Episode 412: Amanda Dziedzic Hot Haus Studio
In this episode, Fiona chats with Amanda from HotHaus Glass emphasizing the importance of starting small and staying resilient. Amanda shares insights on building a brand, the creative process, and the challenges of running a business. Tune in!
You'll Learn How To:
The importance of aesthetically pleasing
Balancing creativity and practicality
Sources of creative inspiration and balancing work with personal life
Coping with copycats and the importance of originality
Advice for aspiring artists and the necessity of formal training
The physical demands of glassblowing
Building an open and honest company culture
The importance of outsourcing and working smarter
The value of hard work and perseverance in achieving business success
Encouraging listeners to take the first step towards their goals
Early challenges and the journey from working in other studios to establishing their own
Securing initial funding and managing finances for the business
Balancing creative work with business responsibilities
The importance of loving what you make
Strategies for marketing and sales
The importance of community and support
The decision-making process behind the design
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We go on, we make what we love. And I think that at the end of the day, it can translate to sales because you believe in it so much. Like glass blowing is a tough job. It's hot, it's physical, it can be heavy, it's pretty taxing. I think if you're making something that you don't love, I don't think you're going to sell it. I don't think you're going to push it enough. I still get excited when I open up the inlet the next day to see what we've made and unload it. I was like, “This is beautiful. This is the one.” Look at this like I think I tell Laurel every day, this is the piece, this is the one I can go home now. I think without that excitement and love for what we are doing, I don't think it would be as successful.
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Welcome to episode 412 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today it is an interview with somebody super creative, super down to earth and super real about their business journey. I just know you'll get so many tips, insights and realness in this conversation. Before we jump into that, I want to acknowledge where I'm coming from and acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of this land. And that is the Woiwurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. I also ask today that if you are in Melbourne in particular, you listen all the way through to the end of this interview episode because there's some great activity happening in the next couple of weeks in Melbourne in relation to my guest today. I'm sure she would love to meet you in person at some of these events. Let's get into today's small business interview.
I first met the wonderful Amanda Dziedzic, who is an incredible glass artist years and years ago when she booked in for coaching. I had already known her work because I'd seen her profiled in various design publications and it was a real thrill. I have this all the time. I'm very lucky in my business in that I often know the businesses that come to me before they come to me. it's this real excitement to be able to meet them, understand a bit more about them, and then also help them as much as I can in their journey. But Amanda came for a couple of sessions of coaching, and then we have met numerous times since because Amanda doesn't live that far from me. But also years ago I asked Amanda to do a customer order and I sent out one of her glass pieces to all of my clients in my brand colours as one of our end-of-year gifts.
And just working with her, understanding her, she's so down to earth incredibly talented. For anybody who doesn't know, Amanda Dziedzic is a Melbourne-based glass artist and she's one half of Hothaus Glass Studio, which she runs with fellow glass artist Laurel Kohut. Amanda has been in this space for so many years. I think she originally studied at Jam Factory in Adelaide and she talks about that and what that did for her business, not just in the training but after and how she started her business as well. But she's also completed a research residency in Japan. She's undertaken studio placements in the UK. She's participated at the Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle as well as a residency in Scotland. This woman knows her craft and knows it incredibly well. In today's podcast we talk about that craft and how do you keep the passion going collection after collection year after year, how do you even know what to make and how you understand what will sell because this is a commercial business?
We also talked about her partnership, and what it's like to work with another partner in a business. And then things like the financial part of it and the actual creation of a studio when you're a maker and finding the right space, creating a beautiful space for you to come into work. And then the whole juggle. The juggle is real for anyone who has children and a family, or not even necessarily children, but other things that are going on outside your life that also have a huge priority in addition to your business. We talk about all of that and it's such a pleasure to talk to Amanda. She's so down to earth. And if you are in Melbourne, Amanda has a range of events coming up something very exciting that she's about to launch literally goodness me, in like a week or so. That is super exciting and great timing for this podcast to come out. Here is my interview with the wonderful Amanda Dziedzic of Hothaus.
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Hi Amanda, welcome to the podcast. How are you?
I'm great, thank you for having me.
I'm so excited about this and obviously, I've known about your business for a long time, but for people who haven't heard about it, what is your business? Tell us all about the name and when you established this and who else is involved.
My name is Amanda Dziedzic and I am the co-founder of Hothaus Glass Studio. I founded that with Laurel Kohut and we first founded, I want to say it's right when COVID hit like 2019. And then we got our studio and we were building our own furnace right when Covid hit. I'll never forget that, which is pretty wild. And that's quite wild to think how far we've come and it's insane. It's nuts. I know the world's crazy, but for me, that's four or five years? We're coming up to our fifth birthday this year.
Wow. Congrats.
Thank you. Laurel and I have worked together before that for, I want to say it's at least 10 years. It's a long time and we've both come through the JamFactory training and Monash University in another lifetime a long time ago. And through working together we made the jump and we have our studio now, which is Hothaus.
