Today we’d like to introduce you to John-Michael Forman.
Thanks for sharing your story with us John-Michael. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Upon my graduation from Covenant College in 2010, I was in Chattanooga and jobless after getting turned down from the one job that I was banking on. I had a long term goal of opening a cafe-pottery studio combination, but that was for down the road. I was looking at a lonely summer of living with my parents and applying for jobs that involved my degree in Psychology. Then I started sneaking into the window of the Art Barn, Covenant’s quaint and much beloved former art building.
I bought some clay from a local distributor and started producing pieces in increasing quantities, honing the craft that I picked up in college. Then I started looking for craft shows in the region and booked one in Atlanta and one north of Knoxville for later that summer. I was already set up for glazing, firing, and even setting up a booth to sell my wares because of my sister, Danielle, who was producing pottery part-time and had accumulated all of the necessary equipment.
My first two shows netted less than $100 combined. I picked up a job in construction that July (which I had for two years), moved out of my parents’ house in August, and started calling my business “Forman’s Pottery.” I don’t know when I dropped the “‘s” but it was definitely a good call. That Fall, started producing out of my sister’s studio in their house on Lookout Mountain, and glazing and firing where her kiln was set up in our parents’ basement across town (where I would later set up shop long term). Through small sales and purchases from friends, I kept the gig going on a part-time basis as I remodeled houses in the Chattanooga area with the bulk of my time.
In the fall of 2010, I moved into a large, 2-story farmhouse on 22 acres in Flintstone, GA, just South of Chattanooga with five friends from college. Over the next two years we had 13 different housemates, countless communal meals, new traditions, endless good conversations, with ventures into gardening, beer brewing, ice cream making, and all sorts of creative endeavors that I still deeply value to this day.
It was here that I set up my second studio in one of the property’s many outbuildings. It was a little red block building with a few amps of electrical service and no running water. I would fill buckets from the house and carry them over on production days. In the winter, my throwing basin would often freeze over, and I had to move all of my freshly thrown pieces to the ping pong table upstairs in the house or they would freeze, expand, and fall apart.
In 2011 I asked my boss if I could start taking off every Friday to focus on pottery, which allowed me at least one full day in the studio per week. It was also around this time that I started spending time with a particular girl who just never ran away. I didn’t mind, and I still don’t.
In the back of my head was this vision for a cafe/pottery studio that embodied all of these values of community, craftsmanship, and creativity that were being fostered in our farmhouse life. That Spring, a local entrepreneur approached me about partnering with him in a version of this dream. We spent a few months building out space for a cafe in an old house on the north shore. As the months went by, both my pottery business and my relationship with Hannah began to flourish as my certainty about the wisdom of this new business endeavor began to dwindle.
In April of 2012, I backed out of the cafe partnership, turned my focus toward growing Forman Pottery, and asked Hannah to marry me. Also that same month the farmhouse era came to a close as our lease ended and we were dispersed amongst a handful of much less idyllic homes. I moved my equipment over to my parent’s basement in north Chattanooga, where I would set up shop for the next eight years.
In April 2012, I loaded up my wheel, kneading table, and shelves and took them across town to my parents’ basement, where I had been glazing and firing for the past two years. In the blank space opposite the sink and glaze buckets, I set up my work shelves and wheel, using a metal folding chair propped up on bricks as a stool. Later that summer I would trade some pottery for a Yamaha drum throne, which I still use to this day.
In the months leading up to Hannah’s and my October wedding I was working four days a week for a contractor on the backside of Lookout Mountain. I was still continuing to grow the business by working evenings, weekends, and every Friday, which was taxing, but I still didn’t have enough of a workload to make a full-time go at it.
In late July, I was moved to a project at work that my friend and workmate at the time, Dave, described as “building the sanctuary for the apocalypse.” We were essentially helping a guy build a homestead for the imminent end of the world, about which he and our boss preached to us every day at work, being certain to point out the insufficiencies of our faith and warning us of our coming eternal destruction. Being a sensitive soul on the cusp of a huge life change, I made the decision over the course of a weekend in August that I wasn’t coming back to work.
That Monday morning I drove to my parent’s house to start my first week of full-time work for Forman Pottery. As I dealt with the fallout of the previous months and adjusted to married life that Fall, I made my first dish sets and logo mugs. That November was also the second year of my big sale in Vicksburg, MS at my in-law’s house. I made $2, 813 in one day. The next year I would almost double that. A lot happened in that basement in north Chatt in the eight years to follow. I got interns starting in 2015, which eventually led to me hiring my first employee in 2016. He stayed around and helped me grow the business for four years. Hannah and I settled in St. Elmo, had our twins, Peter and Eli, and continued to put down roots in our neighborhood with the hopes that one day we would move my operation to Tennessee Ave.
