Mixing pottery with poetry - Interview with Michaela & Chris seatree | A Creative Life
A Creative Life is an interview series looking at the road less travelled. You’ll hear from artists, writers and other creative practitioners. And you’ll learn about their paths to discovering a new sense of freedom through a creative project or business.
How to merge your artistic mediums and make a business
Described as an on-going experiment into living creatively, seatree is a ceramic art and pottery business run by husband and wife, Chris and Michaela Goan. Michaela creates most of the art which incorporates Chris’s original poetry, creating a fitting marriage between the couple’s two passions: art and words.
Surrounded by inspiration from wild seascapes and mountains, to forests and beautiful empty beaches near their home in Argyll, Scotland, Michaela and Chris sit down with me over a video call to talk about their journey into creative life.
What life looked like before seatree
For many years, Michaela worked in the community and voluntary sector, across advocacy, community regeneration projects, and work with adults with learning disabilities. Throughout her career, people were always at the core of her work.
“One of the nice things about the shift to what we do at seatree is that we still do that. We do workshops in the community,” she explains. As Michaela worked part-time, she started exploring pottery. At first, moulding clay and firing up the kiln was just a hobby. But over time, Michaela fell in love with the craft and started selling her work at ceramics fairs.
Chris, too, worked with the community. As a senior social worker of almost 30 years, Chris worked mainly in mental health and managed a mental health service.
“I never felt like I fitted the organisational mould of the senior manager. It was always a massive struggle for me to keep the humdrum, essential work going. And for the last 10-15 years of my career, I just was desperate to do something else. And I never really thought that I would have the opportunity to do that.”
Chris explains that the couple had a young family, a mortgage to pay, and all the day-to-day worries and responsibilities that stop many people from pursuing something new. When Chris decided to finally make a change, “it almost happened partly because I had no choice.” With the mounting pressures and stresses of his job, Chris was suffering from severe burnout.
How to create a different way to live
Seeing Chris’s mental health suffer, Michaela was determined for them to find another way to live life. They thought about selling up and living in a caravan, and considered other options that could allow them to live more freely, slowly, and creatively.
That’s when Michaela discovered The Design Trust, a specialist online business school for designers, makers, and professional creative business owners. She joined their year-long programme, Dream Plan Do.
“You get a number of voices saying, ‘It's not possible. You can't make a living that way,’” Michaela says. “Including mine,” Chris laughs. “I was very sceptical.” Chris even kept his social work registration for the first four years of seatree. But the programme showed Michaela that, contrary to popular belief, it was possible to make a living from art as long as you have the right strategy, proper planning, and a real fire in your belly.
The couple knew that to live the life they wanted, they had to take the leap together, and build a business together. While Michaela worked on pottery, Chris dove deeper into words and poetry.
“For a number of years, I had been active in writing, and published a few books of poetry. So, the direction was set.” Chris knew what he wanted to do. But he needed the time and freedom to be creative and to find a way to make a living from his writing.
The out-of-the-blue fairy tale part
To free up some resources to allow them to pursue a different way of life, Michaela and Chris decided to downsize and put their house on the market. On the very day they sold their family home, Chris received a dream phone call.
“I was contacted by an organisation who look for people that have some kind of idea to produce positive change in society, in the community.” Chris was nominated by someone else who had benefited from this fellowship. The organisation didn’t want Chris to set out what he was going to do with his funding or even provide a rough plan. “They gave me what amounted to a part-time salary for a year.”
The couple couldn’t believe their luck and the seemingly divine timing of it all. And along with Chris’s funding, he was also given a pot of money to give to other artists and makers, to support them in their creative projects.
“We knew somebody who was writing poetry, who was working in a fish farm because she had young children, and she couldn't take any time off. We gave her some money so she could take a few months off work and do some writing. And there were quite a few of those stories. What an amazing organisation,” Michaela says.
How to take the leap and bet on yourself
This incredible opportunity gave Chris and Michaela some peace of mind that they had enough funds to pursue their art for a year. Chris used that time to write, edit a poetry collection, and get involved in other creative projects, while Michaela built the seatree brand.
That year gave the couple time to dream, to explore ways to live more sustainably, reduce their carbon footprint, and even start growing their own food.
“We've discovered that, remarkably, it's possible to live on a fraction of what we used to live on. And with no apparent difference to our lifestyle.”
Michaela and Chris admit they probably work harder now. But they’ve found the joy and freedom to design their own lives.
When the weather is nice, Chris can be outside in nature, designing forest gardens, or planning for a new venture in live performance. When they’re not travelling up and down the country selling at ceramics events and craft fairs, Michaela can dive into creating art, from plates and vases to poetry plaques and sculptures. But the couple admit, “sometimes it’s been bloody hard”.
How to muddle through tough times
Chris says, “We’ve fallen out sometimes. We've been married a long time, we approach the tasks very differently. I'm instinctive and Michaela needs to plan. I start with the idea. She starts with the raw material, the clay. But we do work through.” Chris explains that with the pressure of running their own business, he even experienced a period of depression last winter.
The couple recognise that people might hear their story and think it’s fantastic, which it is, but that it’s important to be transparent about their path coming with its own challenges. “It’s part of the journey, too. And it’s not even a part you wish wasn’t there because you don’t make changes in your life without the difficult things you encounter.”
Despite obstacles, Michaela and Chris have crafted a way of life where they can explore the things they love with the person they love. And they wouldn’t change that for anything.
Finding peace and joy
Michaela explains that a key part of running a creative business is self belief. “From doing the Dream Plan Do programme, I realised we could make this happen. And knowing that if we didn't, we’d just go get a job. But I don't think I ever really thought we'd have to do that. I just thought, ‘This is actually manageable’. And this is what we actually need to live on, and if we can just achieve that, that's all we need.”
When I ask what advice the couple would give to someone who was thinking about following a creative path, Michaela explains that a helpful exercise is to write down 15 reasons why you want to explore your specific business or project.
“When I got to the end of the 15, which is actually quite hard to do, I realised that I hadn’t even mentioned pottery or clay. And it was all about living a creative life, making a space for other people to find their creativity, working with Chris, together, on something rather than living two separate lives…That is the crux of it, being able to be creative in whatever way. At the moment, it's pottery and clay for me, and for Chris, it’s words. But that might change. And that's okay.”
Where to find seatree
Curious about Michaela and Chris’s poetic pottery? Fancy buying a piece of your own? Here’s where you can find seatree.
Website: seatreeargyll.com
Chris’s blog: www.thisfragiletent.com
Instagram: @seatreeargyll
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seatreeargyll
Stockists & Ceramic Shows: https://seatreeargyll.com/where-we-are/
If you’d like to be featured in A Creative Life, get in touch at hello@sophiecampbellwriter.com
