Meet Ali Filippelli

Today we’re excited to be connecting with Ali Filippelli again. If you haven’t already, we suggest you check out our prior conversation with them here.

Ali, always such a pleasure connecting with you and thank you for sharing your stories, insights and inspiring messages with our community. We’re looking forward to getting the download and what you have been up to since our last interview, but first can you briefly introduce yourself to folks who might have missed the prior conversation.
Hello again! I have a small batch ceramics business in Cape Elizabeth, ME. I make functional pottery for the home that is heavily inspired by Scandinavian aesthetics – think clean lines, blue and white simple patterns – that sometimes get a little whimsical. My mother is from southern Sweden and I grew up visiting family there and at some point as an adult I realized how much joy I found in cultivating a similar “Scandinavian” experience in my home.The last time we talked, I had recently moved to Portland, I have been here now 6 1.2 years and had my business for 6 years. I work out of a home studio in my basement – I was pretty excited when I was able to move my studio from a friend’s garage into my very own space about 5 years ago.

Awesome, so we reached out because we wanted to hear all about what you have been up to since we last connected.
Since we spoke last, Little Gray Studios, has grown and shifted in many ways. I have a few wholesale accounts locally, I try to be thoughtful who I partner with, I want to love the space and believe in what they are selling. There is a locally family run coffee shop, an apothecary, a zero-waste refill store, and a home goods store that supports a lot of other local artists. They reach out to me because of what I make and my unique style, and I enjoy making custom work for them or having them pick from my recent collections. I also sell online – which forces me to stage and photograph my work, something I love but don’t always get to do. This past year my husband and I had a store in Portland called Treibdesign, after his design brand. We both sold our work – his a combination of his graphic pattern artwork and Maine based apparel called Maineimals, and mine my pottery. It was so much fun making collections for the store and interacting with everyone who came by. It was a 6 month pop up and hopefully we will be able to revisit that model again sometime soon. I also have a booth set up in Freeport, ME at M.A.D.E. a place for artists and designers to share their work.

My background is in museum/gallery archives and that shows in my work. I really like to do collections of pieces. To document my patterns, dial in the shapes, research what looks good, but also what feels good. With ceramics, I initially started with hand-building, rolling out slabs, coils, pinch pots. It was an incredible introduction to clay. Now I mostly throw on the wheel, but I rely on my hand-building often – when I want to alter a piece, add components, or combine two sections. For a long time when I was on the wheel I would throw pieces by feel and keep the sizing similar, but not exact. Now I am playing with proportions and what I think the perfect sized espresso cup is, or cortado, cappuccino, coffee…I think this is the archivist in me…loving order, taking dimensions, figuring out how much the clay will shrink. If I can figure out the shape I want ahead of time and know exactly the dimensions I need to throw, then I can free up space in my head for thinking about the pattern or glaze. It’s a fine balance, remembering why I started doing this, my love of working with my hands and being creative, and also feeling like I am moving this thing along in a direction with some consistency.

I try not to pay too much attention to what others are making and just think about what I would use in my home. This keeps me focused because there are so many people out there making things, beautiful things with their own styles and voices. So really if I want to keep doing this for as long as possible, I need to keep loving doing it. Which brings me to a new part of my life, motherhood. When we talked last, I was struggling a little bit with imposter syndrome, being newer to this, how other people saw me vs how I saw myself. I have a 3 1/2-year-old now and am home with him part-time. This duality, being a mother and an artist, brings a whole new set of challenges and distractions. Pottery is a slow process, coming up with ideas, working with clay, letting the pieces dry, firing them…I don’t like to rush it, nor can you really. Sometimes as a medium I find it hard to keep a schedule unless I have a big chunk of time set aside, which has been hard the past few years. So I have had to let go of a lot of expectations and just enjoy when I can be in the studio.

I think one of my favorite parts of all of this – aside from being able to be in studio and just play around – is hearing from people who love my work. I don’t say this in a self-important way, it’s just that I work alone and go down rabbit holes of patterns and ideas and then end up with a coherent collection (hopefully). I have limitations set by family life, by time, and by physical exertion. So when a piece makes it out into the world and I hear that the person who has it loves it, that they sought me out to buy a mug or a candleholder, or came across it by chance in a store and they use it daily – that really resonates with me. There is no showmanship in the production of pottery, but it should come across in the piece, you should be able to feel it in the holding of it and looking at it, all the joy and effort that went into making it.

We have now arrived at one of our favorite parts of the interview – the lightning round. We’ll ask you a few quick questions to give us all some fun insights about you.

Favorite Movie: This Big Night is a contender, the soundtrack is pretty awesome as well

Favorite Book: Currently anything by Louise Penny, curling up with any of books in her detective series is a pleasure.

Favorite TV Show: Bob’s Burgers

Favorite Band or Artist: Miriam Makeba as a more recent find for me.

Sweet or Savory: Savory

Mountains or Beach: Both…I live in Maine!

Favorite Sport (to watch): I don’t really watch sports

Favorite Sport (to play): Hiking

Did you play sports growing up (if so which ones): Sure did…lacrosse, tennis, sailing, skiing

As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up: Archeologist

French Fries or Onion Rings: Oh man probably french fries, but every now then I crave these thick slice onion rings I used to get as a kid at a small beach club in Amagansett, NY

Chuck Rhodes or Bobby Axelrod: Sorry…you lost me there

Favorite Cartoon growing up: Pinky and The Brain

Favorite Childhood movie: Milo and Otis

Favorite Breakfast Food: Right now sharing a cheesy egg quesadilla with my toddler

When you look back on your life, what are three things you expect to be proud of?
I want to be able to look back on life with gratitude and not regret. I think that means trying to find little things daily to be grateful for, even if that sounds cheesy, I think it really changes your brain chemistry. There are so many things to be sad or scared or anxious about, those things can exist AND you can be grateful. Sometimes it can be hard to figure what to focus on and it doesn’t have to be everything at once. This is hard to do and takes practice.

So that being said, I think being a mother. It is the hardest thing so far I have ever done. There is no more before, it is only who you are after and who you will become while this little person or people grow under your care. It is wild. And crazy. Mostly crazy.

Hopefully I will be proud of the growth I have allowed myself. I will be able to shake off the narratives I have written about myself and keep changing.

The friends I have made and kept.

Website: https://www.littlegraystudios.com

Instagram: @littlegraystudios (finished work photography and sale updates) / @theroughlycut (studio process and daily life posts)

Image Credits
All photos taken by the artist.