Business entrepreneur and creative dynamo, Lorrie Veasey, started selling her unique ceramics pieces as a way to supplement her teacher’s salary in her early twenties. Since that time, she has created Our Name is Mud, a unique company that designs products that always feel as though they were created just for you. In this interview, this witty, self-proclaimed craftsperson talks about her beginning, her incredibly moving Tiles for America project, and how she balances running her own company while raising two, fabulously creative children.

CN: What was it like when you started out at the street fairs in NYC? What was the best part of that experience? What was the worst?

Lorrie: When I started on the streets in ‘87, street fairs were very different from what they are today.  It was a carnival atmosphere-full of artists–had someone told us that in 2008 booths would mostly be taken by people selling cheap sheets and nail clippers-we would not have believed it.  Back then, it was primarily people selling things they had made themselves: jewelry makers, potters, bakers, candle & soap makers, card makers, and clothing designers.  You would set up and break down with the same people; when you had to pee you knew who would watch your stuff.  We would show up hung-over, breakfast on grilled corn or fried dough, and break down at twilight together.  We were gypsies in fanny packs. 
 The best part about working on the street was also the worst thing: immediate feedback about what I’d made.  There is something so gratifying about selling a table full of wares, knowing each pot is going off to a life of it’s own; sitting unwashed in someone’s sink or given as a gift.  Then there were moments like this:
WOMAN: O honey, look–some of that pottery stuff.
MAN: We don’t need any more mugs.
WOMAN: O but look honey, isn’t this cute?  This one says “Everything tastes better with cat hair in it”
MAN: That’s not cute, it’s disgusting. We’re dog people.
WOMAN: Yes and it’s not blue.  I would buy it if it were blue.  And five dollars cheaper.  Can you tell the person who made this that it would look SO much nicer in periwinkle?  And cheaper?

CN:  Today, you are the creative force behind your business, Our Name is Mud. What is the hardest part of running the business?

Lorrie: Not “running the business” but letting it “run you.”

CN: Why do you do what you do?

Lorrie: Oh-I could write the answer about making my first pot on my mother’s knee at age 3–but really; I do what I do… because I can.  Anybody can do what I do–which is “craft” and not art– all it requires is that you cut your fingernails and roll your sleeves up.  My favorite quote is: Many were more talented than she, but few were more committed to being talented.

CN: What is your most favorite piece?

Lorrie: The one I am going to make tomorrow.  It always is.

CN: What inspires you to create?

Lorrie: Some strange compulsion–some addiction to joy–I’m sure if I went into therapy I would know for sure.  I only know that I must.  Every damn day.  And if I were attacked by a great white shark and all my limbs were bitten off, I know for certain I would hold a brush between my teeth. I would probably be printing “HELP ME” anywhere I could, but still….

CN: You have two children. How old are they? Tell us a little about them.

Lorrie: Jesse is 6–he is complicated and difficult and the sides of his palms are always covered in marker.  I have a hard time trying to figure out where the boundaries of his creativity should lie: when he removes the legs of an action figure to create new ones out of modeling clay-I applaud.  When he experiments with different drawings with Sharpies on the top of Mommy’s coffee table…well, not so much. Annie is 4 and she is all girlie girl and Mother Earth and seriousness; ”I shall draw pink flowers.  And I shall only draw pink flowers for the next four months until I have adequately explored the boundaries of pink flower drawing.  Then, perhaps, I shall draw a pink kitten.”
Both of my children have grown up steeped in creativity.  We have great pictures of them both in diapers, sitting in the middle of a huge white sheet of paper rolled out on the kitchen floor, covered head to toe in paint.  I am sure they will grow up to be accountants.

CN: What is the toughest part of being a CEO – Creative Everything Officer? How do you balance being a Mom and being the creative force behind Our Name is Mud?

Lorrie: I balance everything by using a series of carefully crafted rationalizations; “No honey, I cannot play ‘go fish’ with you today because I have to go to work because if I didn’t we would all have to ‘go fish” in the East River as there would be NOTHING FOR DINNER, ok?”

CN: What do you do when it feels like it’s all gotten to be too much?

Lorrie: I count my blessings.  Practicing gratitude is the greatest remedy I know for feeling overwhelmed. A bottle of wine and the ability to laugh at things…ain’t life grand?

CN: What keeps you motivated day after day? Lorrie: Lipton tea.  About 12 cups a day.  With milk.  Seriously.CN: You are the original creator behind Tiles for America – an amazingly beautiful project. What made you start it? How do you celebrate it each year? Is it still growing?Lorrie: Tiles for America started because my hands could not do what everybody wanted to do on 9/11–which was dig.  Because if I could have dug, I would have dug.  But since I could not dig–I worked with clay.  I fashioned almost 500 angels on 9/12–inscribed them with messages of hope and good will.  By 9/15 almost 400 of them were gone, and so I asked for help from other ceramic studios across the country.  And people responded in such a generous way.People ask all the time if I resent when people take things from the memorial.  The answer is No.  The greatest gift a craftsperson can have is the ability to make something that is needed.  When people took items from the fence, I always thought they needed them, and I was grateful for the ability to provide something for them.Tiles for America came out of the worst day of my life.  I didn’t personally know anyone who died on that day.  I only knew the death of my own innocence and the birth of pervasive fear.  The only weapon against terror is love.Tiles for America became that–an outpouring of love and sympathy and creativity and anger-and a voice. A voice that I think still is clear; a song of hope that you can hear if you listen to the chime of ceramic banging against the metal fence in the wind.Tiles for America is probably one of the best things I have done in my life–it has touched families and strangers, it has brought me new friends and publicity-and only really wonderful things.  I struggle with the fact that I have so many blessings as a result of so much tragedy.  I think about it often.  This irony is a responsibility.

Tiles for America soldiers on-tiles break, they are replaced–they break again.  For me the whole memorial is a metaphor for loss.  I love how people “stumble upon” the memorial on their way to a fun shopping spree in the Village-how it steals up on them and overtakes them-because I know this is how grief is.  I love how we endure-we shatter, we crack, we break-we are created anew. 

(The New York Memorial is located at 11th Street and Seventh Avenue.)

CN: Do you ever worry that you just used your last creative idea? Do you worry that you will never have another idea again?

Lorrie: Having ideas is SO EASY.  Having Good Ideas….that’s hard. 
I always tell people that creativity is just a muscle like any other.  Use it daily, build it, flex it, and it will only grow.  And when you do that you can trust it…  Like crazy glue on the top of a hard hat when you are hanging from a beam.

CN: What is your ultimate creative dream?

Lorrie: I’m not really sure, but I know it probably involves George Clooney.

CN: If you walked around with a bumper sticker on your back everyday, what would it read?

Lorrie: Caution: wide turns.

CN: If you had a theme song that played as you lived each day what would it be?

Lorrie: “And you wonder where we’re going where’s the Rhyme, where’s the Reason: and if you could just accept it is here we must begin to seek the wisdom of the children and the gentle way of flowers in the wind”Of course, John Denver was probably Rocky Mountain High when he wrote it.

CN: What advice would you give to people who are looking to launch a creative business while balancing a job to pay the bills and/or raising a family?

Lorrie: Life is too damn short — do something that makes you happy.  If you are willing to roll your sleeves up and do the necessary work, success is sure to follow.  Don’t use money as an excuse to hide a fear of failure.                                      For more information visit: http://www.ournameismud.com/                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

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