This morning, I took a quiet moment to step outside the workshop and enjoy my breakfast in the garden. I thought, why not try out a few pieces from the Spring Collection? I wanted to see how it felt to use them in the very same place where they were conceived, thrown, turned, glazed, and fired.

I set a simple breakfast table: a slab plate for a slice of homemade bread and quince marmalade from our garden, a handmade cup filled with black coffee, the little milk jug, and the sugar pot, finished with a few fresh garden flowers in the vases. Eating outside, everything felt so right for the time and place. They brought a true sense of home.

May was destined to be the milestone month, the moment to launch our first collection and open the webshop simultaneously. As a maker, it was finally time to share these finished pieces with the world and welcome the feedback that will form the foundation for my next creative iterations.

The month began with a test of patience as I waited day-to-day for the delivery of the professional pottery equipment I had ordered back in March. On the 5th of May, a truck finally arrived with two heavy pallets. Crated inside were a professional 160-liter Nabertherm kiln and a pristine Shimpo RK-3D wheel.

You can imagine my excitement, especially when I tell you that until that exact moment, everything at Atelier Chus had been made on a tiny, manual 28-liter oven from the 1980s and a loud vintage wheel. They served me beautifully over the last couple of years, but with a full production of 200 pieces waiting on the boards, the small kiln simply wasn't built for the task.

The new kiln is now fully installed in the barn, complete with a newly extended electrical line and a custom-built level base. Sitting next to its kiln furniture, the studio finally looks and feels professional

The new (super silent) Shimpo RK-3D on the left and the old Shimpo RK2 that may look quite similar, the engine though makes all the diffence.

Moving a 120-kilo kiln into place required rallying a few good friends, and then it was finally time for the first firing. Modern kilns require an initial empty run to cure the elements. Transitioning from a manual sensor that I had to physically rewire after every single firing to a digital controller that lets me monitor the internal temperature from my phone has completely transformed the making experience.

Loading the first bisque firing on the 8th of May required a massive leap of faith. I had to trust this new piece of technology to carry 200 of my raw, bone-dry pieces safely up to 1000 degrees.

Thank God, this worked. What followed was a complete marathon of glazing and firing—three intense glaze cycles packed back-to-back. The first glaze opening was a relief; there wasn’t a single running drop of glaze (a potter's ultimate fear) and only a few minor cracks.

In between the firings, I had to find a suitable spot for taking pictures and start making an inventory of descriptions and pictures for the webshop. I admit that the pictures looked so beautiful I could not believe I managed that. Lightroom is a great tool for touching up pictures and a good camera is the best companion.

An old piece of characterful wood with its own long history, used as a tabletop for the photography.

The final glaze firing was opened on the afternoon of the 21st of May. In ceramics, timing is everything; after the kiln reaches its peak temperature of 1240 degrees, you must wait more than a full day for it to naturally cool down to a safe handling temperature (ideally around 80 degrees).

I had promised early webshop access to our newsletter community at 18:00 that very evening, which left me just a few hours to un-kiln, photograph, and upload the final pieces. It was a beautiful, beautifully chaotic day of editing, writing captions, and watching the Instagram countdown timers tick away.

My husband always tells me, "If you are happy about the launch, you were late for it." So, ready to accept any outcome or failure, I unlocked the doors for the 50 people on our mailing list. Seeing the very first orders come in from dear friends was incredibly moving.

The next morning, May 22nd—the day of the public launch—felt like a peaceful stroll by comparison. With the final webshop details settled, I shared the news on Instagram and experimented with my first digital ad using a photo of our small nibble bowls. Around 220 people visited the studio's digital home on that first day, with more orders quietly filtering in over the week that followed.

The picture used for the first Instagram ad

If I had to pick one from all these pots, it would be the little milk jug (shown in the first picture), it is a unique piece and it feels very special. I will definately try to reproduce it. The pieces you liked the most are the little diamond tumblers (I produced around 30 more this week), the peeled tumblers, the little beeswax pots (some natural beeswax will arrive soon for more of these pots) and the bud vases.

Here we are, a week after the launch, approaching the end of this incredibly busy month. May has taught me so much. What I take away from it all is a renewed promise to myself: I must simply keep enjoying the act of making. That is why I do this, after all. The sales will come if I stick strictly and purely to the craft. The second lesson is to listen to feedback, to genuinely listen, absorb it, and let it guide the next iteration.

Atelier Chus officially started on paper on April 1st, but May was the month it truly came alive. This journal entry became a little longer than planned, but I wanted to anchor these memories before they faded into my memory. June will be focused on the new collection, the summer collection and the first thoughts around it are related to the sand and the sun. Let's see where they will take us!

If you managed to read all the way to the end, thank you. Thank you for following along on this journey.

With warm wishes from the garden table,

Ourania

May Journal: Notes on a quiet morning