Today we’d like to introduce you to Kellie Wright and Lindsay Minor.
Kellie and Lindsay, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
We are best friends from high school, and now next door neighbors! I had the idea to start a ceramic impression company when I realized that Fort Worth did not have one, after taking my children to Dallas to have their prints made as babies. When Lindsay moved in next door, I convinced her to do it with me. Neither of us has any art or ceramic background, so we started from scratch and taught ourselves every step of the process. We bought a kiln, and eventually another one, and practiced for several months before officially opening to the public. It has been a wild year, and the response in our city has been amazing! It really seems that people in our area have been looking for a service like this for some time, and it has been really fun to be able to provide lasting keepsakes to so many families.
Has it been a smooth road?
It has been a lot of learning as we go! We’ve had a few casualties in our kiln, which is always extremely frustrating, but that is the nature of ceramics- no kiln firing is exactly the same. We have learned how to be more efficient in every step of the process- how our clay best dries, how to avoid cracks in the clay and exactly how to glaze with each color so that it comes out showing all the details in the child’s hands and feet. We’ve learned a lot about being small business owners as well, which neither of us has any background in either! Honestly, the hardest thing has been having to say no to so many people. As much as we’d like to be able to say yes to everything, we are limited in the quantity we can do as there are only two of us and we are full-time moms and have other part-time jobs as well. We do our best to say yes to as much as we can without sacrificing the unique quality of our work.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Cowtown Clay story. Tell us more about the business.
We make ceramic impressions of children’s hands and feet- think custom plates, jewelry dishes, and ornaments. We are the only business of our kind in the greater Fort Worth area. Every piece is completely hand made from start to finish. We do every step of the process by hand- including rolling the wet clay, taking the child’s impression, cutting out the design and hand scribing or stamping the custom information into the piece, sanding imperfections out once the clay is dry, and glazing all the details. Our pieces serve as family heirlooms, special personalized gifts, and festive holiday decor. The really neat thing is that we get to make keepsakes for families that will capture their children’s current size but last forever. We make a ton of custom plates and platters too – our customers are very creative! We are generally able to bring any custom idea (within reason) to life. Our most popular items this fall have been our Cookies for Santa plates and our Santa handprint ornaments.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
We are currently discussing where we want to focus in 2020 – we have so many ideas, but being a two-person operation makes it difficult to expand much beyond our current workload. We hope to hire in 2020 and open the door for more growth!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cowtownclay.com
- Email: cowtownclay@gmail.com
- Instagram: @cowtownclay
- Facebook: @Cowtown Clay
Image Credit:
Professional images by Bree Linne Photography
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