler is building or whatever he's doing. And this is the time that I have. And that's been a shift for us because a lot of the time my oldest has a hard time transitioning from whatever she's engrossed in to what I'm asking her to do. And so that's been a h a hard shift for us this year is to to be like, put down the pencil. I know you're wanting to do something over here, but I need you to be here with me now to do our tablework because this is the time that Della (1:02:54) Mm-hmm. Right. it sounds like you already have a rhythm, so that is helpful. And then of course the pre-warning, I'm getting ready to lay your brother down for a nap, get ready for whatever. But you can also do other Keri (1:03:10) Okay. And see. Della (1:03:19) Transitions and then rituals of connection, things that signal, okay, a change is happening now. so there may be something special that you reserve for her to do, something short and sweet for her to do when you're laying him down to signal for her like this transition is coming. And then when you sit down to do your tablework, you can choose things that Keri (1:03:35) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then the room. Della (1:03:45) are rituals of connection. They are habits that happen every time when you sit down with your child. It can be simple like lighting a candle. It can be singing a song. there are a variety of different things. two things, it can be educational focus, but that's not what you're looking for here. This is connection. Keri (1:03:45) And then you can set up a name, reflect on the room, the thing that's something that's going on the two. the treatment it's my easy keeping it. Yeah. Della (1:04:08) this is special. This is the start of our time together. It's just me and whoever else is there. this is our special time. it needs to be something that a short, super special, they want to do it, that you do at the beginning of the table time. it's something that she looks forward to that she doesn't get to do any other time. Keri (1:04:13) And it's be before. Yeah. Yeah. You know, how do you find that you have to have a finding that? Della (1:04:31) then other signals that signal the transition and then she's got this something that she looks forward to. So it's not an you have to interrupt what you really love doing right now because we're gonna do these things that I want you to do kind of thing. it switches that Keri (1:04:48) you done this in your home? And I'm wondering if so, what are some ones that you do that have worked well? Della (1:04:54) yes, we definitely did this there were a couple things. one of the things in order and this is a ritual of connection and a special time is on the flip side of this. This is what I did for my toddler so that I could spend time with my son. Keri (1:04:58) So one of the things in the cooking. Della (1:05:12) I would save certain toys sensory toys, baskets, and water toys that were only during school time. And when we finished those school time, we're like, I'm sorry, we've got to put those up now. And saving those just for school time meant that it kept it new and exciting and also occupied her for that time so that I could get school done with my son. Keri (1:05:15) Mm-hmm. Della (1:05:36) for rituals of connection, we did things like we would roll beeswax candles at the beginning of the year and use beeswax modeling clay to put little designs on our candles at the beginning of the year. for our start, each time when we were doing our table time together, she would light the match and we would sing a little song. I forget what the song is, but we would sing a little song. Keri (1:05:42) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Della (1:06:02) I usually had snacks. Snacks are always wonderful. Keri (1:06:04) Yeah, we do we do we do tea a lot is kind of one of our connection. Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny a lot of this sounds like what a Waldorf classroom would use. And I s have spent a lot of time learning about that. And with my first two kids, I did a lot of that stuff. And I think that Della (1:06:08) geez, that's a great idea. That's a fabulous idea, yeah. Yeah. Keri (1:06:26) in the reality of managing four children's lives and energy that we have lost some of the whimsy in our household. and this is a good reminder to slow down and maybe to invite some of that back in because I remember how my kids loved that stuff. Della (1:06:29) Right. you are homeschooling officially two kids now, right? Keri (1:06:49) second will be reporting for the first time in the fall. So technically no, but all three of my older kids, they see me doing focused things with my oldest daughter and they say, What do we get to do for school today? they're excited to do it. So we're not not doing anything with the two middle kids. they're all there with me. Della (1:07:02) Right. Right. So you really are bringing in the other two. it does get a little harder. I'm gonna be up front with you. But eventually when you, get to the top and then they come back down late middle school, high school, you start outsourcing things and it does get easier for you, but you're climbing that hill right now. So