Which is beautiful. And I remember going there, that must have been in 2020 then.
That was in our first studio. We've been to two premises now, which is wild as well.
That is amazing. I still get so many people to come from, I have it right here, people can't see, but one of your bubbles and I gave them as Christmas presents to clients one year and they still, people are like, I still have that. It's so beautiful.
That's so nice. Thank you.
Oh no, so nice. Did you know what you're going to do immediately? Like when you said Monash and JamFactory and did you just know straight out of high school this is what I want to do?
I think I floundered for a while like most of us, but I went straight from high school to uni to do a bachelor of visual arts and just knew that I wanted to do something creative but not sure. That was in Adelaide and I did one semester in glass as an elective and just had a great instructor, Gabriella Bisetto who still works there now, but through timetabling that didn't work out. It wasn't until I finished that degree, that I moved to Melbourne and decided to try it full-time in Glass. I did Monash Fine Arts there. That was like three years. And then from there, I was like, well I'm just going to apply for the JamFactory Craft and Contemporary Design in Adelaide. Because that to me was my mecca. I'd seen them as a kid growing up around them and I thought that was super cool, like that's how you learn to blow glass. And that's a two-year program. Both Laurel and I have completed that. I got in there and I did two years training there, stayed for another year and a bit and then came back to Melbourne again. Lots of jumping around.
It might be a bit personal so you can tell me not to ask it, but what did your parents think? Glass blowing is such a particular thing. And also when you think about I did an arts degree, I think a lot of people did an arts arts degree. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I worked in a lot of call centres and I remember my mom being like, “What are you going to do with your life? You can just walk in a call centre.” And then I was like, “I've got an arts degree.” She was like, “What is the job at the end of that? And did your parents, because now you know you've got this successful business many people know about it. But what was the feedback from your parents? Or were they always just like, no super creative, go for it. Do whatever you want.
I never felt pushed. I never felt pushed from mom to just trying to think about that. Not like what are you going to do with your life? I've had so many jobs in that time and always worked part-time and usually would work sometimes I work three jobs so I could either study or do glassblowing. I don't think they worried about me in terms of work ethic. Maybe Mom just had faith in where I was going, but I'd never felt that pressure of needing a real job. I wonder if that's growing up in Adelaide, that great arts community is on show, like the Fringe, you think about their fringe festival, it's mind-blowing. I think about the JamFactory reputation there. I wonder if that played a bit of a part in it.
Also, it sounds like your mom is awesome and open and I think my parents were that typical like immigrants and like we've sacrificed everything later in life she was like, “I'm so sorry that I kept pushing.” She also took me out of drama and art in school as well. Anyway, my therapy session will be another place.
She was a great mom, but I think they just didn't see it. They didn't see you can get here, there and everywhere. When you started working you said, I came back to Melbourne and I started working. What jobs were you doing and were you trying to, were you getting a networking, like networking with architects or light companies or what work were you doing?
After I finished at the Jam, you have quite a few tools, you're in this great community. It's not just glass there, there's wood ceramics and metal. I was looking at a pop-up, that came in my feed and I was like, I did that when I was 27. I'm going to be 43 this year. When I came back I didn't earn a lot of money in those years as an associate, it's like getting away, so you could blow glass 24/7 when I went through, which meant sometimes you'd get up and you'd start at 6:00 AM and you'd finish at nine and you'd do it all again the next day. Because you're just learning. You just want to be on the material as much as possible. And it's nuts. After that, I guess I finished not having skills but not having a lot of money. I worked for other artists and assisted other Glassblowers. I also took on other part-time jobs, which I feel like I've done my whole way through. I worked, which I've always liked. I worked at the central markets and I've worked at, and I love my job at Borders. When borders were a thing.
I loved borders, I spent hours and hours.
Borders for me, it was like working with this great bunch of weirdos. They were all there to like their part-time job going through the job. It was great. But then there did come a point where I was like, I need to make some real money. I'm getting 30, I need some money. I worked full-time and I opened the two stores in Rundel Mall, Rundel Street. But I still don't know how I did it. I wrangled it so I could still blow glass one day a week. I worked a full-time job and I also blew glass one day a week as a manager. And then it just meant I could pay my bills a bit easier and still work. But then when I came back to Melbourne, I still dabbled in a bit of retail.
I also worked in pubs, but there just came a point where I was like, it's time to jump. You've got to be brave now. I booked a stall, like one of the tiny exhibitors at Life Instyle. If I can get four orders for my product, that's enough for me to quit my retail job and give me just, even if it's three months. I always had the mindset, that if I have to come back to a part-time job, I don't mind if it gets me to where I'm going. That's how I jumped and it just kept snowballing from then. It's like when you say yes to things and you open up, there are opportunities. I don't know if you see them or if they're just more prevalent. I believe it. I think that's how it works.
