The Hope Collection | In Conversation with Jess from I Have This Thing With Ceramics
On community, hope, and filling your feed with the good people
The Hope Collection came about through a friendship that started, as so many do in this industry, in an inbox. Jessica Charge runs I Have This Thing With Ceramics from Southampton, a platform she started in 2018 as a personal Instagram account and has grown, through sheer warmth and dedication, into one of the UK’s most trusted ceramics resources. Over 112,000 followers, a website covering events, exhibitions and independent shops from one end of the country to the other, a monthly newsletter, and a People section that has quietly become one of the most digestible and inspiring reads for anyone who wants to know more about ceramics.
Jess is a graphic designer by trade, a collector by compulsion, and an advocate for makers by nature. She is not a potter. And that, it turns out, is exactly what makes her so good at what she does.
The Hope Collection grew from a conversation about how we could give Fodder's makers a different kind of platform, and how Jess's reach could help us do it. We sat down to talk about both.
F | I Have This Thing With Ceramics started as an Instagram account in 2018. Did you have any idea at the time what it would become?
J | Not a clue. I wanted to build an aesthetically pleasing grid, purely for my own visual pleasure, and I loved ceramics so it was a natural subject choice. The one thing I had no awareness of was the lovely ceramics community. They really are the best and are the reason I have carried the account on.
F | You’ve built one of the most trusted ceramics communities in the UK, over 112,000 followers, a website covering events, exhibitions and independent shops across the country, and The Monthly Mug newsletter. What do you think people are actually looking for when they find you?
J | I would hope they have a thing with ceramics too, and either make them or want to buy them. I know a lot of my audience are ceramic artists, but I have also met people who love to buy ceramics and have attended events because they found them on my website.
Jess loves Anna Jones Dreamlands Mug.
"Very tactile, such a great handle, she is so good with colour and the pattern makes me think of a peaceful landscape."
F | The People section of your website is one of my favourite things about it. You’ve interviewed makers, gallerists, sustainability pioneers, charity studios, international artists. What has that process taught you about the ceramics world that you couldn’t have learnt any other way?
J | A common thread running through the interviews is that people’s mental health massively benefits from working with clay, and in some cases it was the reason they found clay in the first place.
F | Who would you most like to interview next and why?
J | Both of the Throwdown judges, because they are such lovely people with interesting stories to tell. I have read Keith’s book, it is brilliant, and I have talked to Rich’s wife about the meaning behind his work.
F | You come to ceramics as a graphic designer and passionate collector rather than a maker. How do you use those skills to support the industry, and what drives you to do it?
J | I see the industry and work through the eyes of a marketer. People are always surprised that I am not a maker. I think I am envious of, and in huge admiration of, potters’ skills, and the best thing I can do to support them, apart from buy their work (though I am running out of room!), is to use my design and marketing skills to promote them.
Jess loves Brutes Ceramics textured Carafe
"It's all about the texture, I love it so much. And she is so clever at creating a pleasing shape."
F | You spend so much time meeting makers, working with curators and thinking about the market. What do you see as the biggest risks for the ceramics industry right now, for makers trying to build a sustainable practice?
J | Earning a living through making or selling handmade ceramics is a risk in itself, it is not an easy path to choose - but it can bring a lot of joy. I think it’s very hard for any small business currently due to a multitude of factors - and AI certainly doesn’t help! Also, Instagram (much as I love it) is such a hard place to gain traction as a small business - it used to be so easy to reach customers, and it isn’t any more. The demand for video is annoying because makers naturally have photos of their work to sell it with, but why would you have a video of a piece? It’s more work to do when artists could spend that time making great things from clay.
I do feel positive however that handmade work will only become more valuable/desirable in this age of AI. It will always have an important place in the world, just like we still have books and we still buy vinyl records. So, I feel the future is bright but the path to get there is tricky to navigate. Human made will win over artificially made.
Jess loves Fern Taylor's Butter Dish
"I love a bit of nerikomi and I'd go for the black and white version as I love the contrast. You can never have too many butter dishes - you don't have to use them for butter!"
F | How do you see your platform growing from here? Is there a version of This Thing With Ceramics that you’re working toward?
J | I want to make it the go-to resource in the UK for ceramics. I recently added a News section so if artists, charities, galleries or shops have something to tell people, I can publish it for them. I need to get more organised with the Applying page as it is very popular but the hardest part to keep up to date, so I need to work out how to be better at that.
F | After several years of falling into each other’s inbox it has been lovely to spend a bit more time talking this year. When we settled on Hope as the theme for the collection, what did that word open up for you?
J | There is a lot of doom on social media. I don’t do doom-scrolling and instead fill my feed with positive and creative people. They give me hope. I am worried about climate change and the planet in general, but there are a lot of people out there doing a lot of good. It’s just that the opposite types of people can often be noisier. Hope resonated with me because I have to have hope, and I choose to follow the good people and spread the word.
F | From all of your interviewees, who would be on your ceramics dinner party list? Top five?
J | Yikes, what a question! I can’t possibly choose between them, and all I can say is it would be a fantastic party if you just invited them all.
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Fill your feed with the good people and spread the word. It feels like a simple idea and it is, which is exactly why it works. Jess has been doing this quietly and consistently for seven years, and the community she has built around it is one of the warmest corners of the internet. We are so glad she brought the idea of this collaboration to us, and so proud of what it has become. The Hope Collection opens on 8th September. We hope to see you there.
Find Jess at thisthingwithceramics.co.uk and on Instagram @ihavethisthingwithceramics