having a baby Keri (1:07:13) ha ha. Yeah. Della (1:07:28) in the middle of all that is big. It's big. also it will work out fine. Keri (1:07:32) Yeah. I feel a lot of support from my husband too, because I know a lot of homeschool families the mom does the school or the dad does the school and we really tag team it. I tend to be the person who's researching and planning and putting together what what the kids are going to do or listening to their interests and following that to put something together for them. But we are both implementing. when I was talking about our schedule, he's home with them during the day. We try to get school anything more structured done during the mornings. And he's implementing at least twice a week, it doesn't all fall on my shoulders, which is good. It's good for my husband's relationship with the kids and with school. And it's also good for me as someone who's trying to run a business that not all of that's falling on my shoulders. Della (1:08:13) Yeah. how would you define your style of home schooling right now? Like you were talking about block scheduling earlier. Keri (1:08:28) Yeah. we are influenced by Waldorf, the way that they schedule things throughout the years. for example, we're studying math in the way that they present for, second, third grade. we're finishing up the multiplication and division introduction and moving into fractions as you would in a Waldorf setting. I'm planning a Norse mythology unit for next year. So we do follow bigger units in a way. it's really well done and I love the way that it follows child development and the reasons behind why they introduce things when, especially when it comes to storytelling and the readings that they offer. so we pull from that a little bit We still do pull from unschooling philosophies a little bit. my daughter writes so much. That's the thing that she would do all the time. she'll write on a piece of computer paper with font half an inch high, fifteen pages if you sit there and let her. So she'll do that and then we'll go and correct punctuation and spelling and that to me is kind of unschooly. she's leading with her interests and we're doing phonics work and learning rules of English language through what she's already doing in her own free time. I guess this is to say that I don't think that we really fit into a box and that I personally as a mother am inspired by things from Waldorf Education, but I also maybe more inspired by my kid and their inherent interests. the real truth is that my oldest is the first person that I've educated at home. I think that it would be silly of me to not admit that I'm figuring it out based on her as a person. I can see my second oldest, she's six. She'll be first grade this coming year. And I can already start to see her blooming into someone that's very different from my oldest. she's really more connected to like gross motor movement and mathematics hope to be somebody who can hear my kids and guide them with what I think, but also hear what they need and try to work through it with them. Della (1:10:29) So logistically, how do you and your husband implement home schooling? Keri (1:10:34) right now I'm in the planning phase for next year. I don't know what next year's gonna look like. but this year we purchased a math curriculum for my oldest and we take turns teaching her. I know how to do addition and division. I don't have to research how to do it before I teach her and neither does he, obviously. I don't know what that'll look like when it's a little bit above my head. this is what works for us right now. we split the week. he'll teach part of it to her, I'll teach another part of it to her. was a little frustrating at first because we teach different. my daughter was, feeling frustrated that Papa wasn't doing it like mama does. we had to work through that and explain to her that. Hopefully it's of benefit for her to see that everybody's different and that you can learn different from a different person, not just us, but the neighbor and another teacher and somebody who's a professional split the math curriculum. We do reading, writing, and arithmetic daily. I pretty much just for consistency's sake do the all the reading because I enjoy it. Like I enjoy reading with them. And I'm the one with the patience to go off on a bajillion discussion trails and explain language and stuff. So I mostly do the reading, but sometimes that looks like us doing reading after dinner. don't just sit in school from eight to three, how a public school student might do it. we always check off reading, writing and arithmetic, but sometimes that doesn't look like it might other places because we're doing it at different times. I've worked in the morning and I'm not the person that's there to read to them, we might not read until later in the day. Della (1:12:07) Okay. you both have an idea of what is happening. You take on most of the reading. And for everything else, it's that block schedule. the teaching time is dependent on who is there at the time that they get the most instruction. Yeah. Keri (1:12:24) Yes. Yeah, that's that's that's right. Della (1:12:26) that's an interesting and awesome