Conversations with Jenny Mulder

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenny Mulder.

Hi Jenny, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I started out by opening a small coffee shop in the back of my friend’s bookstore in Austin, TX. It was in 2013, and things were still cheap enough in Austin that you could pretty much get any idea off the ground with a little bit of money and some hutzpah. I made a lot of friends there; everyone was running an art gallery or opening up a boutique. There was a lot of scrappy creative energy flowing, and I was doing ceramics in my downtime to “relax”. When the landlord of the coffee shop/bookstore decided to kick us out and rent to a franchising yoga studio, it was a blessing in disguise. Owning a coffee shop was exhausting, and I was enjoying making ceramics more and more.

Eventually, I moved to Taos where I had time and space to really devote myself to the craft. I joined a community studio, a woodfire crew and learned a lot about clay. After 2 years, I was ready to leave Taos mountain (population like 2,000) and be around people again, and then the pandemic hit. All my plans kinda flew out the window, but somehow I landed in LA, where I was probably supposed to be anyway.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Ha! No! Being self-employed is learning to live with an enormous amount of uncertainty. Being creatively self-employed is forcing yourself to split your brain into a detached and analytical business brain and a vibrant, inspired creative brain. Those things are the main struggles for me. Little inconveniences are always solvable, but staying inspired, organized, optimistic… it’s a lot.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I make functional ceramics; jars, dishes, lamps, and I also make little silver charms from a special polymer that works like clay but then is fired into silver. Maybe I’m known most for lamps; I make a custom lamp for an interior design company here in LA called Nickey Kehoe that some people know me for. My jars are popular, and my charms have their own separate excitement to them. Everything I make is done by hand, so nothing is ever truly identical, and I really like that about my studio practice. Even sending out large orders to stores with multiples of the same item, each one has its own personality or slight variation from the pack. I like to imagine that people find the small difference in one piece that speaks directly to them.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
This is a sweet and funny question because, you know, people will talk to me a lot about how “ceramics is big right now” but ceramics have been around for thousands and thousands of years. I like that community studios are bustling and growing, and people are able to work with clay without having to invest into their own studio, so I hope this part of the industry grows. I’ve gotten more into wood firing and other ancient techniques of making pottery, which are incredibly technical and take a whole team of people to achieve. Maybe people will shift away from the pop-colored and modern take on ceramics, and the pendulum will swing over to the gritty and crazy world of wood-fired ceramics.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sister-shop.com
• Instagram: @sister_ceramics

Image Credits
all credits Jenny Mulder