I’ve always been creative, my whole family is from Grandparents downwards, Grandads loved to scale model making, playing piano and garden design. My Grandmas played the piano, dress making, knitting and crochet. Mum does all things textiles, sketching and painting and my Dad loves tapestries and did quite a bit of woodworking at one point. They are both very musical too and my Brother writes poetry and songs with his own music.
As a child I was encouraged to make and create we had our “clarty table” which Dad made, we knew when that was out we, (my brother and I) could make as much arty mess on there as we wanted. So, we did the usual Blue Peter style models and played with plasticine. Then Mum introduced me to sewing so I did a lot of that including making clothes for all my dolls, then gradually as I grew up I did some dressmaking and sketching. My first home with my husband had the homemade curtains and duvet etc make over so that was fun. I’ve played the piano since I was 4, started the flute 16 years ago, the native American flute 2 years ago and I started learning to play the Celtic lever harp last year and I still play them all regularly, it’s my go to thing to relax and switch off.
I fell in to painting ceramics after a career in Hotel Management for over 24 years when I tried to escape hotels but wished to stay in the service industry. Whilst on holiday reading a magazine, we saw an advert for running pottery painting parties, my husband thought I would enjoy that…. So its all his fault as I remind him when I get home late or work lots of hours! I went on a taster session with a ceramic artist in Pontefract and was hooked, 4 months later I left my Hotel management career behind in the March of 2006 and opened my paint your own pottery studio, Fired 4 U in Walton le dale Preston. Whilst starting off in there and I still run it, I was asked by customers who were terrified of painting or thought they wouldn’t be able to “make it look” to paint bespoke orders for them and that’s how it all started 13 years ago now.
I’ve done hand painted tiles for around the top of a swimming pool to wedding plates andwedding horseshoes, tile freezes for around aga’s, to personalised mugs and Teapots, house plaques, personalised pet bowls, plant pots to signature plates for all occasions. The strangest one was painting a toilet cistern top for a builder – all I’ll say on that is never again! I love to get into big projects such as tile pictures for Kitchens and the more personalised the item the better.
So I hope you have enjoyed reading my brief history how I got started with painting bespoke personalised ceramic gifts and kitchen tiles.
Regards Jane, Katy and Kelvin the kilns.