Kirsty Morrison dreamed of working with ceramics when she was a teenager, and now she has her own homewares brand

There was nothing Kirsty Morrison loved more as a child than playing in the mud on her family’s farm in Frances, South Australia. Fast-forward to today and it seems little has changed. “I love creating new pieces and getting my hands in the clay,” the 37-year-old tells me from her studio in a shed on Camperdown, the property outside Tasmania’s Evandale where she lives with her husband Ben ‘Booey’ Morrison, 38, and their sons Bruce, five, and James, three. She spoke to Graziher about her life and her business journey.

The farm was my entire world when I was little. All I knew was Frances, which is on the border of South Australia and Victoria. Then my parents sent me away to boarding school in Geelong, and that is when I discovered ceramics.

The first thing I ever made was a teapot, which my mum has still got at home. It was a light-bulb moment. I loved the feeling of clay; I just loved the texture of it.

My dad always used to say to me, when I was kid, “You will know when you love what you do in life, because you will just want to keep on doing it.” And clay was it for me.

But there’s a big part of my story that I’m missing here: it’s the boyfriend I had when I was a teenager. I was 18 when he died in a car accident; it was devastating. He became my biggest incentive, because after that there was always a part of me that thought, “I don’t know when my time will be up.”

I started to write lists of all the things I wanted to do. Some would be little things like going to a Bruce Springsteen concert, but others were like going up north to work as a jillaroo, doing an acting course — which I did in Melbourne — and getting a degree from Marcus Oldham. I would try and tick them all off, and ceramics was one of the things on the list. Seven years ago, when I came down to Tasmania, I still had ceramics at the back of my mind.

All of these things that I’ve done were the baby steps that eventually got me to where I am today.

I met Booey when I was 21 and he was working on our farm on his first year out of Marcus. We remained good friends throughout our twenties. He was always the person I would call on for support. When I worked for RB Sellars, at one stage I was the only one on our team who had a truck-driver’s licence and I was asked to drive to field days. One morning I was very nervous, thinking, “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do it.” Booey talked me through it and told me I would be fine.

When I started working with clay, I had just had Bruce and I set up a table in the kitchen. I didn’t even have a rolling pin to roll out the clay, so I had to use a length of poly pipe! At first I would take pieces into town to be fired, but I had a few breakages so I decided to save up for my own kiln.

I couldn’t get a business loan to get the kiln, so I had to take out a personal loan. I was thinking, “What on Earth am I doing

What if this doesn’t work?” I had so much doubt and I had to really talk myself into it. But then I remember the thoughts coming through my mind like: “If I don’t do this, will I regret it?” And the answer was yes.

I was so excited when the kiln arrived. I was just like a little kid with a lollipop, and there was no looking back.

I named my business after Booey’s bulldog, Noss, and she was named after a variety of poppy that we grow here in Tasmania. Booey has always been so supportive. He has been part of the whole journey.

When I first started, I had no expectations. I said to Booey, “I’m going to do this ceramics thing. Even if I just make $50 a week to pay for my fuel, that’s me winning.” He always brings that up: “Remember why you started this, so you could have that $50?” And where it is today, I had no vision of that.

Someone said to me the other day, “The right people come into your life at the right time.” That has happened throughout my business journey.

When I look back at my teenage self, doing ceramic classes, I wouldn’t change a thing. I really lived in my twenties: I moved around a lot, I lived in Western Australia a few times. I’m very glad I waited to start my business when I did.

So, the advice I would give that teenager now, would be, “The world is your oyster, you can actually do it.”

Noss & Co is open from 10am to 4pm, Tuesday to Sunday at 2 Russell Street, Evandale, Tasmania. To buy online go to noss.com.au or subscribe to Graziher and choose your exclusive Noss & Co vase.