Experiences that Shaped What I Do Now at Sky Soup

Three formative experiences shaped what I do now at Sky Soup.

I have worked in creative professions my entire life, always moving toward what I do now — which feels like my favorite professional achievement.

I spent my earliest years playing in the woods, walking in creeks, and building fairy houses. From ages four to eight, I grew up in suburban Atlanta, where the woods surrounded our home. Five neighborhood children — my age and older and my younger sister — spent our days outside together.

When an elementary school was built across the street, the construction site became a field of smooth, creamy mud — the exact color of the boxed clay I now buy at the Ceramics Shop. I remember the absolute joy and freedom of playing in that mud. When you stepped into it, it made a thick suction sound as your feet pulled free. I grew up in a time when I could walk out the front door without an adult worrying, and that’s exactly what I did. I have always been independent and adventurous.

When I work with clay at Sky Soup, I return to that memory.

The second shaping experience was how my parents valued my creativity. I recall unrolling crumpled drawings from school, and my mother was always interested. We would talk about them. They saved our artwork and framed many pieces, which made me feel that my creative efforts mattered. They still have a drawing I made of our cat, Ladybug, when I was about four years old. She was a calico and sat on our porch with her back to me. I drew her in crayon on one of my dad’s blue work stationery sheets — paper we often used for drawing. I cherish children’s drawings today, and I realize how deeply my parents’ care for my artwork shaped that value.

The third experience came in second grade, when we moved from cosmopolitan Atlanta to my father’s small hometown of Franklin, Tennessee. There was a creek beside our house, and we spent our days playing in it, turning over rocks, looking for crawdads, darting backwards under rocks, and turning them over, looking for salamanders.

My dad and I built a houseboat from a plank and pieces of scrap wood. I remember the camaraderie I felt with him and how much I loved the creative process of imagining and constructing something together. When we finished, we sailed it down the creek, imagining it would float for miles.

That small boat was not unlike the treehouses and other dwellings children build with me now at Sky Soup.