I completely believe that. I also think that mindset of I'm going to give this a go and if it doesn't work, there's always another option. I remember talking to my husband and I just quit a massive executive role. I was like, I used to work at Kohl's. If this doesn't work, I'm so happy to go work at Kohl's. I worked at cafes, and I've always had to be up early for different jobs. I'm like, give me a year to make this happen. If it doesn't work, I will go and get another job. I'm employable. Whatever it takes, I will. I think if you have that mindset then you're going to make it work. As opposed to this has to work from the start. I have to build this empire overnight.
It's not overnight. It's a gradual thing. It does help to have a supportive partner. I should say that. My husband, when we moved back I didn't make much at all in that first time. But I always wanted to pay myself a wage from the very beginning. It didn't matter how much. I try and tell that to everyone who talks to me. I'm like, I don't care what you're paying yourself, it has to be something. Otherwise, it's not worth it. It's not real. Anyway, I was getting a buy on like, it might have been 600 or 800 a week. I built up to that. But I worked with my husband he picked up the slack and then there came a different point in our relationship where I picked up the slack and I was the breadwinner. Having that support is pretty amazing too.
Completely. Can I ask, when you were at Life Instyle and you got the trade, were you selling vases, cups, and mugs? What was it and did you go there knowing what to sell?
I had two lines. I had the Yuma Mirror, which I still make now. And that started from my end-of-year show at the Jam and carried on into a product. And then I also had the display domes, with a turned timber base. I just like, it was so basic. I feel like it was even a meter by a meter stall. One of the tiny little ones came in and I decked that out and it was just me and that's what I took orders for. Just those two product lines. I'm trying to think if it was anything else, but I don't think it was.
How did you get from there and doing that under your name? I'm assuming I'm going to establish Hothaus, I'm going to work with Laurel. Like we're going to get a studio. it's much bigger than say I'm going to do this. I don't know if you are blowing them in your studio or if you were hiring somebody else's.
We're hiring. We would hire a minimum of once a week at a friend's studio, Maureen in St. Kilda. And we'd go anywhere. It was mental at that time as working when I was just working for myself. The momentum picks up a bit and I start to get a few bigger clients. Jarden is one of my biggest clients and has been for years now. What used to happen is, because when you are restricted to that one session a week and you've got to slot in with their studio and you only get maybe 12 kilos of glass and you're set to this tiny, anyway, it was just like, I can't make what I need to make. What I would do is I had this tiny Ute, I would get in my Ute, I'd get up at the crack of dawn, drive to Adelaide, and stay with my friend who also assisted me, Danny, and who has made my work for years now. I'd work maybe five sessions back to back. I'd make as many as I can. Between maybe 50 and 70 lights. Pack them up in the back of the Ute and drive it back home. Like within a week if I was lucky.
From Melbourne to Adelaide and then back, what is that, like an 11-hour drive?
Eight hours with no stops. I used to do that once every six weeks I reckon for probably maybe a year, at least a year. It gets to the point. I'm trying to schedule that and still keep my slot with the laws. We're talking about it and I think at the time laws was working at a gym maybe, and I'm trying to give her the pump up as in like, you need to quit the job and you should be working for yourself. And they're like, wouldn't it be nice if we had our studio? Or wouldn't this work? Wouldn't this work? And then before you know it, we are looking at spaces and we're like, we're going to make the jump. We're going to do it.
Even when you said before Jarden and for anyone who doesn't know that is a major brand here in Australia and very reputable, very recognisable and has always had a huge a lot of brand love for it. To get them as a client is massive with getting them. Was it just, not just but you being at life Instyle? Or did you pitch them separately? Like how did you win that work?
That one I believe came about from being in one of Lucy's, The Design Files when they had the open house. Remember those?
Yes. I spoke at the open house. That was one of my favourites.
I was in two or three of those. I think from that exposure, Jarden had seen some of my work and they were just starting to develop this lighting range at the time. And this is when they just started work. They work with a lot of artists now, but I feel like I was one of the ones from the beginning. And they contacted me. And we just massaged this relationship. I've been through a lot of different people at Jaran and I've seen people come and go. But I've been lucky enough to, we don't make lights for them anymore, but we make almost like seasonal homewares. I design a range for them each year and make it. But I think just by saying yes to different opportunities, you never know where it's going to get you. And in that beginning, I think you're hungry for it. You do say yes to everything. Whereas now I'm a bit like, there's power in saying no. But I think that only comes when you're a bit established.
Completely. With you and Laurel, sorry, here I am being like, I'm besties too. When you said, yep, let's get our studio and she's going to quit her job and I'm going to go full time and on my own thing, did you have enough knowledge of other people's studios that you knew financially how to take on that risk? Or was that new? Did you have any accounting background or people in your group or your networks that were like, let's run the numbers? This is what you need to earn. Who helped you with that? Or do you just know how to do that?
