Welcome to An Art to It, the podcast featuring artists, makers, and creative business owners who've turned their passion for creating into their profession — and the ones still working out how.
Hosted by Elaine Dye, founder of the Byre Gallery in Cornwall and coach and mentor to artists and makers, each episode is a warm, honest conversation with a woman who's built a creative career - as a painter, ceramicist, jeweller, textile artist, or gallerist in her own right. Elaine talks to her guests about the key moments in their journey: the meeting that stung enough to make them prove a point, the potter's wheel bought during lockdown, the gallery approached three times before finally saying yes, the imposter syndrome that never quite goes away even once the work is selling.
These aren't polished success stories, they're totally honest ones about the day to day doubts and practicalities of building a business out of your passion: pricing what you make, choosing the right galleries, learning to say no, and the particular kind of courage it takes to call yourself an artist out loud for the first time.
An Art to It is about the very real art of building a creative career that lasts. Whether you're just starting to take your creative practice seriously or you're years into a career you built from nothing, tune in for conversations that feel less like an interview and more like listening in on a chat with someone who's been exactly where you are.
63: Ceramic houses, monthly sales and winging it with Amanda Banham
A handful of ceramic animals and a walk along a road of Tudor houses are just two of the steps on Amanda Banham's path to becoming the much loved and in demand ceramic artist she is today.
Amanda is best known for her collectable raku-fired ceramic houses, each with its own story, which she makes in her studio in Saffron Walden in the east of England. Her route there took in floristry, teaching horse riding, a farm in Cornwall, four children and an illustration degree, before a single talk at university - by an illustrator who also made the aforementioned ceramic animals - sent her back to clay.
In this very lively and entertaining episode, we talk about:
Discovering pottery and other crafts at her beloved 1970s village primary school, and then barely touching clay again for years
Her university course in Illustration coming to The university talk where an illustrator pulled out a handful of tiny ceramic animals, and Amanda went home and announced she was going to be a potter
Her first terrifying but rewarding fair with Anglian Potters which included putting up the marquee but selling almost everything (probably for less than it cost to make)
How the houses began: reluctant afternoon dog walks along Castle Street, peering into wonky Tudor windows and inventing the people inside
The first houses-only sale, which she was sure was ridiculous, and which sold out in about an hour
Why she sells once a month (the kiln has to be full),
Her January commission slots, which bring in money up front at the quietest time of year
The real-home commissions she now turns down, and the American veranda house that took a month and a lot of tears
Instagram fatigue, and deciding to go back to what she actually enjoys
Why she feels she's been "on ice skates" ever since primary school, and her advice to any business: get a dog, and protect time for laughter
Find Amanda's work at amandabanham.com and on Instagram @amandabanhamceramics.
25 Sept 2026
62: Learning to Say No with Tamara Williams
Before she was a painter, Tamara Williams spent 25 years running a successful London design agency - it was a career she loved, creating work for a wide range of clients including Marks & Spencer and Burberry. It was only after selling the business that she discovered printmaking, and a happy accident with plaster of Paris that led, eventually, to painting.
Tamara shares her journey and the serendipity of discovering her passion for painting. We also talk about the realities of running a creative business and how, despite building a design practice, there was no cross over with the art world; a world she says that really has no rules!
In this episode, Tamara and I talk about:
Being inspired to study graphic design by her older sister ten years who introduced her to the work of Saul Bass and Milton Glaser when she was still a child.
Going freelance almost by accident in 1989, hiring a cupboard-sized studio near Oxford Circus, and growing the agency from two people - and a dog - into a successful 25-year business
The plaster of Paris experiment that started everything - an attempt to transfer printmaking images without a press, that produced textures and effects she could never have planned
Taking up the suggestion of her friend and ceramicist Ali Tomlin https://www.alitomlin.com/ to take part in her first trade show at Top Drawer, at London's Olympia; being terrified but coming away with her first order book and her first ever conversations with gallery owners
Launching RubyKite, the silk scarf brand she co-founded with a friend, and the decision - after six wonderful years - to close it this December
Learning, the hard way, to say no to galleries: "It's really difficult to maintain creativity if you feel like you're a hamster on a wheel"
Having her painting Leave No Trace accepted into the 2025 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, and the extraordinary tradition of Varnishing Day
Why she believes artists need a "visual compass" for their own work.
The business discipline she brought from design - timesheets, pricing, strategic thinking - and why creativity and commercial thinking aren't opposites
Find Tamara's work at tamarawilliams.co.uk and on Instagram @tamarawilliamsart
11 Sept 2026
61. Carving Out a Ceramic Practice Kate Clark
When CAN you call yourself a ceramicist? Kate Clark's @K_ceramics beautiful hand carved ceramics are sold across the country, from the Outer Hebrides to Cornwall, and even over to France. Her many fans include three generations of one family who all independently buy her work; and she still doesn't quite think she's earned the word "potter." She still adds that she's "also a Graphic Designer, as that's what my degree is in."
In our lovely chat, Kate talks openly about her journey to being a full time ceramicist:
"I've had loads of lessons, I've been taught by fantastic people," she told me, "but I haven't got the stamp, as it were."
But when you're making - and selling exquisite work - what more of an endorsement do you need? Kate's passion for pottery began while living with her family in New York City, she followed her kids to an after-school pottery class, fell in love watching them make things, asked if adults could join in, and never really left. She says her first bowl was awful but her teacher persuaded her to persevere and then it clicked.
We also talk about:
Re-inventing yourself in a new city
The buzz of selling your work to people who fall in love with it
Learning to throw from two different teachers on opposite sides of Manhattan, then not owning a wheel of her own until lockdown forced her hand
Why hand-carving makes almost every piece one of a kind - and why that's a nightmare to price, because "it's not just that piece, it's planning the carving, it's the act of doing
The stockist who spent months patiently waiting for Kate to feel ready, after Kate turned down several early offers because being asked for stock felt overwhelming
The particular strain of imposter syndrome that seems to follow talented ceramicists specifically - despite years of teaching, a beautifully considered brand, and genuinely excellent work
The message from a customer that told her three generations of one family buy her work, and why that means so much to her
Bringing her graphic design background into building a considered, cohesive ceramics brand from the very first pot she ever labelled
Find Kate's work at https://kceramicsstudio.com/ and on Instagram @K_ceramics
Reach and audience
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Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
2 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
25 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 34 / 100
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Quality
55
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
32
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