After years of planning and countless setbacks, in January of 2019, we broke ground on an addition to our house in St. Elmo that would house my new pottery studio. We had always wanted to expand our little bungalow into a home that could contain a growing family and foster the kind of hospitality that Hannah feels called into. The addition was completed that Fall in the midst of the usual flurry of pre-Christmas pottery production, so the new space sat empty through the end of the year. On December 16th, 2019, I worked my last few hours ever in the north Chatt studio, and then rushed across town to take Hannah to the hospital. Two hours later, our 3rd son, Abe was born. For the first time in almost ten years, I took a significant break from work (almost a month).
Meanwhile, my employee moved everything but the kiln across town to the new studio. When we got back to Chattanooga, we started the month-long process of building out the new space: insulating the block walls, running drywall, trim, and then way too many shades of paint. By the end of January, we had a shiny new space just below our new family room. With the logistical changes that the new space allowed, we shaved 2 hours off of our first glaze day in the new space. And then there was March.
Suddenly our children were all at home with us as Hannah and I figured out how to work full time and take care of them full time. A home studio now was absolutely essential, and I thank God everyday for the timing of things. The twins spend most of their time now in my studio, playing with my tools, telling me bizarre and elaborate stories, and asking endless questions while I work.
My employee’s tenure with Forman Pottery ended in April (a month earlier than planned) as he moved on to build his own pottery business. And now we wait. In an effort to keep our social bubble as small as possible, I’m holding off hiring another employee for the foreseeable future, meaning that I’ll be scaling things down a bit over the next few months. I’m grateful that that is a decision that I can make, and I’m praying for wisdom in figuring out how to structure my book of business for the Fall and Winter.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I’m glad to say that in a lot of ways, it’s been a smooth journey. It’s a lot of hard work wearing all of the hats for the business (especially the “figure out tax law and don’t screw it up” hat), but I’ve been able to move into each new thing so gradually that I think I’ve been able to avoid a lot of the pains of growing too quickly. I don’t take that granted; it’s truly a gift to be able to grow slowly. That slow growth has allowed me to try things and either fail or succeed without much fallout.
At all phases of my business, the place where I have always experienced the most stress is managing customer relations, especially when I make a mistake or something goes wrong with the order. There are countless variables to discuss when it comes to custom pottery orders, and I constantly live under the weight of missing important details and then having to make it up to the customer. I’m often surprised at the level of grace that people are willing to offer to strangers, but I’ve also had a few folks burn all bridges between us when something goes wrong, which does a number on my soul each time. My work is really personal, which I think most customers pick up on, and of course, I’m constantly tuned in to, so I do everything that I can to make each piece (or each order) expression of love and respect. I will almost always remake something for anyone to ensure that they receive that love and respect.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Forman Pottery – what should we know?
My tagline is that I make “functional stoneware in a dysfunctional world.” Every piece that I make is meant to serve its user through tangible function, and ideally in a way that helps folks rise above the tension of our world’s never-end troubles with a bit of joy and rest. Beautiful objects can’t heal it all, but they can make it just a bit more bearable.
Coffee mugs make up the lion’s share of what I produce (probably 90%) and most of those mugs are branded for various businesses and organizations. This is exactly what I set out to do ten years ago, and I’m really thrilled that it’s my primary work these days. The logo mug market is really ripe, and at our peak last year, we might have had the largest handmade logo mug operation in the Southeast (it’s hard to verify). I also make bowls, spoon rests, vases, dinnerware, and vessel sinks.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
My sister, Danielle was (and is) the single biggest influence for me. She was doing all of this a few years ahead of me and really showed me that pottery can be a life-long career. I did an internship with her my senior year of college, and she taught me a lot of the advanced techniques that I use to this day, as well as how to run a studio and mix my own glazes. A lot of the glaze recipes that I use ten years later are the ones that she shared with me.
Both of us have our mom to thank who has always been a huge fan of handmade pottery and didn’t mind her children pursuing art as a career. She also let me run my business out of her basement for eight years, which is a kindness I can never repay.
Pricing:
- Stoneware Mug – $20
- Stoneware Whiskey Tumbler – $20
- Dinnerware – $90 per place setting
Contact Info:
- Address: 4515 Tennessee Ave, Chattanooga, TN 37409
- Website: www.formanpottery.com
- Email: formanpottery@gmail.com
- Instagram: @formanpottery
Image Credit:
Reed Schick, Shelton Brown, John-Michael Forman
Suggest a story: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