No, we took on as much information as we could. We were talking to Maureen, we're asking questions about her monthly gas bill. We also hire from Patrick Wong down in Morty. And he's very open. All the people we've come across in the glass community are very open. Everyone wants you to succeed. More glassblowers is always a good thing. Everyone was very open with their information. We took all that on board. But we also, like my father-in-law, he's a big-numbers dude. He and my husband helped me put together what we thought the numbers would be. What we thought we'd have to hit. We had figures like what I was pulling in now from these jobs like Jarden and what Laurel was pulling in from like her long-term clients of like, she has always made trophies for Monash University.
The Chancellor's Awards. That's a recurring job for her. And then we started to put those figures together. We wanted to pay ourselves a wage from the beginning. But then, to be honest, there are still unknowns. We knew what we thought we wanted to pay in our rent. That was going to be our biggest in the beginning. Because we didn't know if we could go hot straight away. We had planned to cover some of our rent with tenants. We're going to have tenants that would share the space with us. We tried to do as much planning as we could. But still, at the end of the day, it was a risk. We decided to take a risk and we thought, well what's the worst case scenario here? We can't afford to pay the rent. Or we'd get more tenants in maybe we can't blow glass, but we also put that in play by working hard and making sure we had jobs on to run. We joke and we built that furnace. Laurel got a job for us to make a thousand glass coasters.
Those coasters were not blown we made them in my tiny Tet load pickup kiln. Cutting the glass, laying them in, turning it on, get the next load out. I think it maybe did like, I want to say four, maybe 40 or 50 a time. All those firings and yeah that got us money in the bank to start the next job. We also invested money in ourselves. I'm happy to chat about figures. Honestly, we put in 5K each. We're like, “This is the startup.” And then we paid for our rent as well, but we had that little kitty and we added to it by getting jobs like the coasters. We also ran jobs in other people's studios. At the time I got a great job making the Mecca paperweights for them. Their gifts for their clients. That was an excellent job. I loved that. That helped sustain us. We paid a bit more in the outlay, but at the end of the day, we're still working in our field and putting money towards Hothaus.
How did you go from these big client jobs to, I know, and I might be getting this wrong, but I'm basing this on my following slash stalking on social media. And obviously, you and I worked together a long time ago. But like you do the bubbles and you do things that any consumer can buy, but then you also have these big brand collaborations. Were the brand collaborations always a thing and then it went to like direct to consumer?
No, I think it went the other way around. We started, well I was selling my products, the Yumi mirrors, what else was I making at the time? Those domes and then the colour state vessels. They were, I had stockers for them. They were going out. Quite significantly each month. And then once we had Hothaus, we had our online store. We're trying to drive income there. But I think for us it had always been about, rather than concentrating on one stream of income, we want to try and pull from as many as possible. Because what happens if one goes down, hopefully another one gets picked up. If there are no clients at the moment, at least we've got the product that we know we can make for ourselves to sell.
This is whether you're making it yourself like you guys or importing it or anything else, there's always a level of risk of what sells this year and then we order it or we make a whole bunch and then it doesn't sell the next year. You've got iconic things like the paperweights and the bobbles and your other pieces that people just love and want to collect. Has that always just been like everything we've made has just done well and we just make more of it the next year? Or how do you know what to choose and what sells? Or is it based on the stockers are telling us this? How do you make those decisions?
It's a bit by feel and we go on, we make what we love and at the end of the day can translate to sales because you believe in it so much. Glass boils a tough job. It's hot, it's physical, it can be heavy. It's pretty taxing. If you're making something that you don't love, I don't think you're going to sell it. I don't think you're going to push it enough. I still get excited when I open up the meal the, the next day to see what we've made and unload it. I was like, this is beautiful. This is the one. Look at this. I tell Laurel every day, this is the piece, this is the one I can go home to now. I think without that excitement and love for what we are doing, I don't think it would be as successful.
We didn't believe our height. How is someone else going to believe it? But things do not work out sometimes. I think everything does sell eventually, but it might not be as instant. You might not have that influx. We try and drive things like if we want to test something new, we might open it up for pre-orders. Just to test the waters there. And if it does well amazing, we might release that as a line down the track and keep it on. Or if it didn't do so well, it's like, well maybe the colors aren't right. Or maybe it's the wrong time of year.
How do you and Laurel decide on workload? Who does what? Who speaks to podcasts? Who does the media, who you know is doing your social media? Like there's all these other parts outside of the business that you're blowing glass. When you came together as a partnership, were you like, you are good at that or you naturally love marketing so you do that? Did you break it up into you do this, you do that? Or is it just always been fluid?
It's been fluid and now as it gets to be a bit more of a juggernaut, we have to sit down and go, who's doing what? I guess I take care of more of the social media and I do most of our design work or promo. And then Laurel was technical-minded, like it was her designs and we built our furnace and Laurel drove that. She was talking to the tech at Canberra Glassworks and she pretty much just has this great technical mind. That's how we work so well together we have quite different strengths.
But then it is fluid because like we text each other a million times a day. Because both of us have small children. Mine's he's at school, he is five and Laurel's son is just about to turn two. We try and juggle that. If we are not, and we only see each other now two, to three days a week in the studio, but we are texting, can you just do this? Do you mind sending this? Laurel takes care of the accounts because she took her when she took her maternity leave, that was a way that she could stay in the business and do those things while I was like the man on the ground at that time. And that's stayed the same too. Because she works fewer days than me currently. But it's tricky to find those who sit where, but so far we've been quite lucky I think.
