Hello dear friends!

My name is Maria, I am 27 years old potter from Estonia, Tallinn.

My pottery journey started 2 years ago, I had a severe anxiety and panic disorder and one day decided to go to ceramic courses and do something to maybe feel better about my life and myself in general.

It worked. I was amazed by clay and pottery, almost became obsessed. Started to visit courses every week for about 4 months and then though to myself: “why can’t I buy a clay and try to hand build at home?!?”. I did exactly this way!

Bought my first pack of basic ceramic clay and started creating at my kitchen. Was very inspired, of course I needed to pack all the dry items into the box and bring them to be fired at studio.

One day I decided to grow and start wheel throwing! I didn’t have much money for the good wheel and still didn’t know if pottery is the journey that I will stick with for long time, so didn’t want to spend a lot of money to later forget about this.

So I bought a cheap pottery wheel from AliExpress for 170€.

That was the game changer, I became more obsessed and excited!! Was creating at my kitchen and once in a few weeks took items to fire them at the local studio.

At the begging of the winter 2023 I decided to grow and rent a studio for my pottery journey. It became quite diffucult to do ceramics at my 3x3 m2 kitchen! So I rented out an amazing studio with my friend who also doing pottery.

Also, started to post my creations in Instagram.

Now I feel that next step is to have my own kiln to see a progress of my work, to be able to sell my pieces to people, to create a community and offer a workshops for my office colleagues and others who is interested.

Unfortunately, prices for kilns are huge and I cannot afford it.

The cheapest kiln in my country costs 2150€, it is quite small - volume is 20 litres. I really wish to create big projects, such as large vases and this volum wouldn’t be enough. I found an optimal size - 66 litres. Cost of it 3402€.

Having a kiln would give me an apportunity to fire my ceramics when I want, not when there is possibility at the local studio. Also, I wouldn’t need to pack every piece in a box with a huge risk of damage (oh! how many of them died during a transportation..).

I also will be able to experiment with glazes, create my own glazes and try all of them on the different surfaces!

I finally will be able to host a workshop - this is my dream! Teach people how to throw on the wheel or hand buld and then will be able to fire all the items and welcome people for glazing session! Oh boy! My dream!

In case you want to support me, please, donate and track my journey on my Instagram!

I am so generous even for the possibility to post here for help and really hope that it will help me.

Link to my Insta page: https://www.instagram.com/formnfire?igsh=MWlhcXAzMGFsOXF0MA==

Thank you! Love you!

FormnFire