Robin Badger softening the clay so it can be easily moulded into the desired piece. (Abigail Dawn)
The story of a staple artisan business
By: Abigail Dawn
A week away from home. That’s all it took for Robin Badger to get hooked on pottery.
Her mother’s cousin was a potter, and at eighteen Badger went to spend a few days with them, for the fun of it, and came back with a skill set she wanted to pursue.
Badger says her first try at pottery, like everyone else, wasn’t perfect, but the clay between her fingers, the spinning of the wheel, and the connection between the potter and the piece instantly captivated her.
“At night, I was dreaming about it,” says Badger.
When she came home, and started back up at Cegep, she felt that something was missing.
“As to try to find where you fit into the whole scope of everything, I was trying all those things, and I was just getting sad,” says Badger.
Already living in Montreal for school, she wasn’t in her comfort zone, but she still tried different classes to find herself.
“If you could do anything you wanted without even thinking about it, what would it be?” A restaurant co-worker asked Badger during a night shift, and instantly, without thinking it through, Badger says move to the country and pursue pottery. “Well, why don’t you?” said her co-worker, and she did.
“Of course, everyone says, ‘oh, you’ll never be able to make a living as a potter,” says Badger, but with persistence she fought for her dreams.
She moved back in with her parents, which she says, “is hard when you’re trying to be autonomous,” and she begged a local potter to take her on as an apprentice for free. And for four months, when she wasn’t working to support herself, she was in the studio learning everything she could about the art, beyond her apprenticeship, and into making a career.
Badger’s mother saw an advertisement on television about a full-time pottery school in Montreal, but the term had already started. Badger applied anyway, and a week into the January start date, she was moving back to the city, crashing on her best friend’s couch and starting her classes. She spent a little over a year as a full-time pottery student, where she met Robert Chartier.
Robin & Robert
“As long as we’re happy together, we’ll stay together,” Badger and Chartier said to each other. Now, they have two children, a beautiful home, and a pottery business.
“It’s just a beautiful working relationship,” says Badger. When their relationship started, they were both “over that forever kind of thinking,” because their individual and paired happiness is important in their partnership.
“We hit it off super well, and we’ve never looked back since,” says Badger.
She says that being twelve years older than her, Chartier had lived a whole life as an artist, doing art shows in Toronto and Montreal.
“He had a whole history in that life,” says Badger, “but he really wanted to do pottery as well.”
Badger and Chariter rented a small house in the city while they attended school, turned their living room into a studio, and put their kiln on the outside porch.
“We were already starting this studio, because I knew that’s what I wanted to do,” says Badger.
From there, the rest happened slowly, but it was the mutual support that helped their relationship grow.
Badger says that she likes to “fine-tune” a piece for years, like making the perfect coffee mug. Even thirty years later, Chartier supports her as she continues to work on the perfect shape for the coffee bowl. Just as Badger supports Chartier in his love of trying new things.
“I think it was that support each way, not trying to change the other person or trying to make it fit,” says Badger. “You are who you are. And I am who I am. And we are supportive of each other.”
Robert Chartier cleaning the pottery pieces after they’ve gone through the Raku kiln. Raku is when the potter puts their pieces in an outdoor fire with leaves and pine needles and leaves them to smoke. After they are removed and scrubbed down to reveal the new piece. (Abigail Dawn)
The Pottery Business
After finishing pottery school, Badger and Chartier were trying to figure out where to build their business.
Badger isn’t much of a city person, and wanted to move back to the country. Her parents, who owned farm land in West Bolton, offered part of the land for their house and studio.
In 1994, the couple rented a small place while they built their home. Badger’s father had retired from the dairy farm business, so they used the empty barn as their studio, and like most in the entrepreneurship world, they worked outside jobs while building up the business. Within the year, they were participating in their first Tour des Arts.
During a visit to the studio, Badger shared that the Tour des Arts is an important piece to the success of their business.
The Tour des Arts is an annual, summer event that takes place in the Eastern Townships, and mainly the Brome-Missisquoi area. Tourists and locals alike can follow the touring map and visit artists and artisans while they share their creativity, passion, and beauty. The event spans a little over a week, and many artists have daily demonstrations to show the work behind the art. This year, 2022, marked the 33rd Tour des Arts in the Eastern Townships.
As the business expanded, Robin Badger and Robert Chartier Pottery became a staple in the community. Their work can be seen in residents’ kitchens, and in collaboration with other local businesses.
Collective Community
“You can go to the online giants and get what you want in one day. But when you go to the small businesses, you will have a personal experience,” says François Vincent, Quebec Vice-President for the Canadian Federation for Independent Businesses (CFIB),
The CFIB is an organization that works with small to medium businesses to help represent them and their value in the local economy.
In a recent CFIB opinion poll, almost 90% of Canadians feel that backing small businesses is important to them, the top reason being supporting their community.
“We sometimes think about the economy with the big names, but the economy is small businesses,” says Vincent, adding that half of Quebec businesses have fewer than five employees.
Small businesses are the backbone to the community. “The local commerce streets are one of the reasons we are loving where we are living,” explains Vincent, adding how local businesses are often the leaders in town events, and make up a good portion of the town experience.
Robin Badger Pottery is intertwined with other Brome-Missisquoi businesses. Whether they’re selling Badger’s products, or using them to serve customers, the blue pottery, known in the area, can be seen throughout the village, like in brûleries and restaurants.
This type of business model is common in small areas Vincent explains. For the consumer it allows them to find their favourite products without having to drive to multiple stops. For the businesses it allows collaboration and opportunity.
“When they (businesses) talk to each other, they can help each other and can get other business opportunities, even between competitors,” says Vincent, adding, “they want to work to improve the condition of the economic sector for their region.”
Badger explains how collaborations between businesses fuels the local economy, even the smallest businesses.
“Well, it’s a win-win-win situation, even the little bits and pieces that we do with the community,” says Badger. Adding that the collaboration they’ve made with other local businesses is a good example of a collective between local producers, artisans, and business owners.
“It all goes hand in hand,” says Badger.