Location: Blayney
Offers: Weekly pottery classes and wine nights
We spoke to: Owner and teacher Chelsea Howarth
May 2025, by Callum Robinson
At just eighteen-years-old, Chelsea is by far the youngest person we’ve spoken to in our research, and it’s impressive and reassuring to see someone so young with serious entrepreneurial spirit. Six months ago, she launched Chelsea Ceramics, a series of pottery making workshops and bookable ceramics-based days that have taken off in Blayney.
The workshops are held at the Platform Arts Hub, the artist studio spaces managed by Sidetrack Arts in the heritage listed Blayney Railway Station. Regular offerings include Friday evening classes for ongoing learners, and Saturday pottery and wine nights, with a focus on beginner-friendly hand building techniques like slab, coiling, and pinching.
Chelsea is currently studying pottery herself, completing a Diploma of Ceramics at Kingswood TAFE after falling in love with the medium in high school art class and self-teaching. She says that teaching is great for the learning process, solidifying her new skills as she passes them onto others. Besides classes for adults, Chelsea has been running workshops for kids during school holidays, and finds teaching kids particularly fun and rewarding.
‘People are surprised how well their pots turn out, and that makes them happy, achieving something creative that they didn’t expect.’
Chelsea’s studio set up includes branded aprons (including cute kids sized ones) and often cheese platters, birthday cakes or lunch provided.
Living with her family on a farm near Blayney, Chelsea is strongly supported by her mum especially, who is helping her build her website. Chelsea is also very adept with Canva, her favourite tool for creating the promotional info tiles she posts to her Instagram. She does all her social media marketing herself and said she’s surprised how well her business has grown simply from posting to Facebook and Instagram, and word of mouth.
By virtue of this strategy, and perhaps by being so young herself, Chelsea has captured a mostly younger audience so far (her schedule is full of lots of school holiday workshops, even unique parties for small groups of kids and teenagers).
Most of Chelsea’s students are coming from within the nearby region, with potential to expand to visitors from further afield as the business grows. Chelsea is also diversifying her business outlets, selling her own pottery at regional events like the recent Food & Wine festival in Orange, Blayney high tea, and has pieces stocked at Dirty Jane’s, also in Orange.
Collaborating with a yoga instructor friend Serena Louise, together they’ve already trialed hosting a yoga and pottery morning tea. Neighbouring Millthorpe village gets plenty of visitors, with cellar doors and boutique accommodation in its heritage setting, and Chelsea would love to partner with one or more hospitality businesses there to promote her weekend workshops.
Five tips we got from Chelsea:
- You can start small, see how things go, and build from there.
- Make your workshops and experiences easy to book online.
- Make workshops a complete experience – food, decor, branding.
- Make the most of skills that family and friends can offer to help you out.
- Seek out opportunities in the community for collaboration on events and cross-promotion.
More info:
https://www.instagram.com/chelsea_ceramics
https://www.facebook.com/people/Chelsea-Ceramics/61568541032254
IMAGE: Chelsea Ceramics