It seems like you're both very easygoing as well.
Try to be, sometimes it doesn't work. Laurel's way more calmer than I am. I freak out.
When you said before you do the social media and you've had these different collaborations or Lucy inviting you guys to do the open house, the design files. What other marketing has worked well for you? Do you look at some and just go, that has done well? I mean, your pieces are beautiful visual platforms like Instagram or Pinterest I'm sure do pretty well. But like, especially when you were shifting from having just stockers and, and working B2B to having your website and trying to drive traffic to that. What marketing has worked best for you as this creative maker?
Instagram has been we tried a few others, but Instagram's been the one, and I think it was, you we're listening to one of yours, it's like you don't need to be across everything. If you can pick one and do it well, that's okay. I felt like that too. You can't dabble in Facebook, but it's not as successful. Most of our audience is on Instagram. What we're trying to do, I'm trying to focus a bit more on our marketing this year and have a proper plan. We want to drive our signups and our mailouts because, at the end of the day, I feel like Instagram you can lose your account at the drop of the hat.
In a second.
Terrifying. We're trying to build our community through mailouts. We want to have more of a monthly mailout where we are not just talking about what's for sale, but our followers are invested in the studio because the majority of them have been there from the beginning. We've kept it pretty real, I'll quite frequently chat to the camera, whatever on Insta and tell them like, I thought I wanted to do this great reel and it was going to take me hours. In the end, I was like, I'm just going to feel myself talking about it right now. No smoke and mirrors. This is how it is. And people appreciate that as well. They're like, I understand that. Or it's nice to connect with makers on that level too. We also have the general public who see it and appreciate it because they see the work that goes into it. I think that is ours, and I'm hoping the mail-out list this year is like our ace on the whole, that's how we can build it further.
A lot of times people I feel like I'm constantly bagging on social media. I don't mean to, it's amazing and it's done wonders for a lot of people's businesses including my own. But email has always got a higher return on investment than pretty much anything else that's out there. People are always like, “Is email dead?” I'm like, “No.” My email that goes out every Sunday night and has done for six years, and seven years is still consistently something that drives sales. Also just that relationship. People reply to it and you reply, then you have the chat and it's just keeping you front of mind and relevant and in their world in terms of your brand. The Hothaus, obviously it's a very cool name and everything. I remember when I came to pick up those pieces that time in your first studio, you had just done a renovation. It looked amazing and it was very photographic. Photographic. That's the word, Instagramable.
Totally.
Where has that come from? You're in a visual field you just have a good eye. Were you making the decision, we're going to start running workshops, we need this to be more public-facing it needs to look beautiful on camera for all of the marketing we're doing. What led to that?
Honestly, it all went back to what is our dream studio. We've worked for so long, where do we want to work? What do we want it to look like? I want it to look beautiful. I want it to have great light. I want there to be plants everywhere. We've worked in so many tiny studios, they're dark and the equipment is, I get it now as a studio owner, it's like, you do the best you can. But we had these strong ideas about wanting to work somewhere that felt good. And by doing that, like in hindsight, did I need to build those pod studios and get beautiful arch windows made? Probably not. But it helped too. And we don't have those in the studio, but we've taken the colour scheme with us
I can see it.
I've had Tan Tree come to work for us. She has her own ceramics business and is beautiful. She one day a week and helps me just with anything. She made us this great photograph. But anyway, that's that peach there, it carries through so you can see that. And then I'm looking at our packaging now and that carries on from the first one. And it's building that brand just about what we want.
The whole experience. I remember when I got the, I've probably got one or two somewhere in this office as well, still in the packaging. Because I was like, “They're so beautiful.” I had too many to send to clients, but I was like, they're so beautiful. But I'm also in that whole space of like, they're so beautiful, I don't want to just give them to anyone. But your packaging is part of that. It was so nice to have something that also looks beautiful as a gift ready to go and that people would keep the packaging even because it's so beautiful.
It has to be sturdy like these things go in the mail, we post them out all the time. It had to be dual purpose fit for purpose. I want it to look good. I thought it was important for that to carry through but it also had to hold up in the post. That's why we package the way we do. I'm just looking at our packaging now, like I've always wanted, again, it's about what we want and love. You can spend so much money on packaging and sometimes products get lost the products should always be better than the packaging. It's not good having amazing packaging and spending so much money on printed material. We try and do things like, we'll just print the label on the can now. Or maybe we'll just get a nice sticker to go on this stock standard box now. And those small things can have a big impact.
Completely. Your stuff is so creative and beautiful and I'm sure lots of people come. Are there certain people you follow or run workshops now as well? I was like, I'm pretty sure they do. But you've got this whole community around you that just loves what you do and you're being super creative or do you go to art galleries a lot? Or do you watch documentary films? Where does it come from?
