When Alison Watson sits at her poetry wheel, she is grateful. The wheel, the kiln, the art. The ability to do what she loves as a way to bring joy to others and provide for her family. There isn’t much more one can ask for, and Watson says that being able to create one-of-a-kind pottery for thousands of people from the comfort of her home is really what her wildest dreams are made of.
Watson began throwing pots in college and became quite good at it – even selling some pieces at local coffee shops. Pottery became more of a touch-and-go hobby, though, as she got married and raised her four children. In 2017, she felt the need to rekindle her love for creating pottery – but this time, with a goal of making a living.
“It was kind of one of those leaps of faith,” she said. “When I started this, my husband had lost his job suddenly. He had gotten another one, but we were scraping our way back out of a hole. My youngest was just about to start kindergarten, and I had this thought that I needed to work with my hands again and to do pottery. When you have little kids, it’s really hard to do because they’re crawling around in it and your hands are muddy, so you can’t attend to the kids or the pottery. So, I figured that when my son started kindergarten, I would have at least three hours a day to focus on pottery, and hopefully sell some pieces.”
Those three hours a day paid off. Not only did she start selling many pieces locally, but she was named the Resident Artist for Springville’s Art City Days in 2019. That same year, however, a snowboarding accident nearly threatened her future as a potter.
“While snowboarding, I had a collision with another border,” she said. “We just didn’t see each other and it was this horrible, stormy day.”
The collision that sent Watson flying through the air, required 15 screws, a rod and months of rehabilitation to repair her broken arm. When she was hoping to focus on pottery, healing became her full-time job.
Once again, her perseverance paid off, and her arm healed. Not only did it heal, but she was able to continue to hone her craft as a potter – so much so, that only a couple of years after her injury, she received a phone call that would change her life.
“Almost exactly three years ago, I got an Instagram message from The Food Nanny, asking me if I would be interested in making some pottery for them,” Watson recalled.
Watson knew right away who was messaging her because she had watched the BYUtv star for years.
“I had watched some of her shows way back when I had my youngest child, which is funny because I don’t watch TV,” Watson said. “Somehow I came across her show, and I was like, ‘this lady’s got such a good vibe’ and she also always had great dinner ideas. I made some of her meals, and fast forward to 2021, I got her Instagram message, and I knew right away that I wanted to work with her.”
After meeting with Liz and Lizzy who are the mother-daughter duo on the show, Watson was asked to create bowls for making sourdough. Watson immediately said yes, even though she knew full-well that she had never made a bowl that size before in her life.
“The size that they wanted, I had never actually done,” she said. “I didn’t tell them this, but instead asked how many they wanted, thinking it was going to be a few dozen or whatever. They’re like, ‘oh, we’ll start with 600.’ I was like, ‘holy smoke!’”
Having taken a leap of faith before, she decided to jump with both feet in and not look back.
“I said yes, and the next thing I knew, I sat down to start doing them and I was just having failure after failure,” she said. “I kind of knew this would happen, because anything leveling up, there’s kind of a learning curve. I was a little nervous there for a bit, like, ‘shoot, did I make this enormous mistake saying yes?’ Now I’m two years into it, and it makes me really happy because it has been fun to dive deeply into a very specific piece of pottery that’s really challenging.
“The bowls have had a very warm reception,” she continued. “Everybody was just excited about it and they loved them. It’s just such a blessing. I’ve got a waiting list of people waiting to buy these. As quickly as I can make them, people buy them.”
Thousands of sourdough bread bowls in, and Watson says that she still can’t believe that her leap of faith to make pottery has panned out the way it has. She also said that she has a lot of love and gratitude for the support the community has shown her.
“It’s really a dream come true,” she said. “I couldn’t have written myself a better script for how this could have gone. And just the way my community has rallied around me and the love and support that Utah in general for small business and hand-makers is amazing.”
The bowls that have been tried and tested by thousands including Watson herself can be purchased through her Instagram page @alisonwatsonpottery or @thefoodnanny.
“It’s a good happy chapter,” she said. “The love I felt from my community has been amazing. I can’t thank the community, markets and The Food Nanny for taking a chance on me. It’s really taken a village that’s made this whole thing happen.”
