Meet Melissa Meier Lyons | Ceramic artist & maker of other cool stuff.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Melissa Meier Lyons and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Melissa, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Several things happened in my professional life that led up to starting my own business. My first experience with self-employment came after a layoff. I was fortunate to not have to go back to work right away, and my husband encouraged me to launch my own consulting business. This endeavor was marginally successful, but it led to my discovery of the Birkman Assessment. While I added the Birkman Assessment tool to my consulting practice, one of the key things that I learned about myself was that to enhance my level of personal fulfillment, I need to do something artistic every day. This insight was revelational because my original life plan was to be an artist/art teacher. I have always had a passion for art. Then, call it kismet, call it the law of attraction, one of my first clients was a ceramic artist with whom I bartered business development work for ceramic lessons.

Ceramic art became a passion, and now that I’m retired, I can’t stop making cool things with clay. After loads of compliments, a burgeoning inventory and a very successful friends and family home shopping event, launching Missy Bee Handmade was a no-brainer. I should also say that I illustrate, paint, and have a wicked addiction to crocheting. Ring the bell, more inventory to sell!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
While I mess around with other art mediums, my passion is for ceramic art. I am a hand builder, as opposed to using a potter’s wheel to make my art pieces. My introduction to hand-building started in high school and was reintroduced to me nearly 20 years ago when I worked with Justine Ferrari, a whimsical sculptor from North Carolina. Putting my hands in clay and manipulating it into a form for the first time in years was pure joy. I’m not stuck on making one thing, like mugs, plates and bowls, I am all about variety, and have recently started making animal bellied pots with legs. How fun is that? The one thing over form, is that I am passionate about my finishes. These are my signature. Whether flowers, words, texture, or other images, I use bright over muted colors, and always, a little bit of imperfection as a mark of my work. After all, handmade is never manufacture-line perfect and I am not a production potter. My pieces may be similar, but all are one of a kind.

The obstacle of being someone who loves to make things with clay is finding somewhere to do it. In North Carolina, I had one resource, Justine. Then, moving back to Colorado in 2012, it took a couple of years to find a place to work. I was thrilled to find Hoi Polloi Studio, but then my husband and I moved, and it was too far to go to NOBO on a regular basis. Nearly five years ago, I ended up building a home studio and buying a kiln, which has been an experience all its own. Thank God I have maintained my relationship with Debbie Hill, potter and former owner of Hoi Polloi! She is both a friend and a mentor.

Learning is an ongoing adventure, and failure is inevitable. I have dealt with cracks, explosions inside the kiln, glaze failures, crazing, and more. Thank God for Google and YouTube. Online tutorials, publications, other artists, asking questions and a willingness to experiment are all part of becoming better and better at this craft.

Marketing is another adventure in it and of itself. It is also one of my biggest obstacles. Taking pictures of my work, setting up shows, finding places to display my art, writing promo pieces, etc. is time away from making delightful, fun, happy creations that put smiles on the faces of their keepers. As for the name of my business, Missy Bee Handmade, incorporating my nickname, Missy, was perfect. My formal name, Melissa, is translated from the Greek word, honeybee, or worker bee. And, Missy, because much to my dismay, the nickname of Missy stuck with me beyond childhood. The truth is I am Missy, and I am a worker bee and I completely love to bee making!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Picture a summer visit:

– Wine or mocktails (my bestie is not a big drinker) on our back porch, then homemade dinner
– Slow start morning with coffee-talk on the porch
– Trip to nearby Estes Park with easy hikes around Sprague and Bear lakes
– Late lunch or early dinner at the Cascades restaurant in the Stanley Hotel
– Trip to Boulder’s Pearl Street
– Spruce Confection for coffee and something yummy
– Shop, watch and stroll around Pearl Street
– Lunch at Foolish Craigs
– Revisit our old haunts in the mountains and laugh at stupid fun stuff we’ve done together
– A stop at Knuckle Puck brewery for afternoon refreshments and possible game of cornhole … we’ll drink kombucha
– Another trip to Boulder at either Sushi Zanmai or Pasta Jays, and a show at Boulder Theater
– Probably not a Rockies game, unless the guest’s home team was playing
– Bike rides or walks around our neighborhood lakes with lots of talking and deep spiritual conversations
– Time at our neighborhood pool
– A picnic and lazy afternoon in the shade at LaVerne Johnson Park while dipping our feet in the water and talking about our faith and favorite times, how we hate getting older, but saying it’s better that than the alternative
– Outdoor music at Spirit Hound Distillery with a yummy Robert Burns cocktail, she can have a ginger beer
– Dinner at the Roost or Gondolier
– Hang at home to not exhaust my bestie with time to talk in accents, laugh, dance and let the good times roll

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My high school art teacher, Rebecca Durham. Justine Ferrari, Ceramic Artist, North Carolina. Deborah Hill, owner of the former Hoi Polloi Ceramic studio in North Boulder, Colorado (wherever she may be), and my husband who is beyond supportive.

Instagram: missybeehandmade

Linkedin: Melissa Lyons

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mymissybee

Other: I’m working on a website with Square, it’s not ready yet.

Image Credits
All are pieces of my work and my photography. I could not get a picture of me uploaded that was horizontal … even though it looked like it was in my file. Maybe I could email something? Thank you for this opportunity.