I'd like to say I go to art galleries, I do sometimes. But you know what it's like working mom is a rough man like, and it's just Laurel and I, we have subcontractors that come in and assist one or two days a week. But it is Laurel and I. I'm trying hard to find that. It's no use running a creative business if you can't find your creativity. I try and take those, take your ideal days. I like going out for breakfast. I want to go check out some cool shops. I'd like to go for a walk or just be inspired by city life for a bit. Because we live out in Green. We're in Greensboro.
It's so beautiful. I take a lot of inspiration from the natural world, but just inspiring for me is to have a nice day on my own. If I can get to cram in an art show or a movie, that's always amazing. And then you start to feel a bit refreshed. I'm like, look at that colour palette over there. That's the one. I like to take inspiration from there. The last great movie I got to see by myself was the Wes Anderson one. His colour palettes are just next level. So good and inspiring.
I don't know if you've seen them and I'm just going to do a shout-out because I didn't even know these existed, but he did like short films on Netflix.
Yes. I watched some of those.
So good. And they're only like 20 minutes or something.
Beautiful. Also with your industry, I was just wondering, and I know this is putting you on the spot, what do you think of the reality TV shows that are all about glass-blowing?
We're talking about it all the time at the moment. Because on the lineup, which is out soon, the new one, it's one of the teachers that I took a class for in Seattle pil, Chuck Glass School, Karen Willenberg Johnson. She's an incredible sculptor and she's one of the most amazing people I've ever met in my life. I'm very excited to watch it. But any promo for our art, sometimes dying art is good. People watching that will go, I've seen it, and I'm blown away. It's a good thing for them to be talking about glassblowing and then in turn wanting to come and try it. I've got a studio, come to me, I'll show you. I think it's awesome. I'm into it.
On the flip side of that, and this is something whether it's glass blowing or so many other creative industries, how do you deal with the copycats and the ripoffs, Ikea is just bringing this out and I know Ikea does work with some artists and everything else, but like and I've bought plenty of things from Ikea, I'm not completely bad that brand. But there's always, there's always going to be somebody who's going to try and rip you off, do it cheaper, not do it. It's not going to be glass blown, it's just made in the factory somewhere. How do you cope with that?
We've been quite lucky. We haven't had to deal with anyone ripping us off or it's all going to come back to the brand that we've built and the heart that we have in it. There's other glass studios out there and I honestly see it as if we're all in this together. I see that the work we make, no one else makes it like that. Like us, our colours. I don't think it can be recreated, I'm not worried about it. If other people will make it and then our followers and customers, I know it's not ours. Because we do have that loyal following that we cherish hard.
When you were talking before about how everyone helps each other in the glass industry and you've got everyone's been so open and, and that's been your experience, what advice would you give to someone who's reading these who maybe is into glassblowing or maybe into something else and they're pursuing this career in the arts and maybe having these negative thoughts that this isn't going to work, or this isn't a realistic path, or this isn't going to make money. Or they're looking at you and being like, wow, it just looks so easy. What would be your advice to them?
You just have to start and you can think about it. Should I? But like the time is now. There's never going to be a better time than right now. If you want to be a glassblower, you need to study somewhere. You need to go to it's a bit of a dying out there, but do your research. You need to take classes at the very least. You can't just come into a glass studio and go, I'm into it. What can I do? like you need to be a skilled hand. If you're real about it, you should be thinking about places like the JamFactory and Canberra Glassworks. They have great programs for beginners. I think you've got to do your time. That's, that's just how it is.
And then you can start to build up a relationship with other artists. You can ask to come and assist them and work on their teams if they have that free. But it's such a tricky thing because it's skill-based. You just have to learn the skills to start. But I don't think that should put you off. I think if that's what you want to do, you just got to do it. But you might take your other avenues. You might have to work those part-time jobs. You might not get to be a full-time glassblower for a long time. And that's okay.
As you said before it's hot, it's heavy, it's physical, like it is, it's not like you can be half on Instagram, half doing this job. How do you physically deal with the amount of work? I have a lot of people who have a retail shop and they're like, it's exhausting. I'm on my feet all the time. I'm packing boxes, unpacking boxes, carrying boxes. it looks all glamorous on Instagram, but it's physically exhausting. How do you deal with that part of your job?
We try to work for our blocks and we so split the day into two sessions. I'm learning now as I get older, I can't work over faith. I worked a 38-degree day the other week and I did not feel good. It's not good for you. I had to come home and pretty much have a cold bath just to regulate everything. Had to just be underwater and like, let's take it down. But both laws and I come home and we start our second job with our families. Like there's no downtime. We have to be open and honest with each other about what our limits are. But one person might be feeling fine and they go, I'm good to go. The other person has to be able to vocalise. It was me last week, I was like, I can't do it.
