October's Favorite Shop Feature - Freefolding

October has brought fall color to Nebraska and a new feature to the blog!  This month will include a "Favorite Shop" pick featuring an established Etsy seller with beautiful products.  My "New Shop" pick will be published in a few weeks.

My first favorite shop pick is Free Folding by Michal Keren Gelman.  Michal's shop includes gorgeous ceramic items with unique designs.

Why did you decide to start your shop?
Etsy represents for me the opportunity to communicate with new and various crowds, to be a part of a community which appreciates and shares interest in the creative process of arts and design.  After the last 6 years in which I was teaching, working, giving lectures around Israel, I want to be able to reach and sell my work on a wider international scale.

What does your shop name mean to you?
Freefolding is for folding clay sheets.  I investigate its options to be folded, closed, and to create a container.  The name Freefolding (sounds like the song - Free Falling) reminds me of the feel of a play ground, a child like movement, free and brave and surrendered.  Clay wise - I learn how to flow with it, listen to it; I am often surprised by it.

How are you inspired to create your products?
My main inspiration comes from clay itself. New ways to unravel traditional forms and to play with them are the force that attracts and motivates me forward. Textures as well are my main inspiration. My eyes seem to constantly be drawn to them. I look them up everywhere I go, sometimes I like to see myself as a textures hunter...

What is your favorite item in your shop?
I can't choose. They are all my kids...but I have a special warm feeling for my latest collection, "Norwegian Wood" of trees I pictured and print on my pots.

What makes your shop unique?
My shop is unique for it's bringing a different style of functional contemporary ceramic.  I design and make ceramic home ware by a unique technique of clay folding, engraving, and silk printing. Though delicate and so fine looking, the pots are amazingly practical and can be used anywhere in the kitchen being oven, microwave, and dishwasher proof.

What is your favorite part about running an Etsy shop?
My favorite part about running an Etsy shop is to communicate, meet, and reveal people and artists from all over the world.  I am excited to know that kitchens, homes, and hands across the oceans are holding and embracing a cup or bowl and it becomes part of their life.

What has been the hardest obstacle in starting your shop?
For a few years now, I've been planning to open my own shop on Etsy, but raising three kids, and the daily hustle and bustle, didn't allow me to be fully committed to opening my own online shop.  So time was my hardest obstacle...I used the help of a senior Etsy seller to make the shop alive and kicking.

What is the biggest lesson you have learned from starting your shop?
Well...I'm learning all the time so many things.  About patience, belief, more patience and mainly not to forget the joy of creating and making.  It is so easy to get lost in this magnificent jungle called Etsy.

Michal's shop showcases beautiful ceramics full of life and texture.  I would say her patience has paid off with these wonderfully modern and unique items.   Please visit her shop to check out additional items through the following link -  Freefolding

Images used with permission from Michal and Freefolding.