way to do it. Keri (1:12:30) I see how what we're doing can cause frustration in our family. My kids for definite sure have the more head energy to sit down and do tablework or even really listen to a story in the beginning of the day or like later in the day. And they wanna be up and moving and and move their body and do handwork and stuff like that. later on. I do recognize that this is not necessarily ideal. So that's hard for me to admit. If it was a perfect world, we would do it all in the morning because I can see that that's how my kids respond to education best is during that time of day. again like looking back on the past three years, every year has been different. So I don't know, maybe this year we need to make a change to make it so that it's consistently happening in the morning. Della (1:13:17) everybody makes it work the way that works best for each family because everybody's needs are different and a parent's needs definitely need to be considered in that equation as well. I have full faith that you will find your way Keri (1:13:19) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Della (1:13:36) And you know, in a year or two it'll change anyway, so what is your next coming launch Keri (1:13:39) Exactly. Yeah. So I was getting all these requests for collaborations and I was saying yes to everything. Then I started to be able to be a little bit more picky and say only yes to the things that I want, but it was filling my whole calendar year. I was only doing collaborations. And I love doing them for many reasons. but you can imagine that I don't get as much personal artistic expression out of making something for other people. last year I kind of lost a little bit of myself in the making of things for other people. every year I say, I gotta start making stuff for the holidays. I wanna do a holiday collection. I want to do a Mother's Day collection of my own work that is my designs and to my taste as an artist. And that's always what gets put on the back burner. my husband does have a hand in the business too because he helps me to make my production schedule and he really dialed it in this year. I am done doing production for other people in July. And I am so excited about my holiday collection. We're gonna do a collection that's inspired by one of a kind objects that you'd have in your house. So things that you buy once and you can like invest in them and have this one heirloom beautiful piece. So for example, a gravy boat or a wall clock or a lamp, things that are for me, like bigger ticket item, money spent on it, but also more time spent on it in terms of what I'm putting into it as well. So that's going to be really fun. doing a gift box that I did a couple years ago that has a special limited edition mug. I just talked to a coffee roaster yesterday that's gonna make us a custom coffee blend to have like tea-themed box and a coffee-themed box with some like local goodies from other makers. I'm sure that there's so much more that I'm forgetting, but this is all to say that. Della (1:15:24) That's so awesome. Keri (1:15:30) I am really committing to doing like big, exciting, extravagant holiday collection this year. And I am really, really excited about it because my own personal artistry coming through as a maker and a product designer. So yeah, that'll be Black Friday. Yeah. Della (1:15:43) I'm so excited for you, Keri That's awesome. Keri (1:15:50) And we left room in my production schedule this year to do a a Mother's Day launch, which was happened a couple months ago, but that was also something that was designs and not for other people. And really fulfilling. It's fulfilling to make things for other people with their designs in mind and have them go out into the world, but it's a different kind of fulfillment to have my own creative vision come to life and go out into the world. So I hope to do more of that coming forward, both as the business dis decision because I'm not paying other people a collaboration fee. I maintain more of my own revenue when I do my own projects, but also and mostly because it's so satisfying and fulfilling to me as an artist and as a designer to do my own thing, you Della (1:16:33) It's a expression of yourself going out into the world. Yeah. I'm excited for you. I can't wait to see what you create. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for spending time with me today. Can you tell the audience where they can find you online? Keri (1:16:37) Yes, it is. Thank you. Yes. Yes. so I am mostly present on Instagram for social media and my social media handle is Sift Ceramics and my website is Sift Ceramics dot com. I sell through that platform as well. Della (1:17:05) Excellent. Thank you. Keri (1:17:06) Yeah, thank you, Della. Della (1:17:07) If you've listened to the entire season, thank you so much. I'd love to hear your feedback on the podcast. You can leave that at thebeautyofplay.com under a homeschooling journey, or you can email me at Della at the beautyofplay.com. I'd also love to hear who you would like to hear from next. I can't see who you are, but I am seeing the five-star reviews, so thank you. Until next season, happy homeschooling.