I don't feel comfortable. And Laurel was like, that is fine. You're working here, I can do this one. And I said you should step out if you want. But we try and put those in play with our team. We always like asking in a production run check-in our in, how's everyone doing? Check in in two hours if everyone good? Everyone got water for three hours? We might work an extra half hour here. How does everyone feel about that? I want everyone in the team to be able to voice how they're feeling. Because if you don't, I've worked in studios again where the old way of thinking is just to push through. It's not good. I've seen people hurt themselves. We've got to be focused on it. Be on it and open and careful.
Yep. In addition to that, it sounds like you have an open, honest culture as well where people feel safe to be able to talk up. What other things do you pride yourself on? Or, or even like what other things have you learned elsewhere or from mentors or books or whatever that have helped you build the business that you have?
As we come into our fifth year and now we think about what can we outsource we've had to do everything and was it last year or a year before we finally got a bookkeeper to do that? That was amazing. Because that's not our strong point. When you run your own business, I feel like I have to do everything. It's exhausting because it takes you away from glass blowing and that's where you started. But then you have to do all these other things so you can blow glass. And then that drive to blow glass diminishes because you're like, I have to send this email and I have to now do this admin. Now we are trying to work smarter, not harder, and try to take on jobs that potentially make bigger units or more ornate perhaps. We are not just pumping out things, we are thinking a bit about our output into the world as well. That's where I think I'm hoping to drive HotHaus a bit more. Because I think it's a crazy world where people consume a lot, but we are hoping that our pieces are things that you might not buy every month, but when you do, they're with you for life.
The pieces I have from you are definitely with us for life. And they're just so beautiful. I just feel like there's something, I remember years ago I had somebody on the podcast and they were talking about how their goal is to create beauty and they were like, I know that might sound superficial, but it's beautiful things. If people, if their eyes are drawn to beauty all the time, it's making them feel better in their day and that can have a flow and effect on their family and community and the whole world.
True.
Beautiful. What would be the thing that you're most proud of from your journey in business so far?
I think that we are just still here. When I speak about when we started and Covid hit and we're building a furnace, there were so many tears and we are just figuring it out and we're like, and having to do things like deal with trades as a woman we're like, are these people having us on? Is this real? You're constantly feeling those things. We've set up two studios now. I think that's incredible. What I know about getting gas lines in. We built that and we were worried one day and we're like, what are we doing?
Is this the right thing? But now to see where we are and I'm hoping the trajectory like last year was rough 'cause we had to move and we didn't know what hot house was going to look like. I feel like we're starting to find our feet, having people employed like Tan Tree and having our other skilled assistants work for us. We have another guy called Brad who works for us one or two days a week and builds the team. It's, it's exciting for me to see things slot into place and see those people that we hire flourish as well. That's a big part of HotHaus as well.
I love that. What a lovely place to end. Where can people connect with you and what is coming up next? I know you have a show coming up soon after this will be published. Where can people connect and what else is happening?
The best ones are through either our website, hothaus.com.au or Instagram is big for us, @hothausglass. Then we have our big launch coming up for Melbourne Design Week, where we are launching our very own lighting range, which we are pumped about because as glass blowers we should have a lighting range. We've known this for years, but the timing has not been right. We are very excited about the launch, which will be in The Design files gallery underneath them. Amazing run for four days. We'll be there. I hope everyone comes and checks us out. I also have another show on, as part of Melbourne Design Week, a Colab with acid flowers and doing VAs and her incredible orchids, and painterly orchids will complement those.
We are recording this at a time when I'm surrounded by boxes of lights. Because we are changing all the lights in this house but we still have some spots in the house. There's always somewhere, I'm going to come and check that out. That's hugely exciting and congratulations on that. That's massive. And that'll be a whole new audience I feel like as well.
We're excited. We are ready to expand who we see and who we know. I think that the lights hopefully will do that for us.
Amazing. Thank you so much for making this time and it's so lovely to see you again all the best with everything you're doing.
Thank you so much for having me.
Bye.
Bye.
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What a just refreshing and real conversation about business. Thank you so, so much, Amanda, for coming onto the podcast. If you are not already following Hothaus, you can find all of their information on Instagram @hothausglass. You can also follow Amanda on Instagram @amanda_dziedzic. You can also follow Laurel, @laurelkohut on Instagram as well. As usual, I'm going to highlight two things and then I urge you to stick around because especially if you're in Melbourne, some amazing things are coming up for Hothaus and Amanda and Laurel that you will love to be a part of, especially if you resonated with today's chat. The first thing that stood out for me is just the tenacity that Amanda has had.
The fact that she got up so early to drive to another state in order to do this incredible work. I'm very much about like sidestepping the hustle, but I'm not about necessarily sidestepping the hard work when it needs to happen. I know, and I've talked about this, I talked about it in my first book as well, the difference between periods of hard work and then 24/7 Hustle, which I think has ruined so many people and led to a huge influx of burnout. I'm not saying it is sustainable to be able to drive interstate to be able to do this, and this is not what Amanda's doing now, but in some instances, you have to put in a chunk of hard work. For example, the writing of my second book happened in addition to running this business, in addition to selling a house, moving house, lot of travel that had to happen.
