There’s work, there’s play, and then there’s life. What if your work was more playful, rooted in inspiration, improved when you danced, involved your best friends, and enhanced your well-being? What if your playtime generated income, gave you fulfillment, and challenged you to reach new heights? What would your life look like if work, play, finances, vacations, research, marketing, inspiration, shopping sprees, and weekend getaways all served the same goals?
I touched clay for the very first time in September 2019. I took a beginner’s class at Cary Arts Center in Cary, North Carolina. It was an instant addiction that I sated with every waking moment of my day. I taught myself how to throw two weeks before we learned in class. I spent day after day practicing, burning through fifty pounds of clay each session. And I spent nights planning the next chapter of my life in overwhelming detail. I launched my ceramic design studio, DEEP BLACK, in March 2020. That summer, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and so many more, I began to rise to public consciousness, and the path forward became clearer. In November 2020, I bought a home in Portsmouth, Virginia, the closest thing that I, as a Black man in America, have to an ancestral homeland. I left my hometown at just sixteen years old and returned almost exactly sixteen years later. Behind the house, beneath an ancient pecan tree, on a half-acre of richly grassy land, sits a 900-square-foot detached building that would become my permanent studio, Temple.
