Why it's never too late to change direction
- studioooakcreation
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
There is one question I get asked surprisingly often.
"How did you become a potter?"
People usually expect a simple answer. A defining moment. A lifelong dream. A straight path that led neatly from one place to another.
The truth is, my journey to clay was nothing like that.
I haven't been a potter all my life. Before ceramics, I was a civil engineer. Before that, I was the child who preferred mathematics and physics to art, who grew up in the Western Pyrenees, surrounded by mountains and forests, spending summers trekking and winters skiing.
For a long time, those parts of my life felt completely unrelated.
Now, looking back, I can see they never were.
Learning to look
I grew up in south-west France, where nature was simply part of everyday life. I didn't think of it as extraordinary then. It was just where I was fortunate enough to grow up.
What I remember most is not any particular view, but the feeling of watching the landscape change.
The first signs of autumn arriving.
The rhythm of the seasons.
The subtle ways nature never stays still, even when it appears to.
There was a liquidambar tree in my mother's garden that fascinated me as a child. Every year I would watch it transform, almost without noticing. Then one day it would be glowing with deep reds and amber before quietly letting everything go again.
I didn't realise it at the time, but I think that tree taught me something about paying attention.
Not everything beautiful happens all at once.
Some things reveal themselves slowly.
A life that almost made perfect sense
Unlike many artists, I didn't grow up dreaming of making things.
I loved mathematics and physics. I found comfort in logic, in understanding how things worked and how they fitted together. Following a fairly traditional path, I completed two years of classes préparatoires in France before studying civil engineering.
I loved studying. I enjoyed solving problems and discovering the elegance that could be found in structure and precision.
Working as an engineer, however, was different. Although I appreciated the intellectual challenge, I never quite felt I was in the right place. Something was missing, though I couldn't have told you what it was at the time. Looking back, I don't think I was in the wrong profession. I simply hadn't found the place where every part of me could exist together.
What engineering taught me beyond thinking carefully, solving problems and respecting the process is that good design is rarely about adding more. More often, it's about finding clarity through simplicity.
Looking back, I can still recognise that way of thinking in the pots I make today.
Around the same time, I made one decision that seemed completely disconnected from everything else.
I chose to study Japanese.
I can't honestly remember having a clear reason. There was no grand plan to move to Japan or become a ceramic artist. Something about the language and the culture simply intrigued me, and I followed that curiosity.
At the time, it felt like a small detour.
Now I think it was one of the first quiet threads weaving its way through my life.
Crossing a tunnel
One of my first jobs as a young engineer was working as an intern on the Channel Tunnel project. Ironically, years later, I would travel through that very tunnel to begin a new life in England. At the time, I didn't see any symbolism in it. It was simply where life happened to take me. Only now does it make me smile.
Sometimes we help build the bridges we will one day need ourselves.
Building a home
England gradually became home. I raised three children, renovated four homes and spent years creating a life centred around family. Those were busy years, shaped more by school runs, renovating homes, birthday parties, gardening and baking than by thoughts of becoming an artist.
One of my first culinary discoveries when moving on this side of the Channel was British bread. Or perhaps, more accurately, my disappointment with it. It sent me down the wonderfully obsessive path of learning to bake sourdough. Nearly twenty years later, Bonfire, the starter I created back then, has just celebrated its sixteenth birthday and has never been so sweet.
Looking back, I realise I have always been drawn to slow processes. To things that cannot be rushed. Bread, like pottery, asks for patience. It teaches you to observe rather than force, to work with living materials rather than against them.
Before clay found me, I spent years creating abstract paintings using materials I made myself. Potato starch, flour, coffee, tea, aubergine skins and natural pigments became my palette. I loved their unpredictability and the quiet beauty that emerged when I allowed natural materials to speak for themselves.
Looking back, I think I was already searching for the same things I now seek in clay: patience, unpredictability and the quiet beauty that appears when you stop trying to control every outcome.
Finding clay
People sometimes ask why I left engineering. The truth is, I don't feel that I ever did. Engineering is still very much part of how I think. It appears in the precision of making, in my fascination with glaze chemistry, in the endless testing, note-taking and refining that happens behind every finished piece.
Clay didn't replace the person I had been. It simply gave another part of me room to grow. For the first time, I found something that allowed structure and spontaneity to exist side by side. Throwing on the wheel demands discipline, repetition and control. The kiln, on the other hand, has a way of reminding you that not everything can be controlled.
Somewhere between those two places is where I feel most at home.
Threads that quietly came together
Those Japanese lessons I took all those years ago never really left me. Over time I found myself drawn towards Japanese craftsmanship, not because it felt exotic, but because it felt strangely familiar.
The appreciation of seasonality.
The beauty found in imperfection.
The quietness of a handmade object.
The rhythm of a haiku.
Those ideas echoed something I already recognised from the landscapes of my childhood. Today they naturally find their way into my work. I revisit traditional forms, use hakeme brushwork, carve many of my Tatami pieces slowly by hand and increasingly decorate my work with materials I have gathered or foraged myself.
None of those choices feels deliberate anymore.
They simply feel honest.
Looking back
For many years I believed that changing direction meant leaving something behind.
Now I think the opposite is true. The most meaningful changes in my life have not come from rejecting who I was, but from embracing every part of it.
The child who loved mountains.
The engineering student who enjoyed solving problems.
The young woman who chose to learn Japanese for reasons she couldn't explain.
The mother raising three children.
The artist experimenting with coffee, flour and natural pigments on canvas.
The baker I became.
The potter I am today.
They are not different people.
They are all me.
Looking back, I can finally see the thread that connects them. Perhaps that's why I believe it's never too late to change direction.
Changing direction doesn't mean abandoning the life you've already lived.
It means trusting that the experiences you've gathered, the curiosities you've followed and even the unexpected detours you've taken are shaping something you may not yet be able to see.
I didn't become someone else when I found clay.
I simply found the place where every part of my life finally made sense.
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