Sometimes you will have periods in business where you just have to as my dad used to always say head down, bum up, that what a horrible expression. But that idea that sometimes work just has to be done and in order to achieve the things that you want to achieve, sometimes there will be a period. And ideally, it's not too long of a period where you have to work a bit harder. Now, I've had a lot of people who have contacted me about how I wrote a book. We have a book course that we're running now, and it's amazing to see people in that. But I think sometimes we grow up in particular now not necessarily grow up, I didn't grow up in it, but there's this instant gratification culture and we have it all the time. You can get something to eat within seconds.
Someone can deliver your groceries to you. You can post something on social media and instantly get validation about it. Sometimes with business, it takes a while for something to happen and you have to keep going at it. Again, this is not about hustling, this is about a period of hard work. I love that she talked about that because we often don't see that. You can see people, you can see they've got, they've got a following, or they've got the most beautiful things, or they're getting all this media attention and you don't see the actual hard work that has gone into it. it's like that meme or the saying of like, it's taken 11 years to become an overnight success. Often we can look at people and think, they just, it was easy for them and, and I love that she just talked through, this is how I started and it was hard work.
The second thing that I love that Amanda touched on is the idea of just getting started. I love that she talked about how you can think about things and you can analyse and you can sit there pondering, or you can just start, you can just start. She talked about the collaborations and working with other people in other studios and just getting started, getting something so that you can show that to other people. That can be an example of what is possible for you or them. And then that has this snowball effect. Again, it goes from a first point, but a lot of the time people can sit there and dream about things or look at what their competitors are doing and think, that would be nice. I'm putting my hand up.
I've done this myself as well, but I just always think of like, when I used to write for a bunch of magazines, I used to have this one friend and we're still friends and, and I've said this to her herself as well. But she would say to me for years, I wish I could write for Frankie, or I wish I could write for Rush Magazine, or I wish you're so lucky to have a column in the age. And then I've had lots of people over time be like, how did you write for them? It's like, just get started. You know how I started. I started by writing a letter to Jess Scully, who at the time was the editor of Yen. I wrote a letter and said, I love what you're doing with this magazine.
I wrote some other stuff and she said, I like how you write. Would you like to write an article? I was like, yes. The thing is, at that point, I could have been like, who am I? I haven't written any articles before. I was working at a call centre at the time I didn't have a bunch of work behind me. I don’t know what I'm doing. But I threw myself into that article. It was my very first article. My sister got that article framed for me one year ago for Christmas. I threw myself in as if I was the biggest investigative journalist that had ever lived. I did an article on fashion and the fashion textile industry in Australia. I went and interviewed the CEO of the TCF, I think that's Textiles, clothing and Footwear Industry Association.
I went to a clothing factory and interviewed people there. I interviewed people who were creating clothes in their houses for other bigger brands. I interviewed so many people for that article. I threw everything into it as if I was writing for the New York Times or something. That one article then led to more and more. I think it just goes to the point of just getting started. Because you can sit there and you can think about things or you can worry that, well they're going to do it better. Or who am I to show up in this space? But I love that she said just to start. Just start. It's something that has come up many, many times in interviews that I've done recently with Jessie Frances. She said the same thing, when you want to become a content creator or you want to do more in terms of getting your brand out there or building your brand, just start.
Even with this podcast this is, I think nearing 900,000 downloads, which is incredible. When I started it, I wanted 150 downloads and I started that I wish I had started it earlier. I was that person who was talking about it for years and not starting it. And I'd listen to other people and I'd listen to them talking about their downloads, and I'd listen to, we're up to episode 200. I'd think, kaki, you haven't even started. Just start. I love that Amanda gave that information. If you are in Melbourne or if you are coming to Melbourne, Amanda has quite a few events happening. She's got a busy time period in May. I want to talk through what those are and how you can get involved and meet Amanda yourself. The first is the show, AGlow.
That is going to be held at The Design Files Gallery in Collingwood. And it's the debut of the very first hot house lighting ranges. I'm super excited about this. This show will run from Thursday the 23rd of May till Monday, the 27th of May. The opening night is Thursday, the 23rd of May between 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM everyone is welcome. Amanda has said she would love to see people there and to meet people that she doesn't necessarily know or that you've listened to this and just go along, go and support and see these lighting ranges. I can't wait to see them. I'm so excited. The second show that she has coming up is with Floral Designer Acid Flowers. The title of this show is Acid House and it will be held at the physique store in Fitzroy. If you don't know Fazeek, you will go and fall in love with everything that they do.
The Fazeek store. That is Fazeek's opening for this one is Saturday the 25th of May from 2:00 PM till 4:00 PM and that is sponsored by Four Pillars Gin. Again, all are welcome to attend and of course, if you cannot get to those, you can find all the information and what's happening in terms of how you can view these things and potentially buy some of them at Hothaus.com.au. Thank you again, Amanda, for coming on and thank you for reading.
