Julie Bricknell has been throwing pottery for the past 15 years as a hobby. She took her first basic pottery course in college in the 1970's and further developed her skills with adult continuing education classes in pottery at Southeast Missouri State University in the 1990's. She is now working toward turning her love of clay from a part-time business to more of a full-time passion; with hopes of phasing out of her "day job" to spend more time playing in the mud and selling her wares. Thanks to Jump-Start program and the grant awarded to her in the spring of 2007,  J. Brick Pottery is flourishing. 

Julie's studio is located off of the barn at her home in Pocahontas with a kiln, pottery wheel and glazes.  She said that it takes several weeks from start to finish to complete a piece of pottery. Usually the process includes making 50# worth of items to fill a kiln and firing it twice to get a finished product. With physical demands of preparing the large amounts of clay and recycling left over clay, she said she found it hard to have enough energy and time to create her finished pottery pieces. In addition, Julie sells her items (many are pre-ordered and sold as she makes it) in a local Cape Girardeau, MO., gallary called Mozaic.

It was when Julie finished the JumpStart class, submitted her business plan, and was awarded grant funding that she started seeing her hobby turn more into a full-time job. 

"With the grant awarded," she said, "I was able to buy a piece of equipment (pugmill) that mixes the clay to the right consistency and reclaims left over clay to use again."  She added, "This has really saved my joints and makes it more time efficient to produce a finished piece." 

The grant also enabled her to purchase a laptop to record inventory, track invoices and sales more efficently. Since it is difficult to carry every piece of pottery to shows, she also uses the laptop at festivals and galleries to present her work in slideshow format.  She also encouraged her husband Steven to attend OJS later the following year, as he is also an entrepreneur. 

Her pottery can be seen around the Cape Girardau area at Cup N Cork, Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum, the Tower Rock Winery in Altenburg, and the Simpatico Fine Arts Gallery in Clarksville . She was featured in an issue of Missouri Life in a layout on Christmas ornaments made out of local Mississippi River Mud.

See more info on Best of Missouri Hands Web site:  www.bomh.net and look under artist for Bricknell, or please contact Julie directly at Jbrick@myway.com.

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