My Story
I am the sole employee of Jacquie Blondin Ceramics. I design and create quality handcrafted ceramics that make your life easier, less stressful and more enjoyable. My products will make your life easier by taking the stressful guesswork out of gift selections by providing easy choices. My products will make your life more enjoyable as you select handcrafted ceramics over soulless mass production. You might even feel super awesome knowing that you are making my creative dreams come true.
I studied Art & Art History at McMaster University where I fell in love with sculpture and drawing. I finished my studies with a B. Ed. at Queen's and have been teaching high school Visual Arts ever since.
Being a teacher has given me the opportunity to inspire young artists to reach their goals while challenging me to create rich project-based connections to historical and contemporary concepts and techniques. Of course, the other benefit of being a teacher is having time off to recharge and explore other interests.
In my past, before marriage, kids and a mortgage, I used to save up my money and travel to see the great art & architecture that I had studied in university. It was on one such trip that I made my Bucket List. I posted that list in my studio over the years, as a reminder to constantly challenge and improve my skills.
Skip over a few years of significant changes (marriage and subsequent two pregnancies that resulted in three babies), I found myself yearning to create in a different way. I started painting seasonal ornaments and sewing stockings which I sold to neighbors and colleagues. I was overwhelmed by the support and encouragement I received and repeated the same cycle with varying products over the next few years. After saturating my little niche market, I looked over at my Bucket List and saw item No. 26 "Learn to Throw on the Potters' Wheel".
So I looked up wheel throwing classes online, and immediately found the Mississauga Potters' Guild and signed up for my first class. Four consecutive classes later, I was beyond smitten and joined as a studio member. My husband encouraged me to keep going on this new and creative path and so I created a connected body of work that I still make today, although the quality of my work has significantly improved.
In 2017, I made a concerted effort to build my brand and business. My marketing expert sister Jo-Ann Blondin, set me on the path to creating a viable and sustainable business. She made me see how much I had already accomplished and guided me to learn the steps I needed to take to get my business up and running.
My teenage children have been a constant source of help: my eldest son with technical support with Illustrator and Photoshop and my middle child and second son with style and branding (with his unmasked honesty), and my daughter who has been my go-to pal for any of the inspirational day trips to galleries and waterfalls.
They have put my tableware through the works, testing them for wear and tear. They have loaded and unloaded them in the dishwasher, yanked them from the cupboards, heated them in the microwave, drank unending cups of hot chocolate and stacked them in towering piles beside their gaming stations.
The whole family has allowed me to take over their play areas, starting with the shared workshop (which became my first painting and sewing studio), the Lego room (which became my pottery studio), the mini-stick hockey zone (became my photo booth), the cold storage (is now inventory storage) and the dining room table (is my office). My children are growing up fast and through goal setting, I have learned to manage our family time and adventures, with my creative growth.
My community at the Mississauga Potters' Guild has been invaluable. I have forged wonderful relationships with like-minded people. They have helped to challenge and push me beyond my dreams. Their support and guidance complete me.
In three years, after I retire from my first career, I will be making ceramics full time. Until then, I will continue to develop and improve my skills. One of the first things I will purchase with my first sales will be a power sander (either from Forrest Middleton or Diamond Core Tools), to improve on the task I presently do by hand, to ensure all bottoms are super smooth and scratch free. My next big purchase will be a large kiln.
My long-range goal is to do a ceramic residency someplace cool. As I move forward, I will be adding new functional pieces that can be enjoyed daily. Stay tuned!
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