Monochrome bottle currently on display at the beautiful @rachel_entwistle_jewellery store in Shoreditch. Rachel is one of the amazing connections that I made during the lockdown period. Initially we connected when the world was in shock, talked about trauma and how to deal with the situation we were finding ourselves in, both as female business owners but also as human beings in a world that was hurting. These conversations soon turned in to supportive chats about running a business from the heart, following your dreams, career changes, the importance of connection and community and more lately, issues around Black Lives Matter and what we can do to support our black brothers and sisters. I was already a fan of Rachel’s jewellery and now I’m a big fan of her beautiful soul too. I’m so thrilled to have my work on display next to her gorgeous pieces - perhaps serving as a little reminder that we aren’t meant to go this life journey alone. We need connection and our community around us. 🖤💫🔮☀️🙏🏼 #gratitude #skandihus #skandihuslondon #ceramics #pottery #keramik #madeinlondon #handmade #potteryclass #crafts #handmadeplates #handmadetableware #tableware #rustic #foodie #hackney #propstyling #minimaldesign #Scandinaviandesign #minimallove #monochrome #Supportindependentbusiness #danskdesign #shopindependent #danishdesign #scandinaviandesign #design #interiordesign #interior

Moon Dinner plate. Looking back at my journey from lawyer to potter, I think that in many ways, it’s been about returning to myself. One of the most obvious ways I’ve “reconnected” is through clay which essentially is about a reconnection between my hands, my brain and my heart. Another thing that’s really helped me return to myself is nature. Or walking in nature. During some of the more challenging times, I’d just walk and walk in my local woods. I think that as I started reconnecting with my surroundings in nature, I began to reconnect with myself and feel more comfortable in my own skin. In Japan, doctors will prescribe “forest bathing” to patients who suffer lethargy/depression/anxiety etc. We know that humans thrive better in nature and yet, most of us walk around in a semi detached state of consciousness on concrete ground in cities. It’s pretty screwed up! During lockdown, I’ve found the writings of the danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegård, really soothing. I came across this one which I just love so much: “Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.“ Just keep on walking! With love, Stine x 💫💕

This is a continuation of yesterday’s post about my change to doing something that I love. The change did not just happen in my “work life”. It happened in the whole of my life. I started approaching everything with a more present approach. I stopped worrying so much about things that don’t matter in the bigger scheme of things and trained myself to focus more on all the positive things in life. All the little acts of kindness that happen around us all the time. And I let myself feel more. I knew I felt a sense of happiness when making. That's all I knew. I've since come across the ideologies behind "mindfulness". It was like someone else had put words to what I intuitively felt and knew to be a better approach to life. When I was making, I was there in the moment, "staying" with what I was doing and, probably for the first time, I stopped running away from things (from myself?) and I stopped looking for the next fix that would fill the emptiness that I was feeling inside. I slowed down and started noticing all the little things in my life that gave me a sense of meaning and fulfilment: a smile from a passerby, the sun warming my face on the bus, a hug from a friend, a stranger picking up the papers I dropped in a shop - all the little miracles of life and the kindness in the world that so many of us are too busy to notice because we are living in a society that has become obsessed with success, happiness, beauty, achievements and instant gratification. As @mattzhaig says “happiness doesn’t sell”. Of course, I still have days when I don't manage to focus on the kindness around me and I feel stressed and overwhelmed. I then try to remind myself of the important fact that I’ve (painfully) learned: being busy and stressed is a choice just as slowing down is. I am definitely not some holy spiritual being who is always in control and always fulfilled and happy. No one is. By nature of being in this world, we will experience pain, loss and unhappiness. The key, I think, is to allow sadness, disappointment and failures to be part of our lives. To stop thinking that we are failing if we don’t jump out of bed every morning with a smile on our faces. With love, Sx 💫💕

When I quit my lawyer job back in 2014, I had to work my three months’ notice. A lot of stuff happened to me during those three months, as you can imagine. I remember going for my lunch break in Lincolns Inn, as I often did to eat my lunch on the grass, except this day I kicked off my heels and walked barefoot across the lawn (yes, I totally pretended to be in Pretty Woman...). It felt so liberating and I did not care what anyone thought because I was getting out of that world. The grass felt amazing under my feet. What did actually happen was that some barrister who passed me broke into a massive smile. I also remember buying a bag of lollipops and eating the whole bag at my desk - just because I could and wanted to. I was slowly beginning to care less about what I ought to do and what people expected me to do – or WHO they expected me to be. I felt the beginning of an overwhelming sense of freedom. What was happening was that I slowly stopped taking life – and myself - so seriously. I remember always having this sense of attachment and obligation that felt like a burden. I worried so much about things that actually really do not matter. I think once I had quit and let go of some of this and stopped caring less about my career and everyone’s expectations, not least my own expectations to myself, I set myself free. I shook myself out of this sleep like state that I had ended up living in and stopped living my life like it was happening to someone else. When you start caring less, when you stop being so wrapped up in your own life – you actually set yourself free and with this freedom comes an opportunity to do what you really want. So, I’d say, go out there and eat those lollipops! 🍭. With love, Stine x || Portrait of me and Alfie (who thinks he looks a bit goofy here) by @olaosmit for a shoot we did with @table_magazine for an article written by @alexandradudley

Vogue striped cake plate // I had a conversation yesterday with someone who told me that they have wanted to try to paint abstract paintings for ages. They then proceeded to tell me how they’d “probably be terrible at it”. It made me sad. I hear variants of this sentence a lot when beginners come to my classes. I too can have this inner critical voice that makes me say stuff like that. You know, just in case I’m bad at something new. I think a lot of it stems from living in a society that has made no room for imperfection or failure. So doing something just for the joy of it becomes almost unthinkable. To me, art isn’t about being good at it or not. I make art because it frees up emotions and gives way to expressing what otherwise has no voice in me. We live in a capitalist upward spiralling society that’s become so obsessed with achievement and success that we become almost paralysed when there’s a risk we will be less than great. So we walk the familiar safe route. But that road just leads you down a boring sad path that ends with death. Sorry to be blunt but it’s true. If you want to live, you’ve gotta learn to take a jump into the unknown without a care for what the result may be. To dare risk looking like a fool for joy. I sometimes tell students to make ten identical pots and that we will cut through every single one at the end of the class. As you can imagine, the initial reaction to this isn’t a positive one. I think a lot of that stems from how we attach so much to things these days (but that’s a discussion for another time). Anyway, this amazing thing happens when I do this with students. Knowing that we won’t keep what they are making, completely frees them up - and very often they will make the best pots they’ve ever made - why? Because they aren’t focused on the outcome but instead are feeling intuitively what the clay wants them to do. They detach from the mind with all its warnings that they may fail and instead tap into an intuitive knowledge that I believe that we all have in our hands. Hands that know how to shape the earth, if we just let them do the talking. With love and a hope that you’ll all risk being bad at something new, Stine x 💫💞

Ice cream bowls on a rainy day. Today feels like a day for inner stillness, so I thought I’d share this lovely Kafka quote with you “You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” - Franz Kafka ☀️🖤 #skandihus #skandihuslondon #ceramics #pottery #keramik #madeinlondon #handmade #potteryclass #crafts #handmadeplates #handmadetableware #tableware #rustic #foodie #hackney #propstyling #minimaldesign #Scandinaviandesign #minimallove #monochrome #Supportindependentbusiness #danskdesign #shopindependent #danishdesign #scandinaviandesign #design #interiordesign #interior #home

Still working on the book club but it’s too soon to share anything about it so for now, here’s a shallow bowl 🖤 #blm #skandihus #skandihuslondon #ceramics #pottery #keramik #madeinlondon #handmade #potteryclass #crafts #handmadeplates #handmadetableware #tableware #rustic #foodie #hackney #propstyling #minimaldesign #Scandinaviandesign #minimallove #monochrome #Supportindependentbusiness #danskdesign #shopindependent #danishdesign #scandinaviandesign #design #interiordesign #interior

See you there ✊🏼🖤 #blacklivesmatter

This morning I’m sitting with feelings of trying to be okay with failure; okay with getting it wrong yesterday. I posted a black square in the belief that it was the right thing to do to show solidarity but as the day progressed, I started hearing voices saying that what black people need right now is not white people’s silence. Instead we are being asked to hold ourselves accountable and to be vocal. Be explicit and loud in our condemnation of what’s happening to black people all over the world but particularly in America. It’s taken me until today to fully process all of this. I’m guessing I am not alone in feeling REALLY uncomfortable right now. That I’m not the only one who’s waking up to their privilege in a completely different way. Us humans are so bad at being told that we got it wrong, so bad at risking getting it wrong and even worse, so bad at being told that what we’re doing just isn’t enough. But I realised yesterday that I need to set all these feelings of mine aside and listen to my black fellow human beings, educate myself, share their stories, amplify their voices and help educate other white people. I am going to keep getting it wrong but it’s sure as hell a whole better than doing nothing at all. Fellow UK based ceramicist, @miloliren, posted the photo above which I thought was useful in terms of action we can take here in the UK, so I am sharing it on my feed today. Please PM me if you want help drafting a letter to your local MP. In solidarity with all black people, Stine 🖤 #blacklivesmatter #georgefloyd #justiceforgeorgefloyd

Good morning, Clay Club. I’ve been watching events unfold since the the murder of George Floyd, learning to my shame that I have so much work to do around issues of systemic racism and white privilege. That it’s not enough to be “not racist”. I’ve wanted to post more about it, wanted to use my platform to speak up for what’s right. However, whenever I’ve posted “political” things in the past, I have followers, friends, business mentors and marketing experts telling me that I’m harming my “brand”. That I need to be careful to not “dilute the identity of SkandiHus“. I’ve thought so much about this but over the last few days it’s become crystal clear to me where I stand on this. SkandiHus is NOT a silent “feel good brand”. It’s me - but more importantly, it is the community I have around me: my team (current and former staff), our students, customers and everyone who’s decided to follow along on here and elsewhere. That is what SkandiHus is: A COMMUNITY. And I don’t want to be part of a community that doesn’t speak up for what’s right; that stays silent because it may harm the identity of “the brand”. Sod that! Then I may as well not do what I do because it would mean not bringing a part of me into it. That part of me that is outraged at what’s happening and ashamed to learn that she needs to do more. The part of me that knows she needs to hold herself accountable and educate herself more so she can go from “not racist” to “anti racist”. So here is what I would love to do: Start an online book club where we read books to deepen our anti racism knowledge. Would anyone like to help me with this? Do you want to be a member of the book club? Can we set up an Instagram account for it? Do you have a name suggestion? Can you make a logo? Do you have book suggestions? Can we have “Instagram live” talks led by people with the lived experience of racial oppression? Can we create a platform where we listen to our fellow human beings who have a different lived experience by virtue of their skin colour? Can us white people be brave enough to face up to our privilege? Ideas, suggestions, comments etc welcome. With love, Stine x 🙏🏼❤️ #beantiracist #georgefloyd #blacklivesmatter