INTERVIEW: Nato Eristavi, Co-founder of White Studio, Small Business of the Year
Having recently won the title of Small Business of the Year at the 2016 Business Awards, Nato Eristavi, Co-founder of White Studio, spoke to GEORGIA TODAY about her company and the difficult path to success.
What was your motivation to participate in the 2016 Business Awards?
Initially, we hoped for nothing more than to get more exposure through social media, and then suddenly we found out that we were among the finalists! We didn’t expect there to be so much interest in what we do and that people would be so engaged and supportive. It was a wonderful experience! We’ve had so many visitors to our facebook page, thanks to the promo video made within the Business Awards Campaign and the photos of us. We really felt honored to be so acknowledged.
What challenges did you face when creating the company?
White Studio started out as something of an experiment. We had no experience of making unique pieces of art for commercial purposes, and then having to make the whole thing a commercially successful business. The first two years were quite hard. In a way, it was like inventing a bicycle, because when you’re creating a company, much more needs to be done that you ever thought about at the onset. Creating a company needs additional resources as you face emerging responsibilities and handle them accordingly.
How did White Studio come about?
The story is rather extraordinary. I myself worked on ceramics for many years, as did my partner and designer Nino Kambarashvili. Wanting to do what we loved most, we decided to open a small studio. We decided to make painted tiles, so we bought and ordered a stove. But it took four months longer than planned to get here. During those four months we took on two artists who had never worked with clay before, and I began teaching them We started to improvise, making different objects from clay, and the process turned out to be so enjoyable that we found our workspace filled with a variety of things, all white, since without a stove it was impossible to burn them and paint.
When the stove finally arrived we had so many things made already that it was unrealistic to paint them all and we decided to make an exhibition of our white works at the old wine factory on Melikishvili Street, which has an outstanding atmosphere. It was a huge success.
How well was the Studio received in Georgia?
There’s no analogue to white clay ceramics in Georgia, although ceramics are very popular abroad. The challenge was to prove that the Georgian product, ceramic vessels, vases, cups, plates, were of the same high quality that can be found internationally. That it won’t damage in hot water for example, that the products are made with the same top quality material and technologies. Imagine how hard it is when there are no factories working on ceramic production now in Georgia. The brand, White Studio, producing ceramics, is represented by the Center for Ceramics which brings all the necessary tools, technical equipment and materials from abroad for the actual product making. The Center for Ceramics also actively works to promote the field. Everyone can come and see the process, which is actually quite long and hard. When a person sees how difficult it is to prepare even a tiny cup, and how many stages of preparation there are, the question why the price for it might be high fades away. You have to explain that every piece we make is an exclusive one, with lots of work, effort and resources needed to create the final product, all of which are handmade and unique- that’s our concept. Working with ceramics and clay needs a different attitude, it’s not an easy material to work with.
Have you faced any difficulties since set-up?
It was hard, but we slowly got along and learned to manage our business. At the beginning we wanted our products to be affordable to our potential clients, not to scare them off; it’s challenging to enter the market and prove that you’re worth it, especially when stagnation in the field is visible. In the last twenty years, for many understandable reasons, Georgian ceramics lost its popularity and products made from it tended to be of very poor quality. We’ve assisted many studios to produce high quality products through the Center for Ceramics, so today new companies eager to enter the market are able to get their hands on the necessary top quality materials. This is essential for the development of the sphere, for healthy competition that will naturally boost the overall level of the ceramics field. If we get our customers to realize that products made locally, from Georgian white clay, have the same quality as they could get abroad, that it’s worth paying a little more for than they are used to, that would be a great achievement for all of us working in the sphere.
Tell us about Georgian White Clay
White Studio works exclusively with Georgian Porcelain made of white clay. White clay has the same qualities as porcelain base and it’s actually so good, so transparent, with such a wonderful elasticity and is fired at such a high temperature that we decided to call it “Georgian Porcelain”. I can tell you that we have an exquisite relation and even attachment to each object we make. I’m often very interested what their journeys are once they are sold, or who their owners are. Sometimes it’s even painful to part with them, because no two products are the same; all of them are exclusive, both in product and in artistic quality, corresponding to the highest international standards. I do travel a lot for lectures, and I’m also involved in different projects as an artist working in ceramics, so knowing the recent trends in the industry allows me to say so.
Is there anything you regret or would have done differently in retrospect?
I was lucky to have people around me that believed in me rather blindly, however, at first, as I said earlier, it was difficult. We were not sure what would come of our idea, whether the objects we were making would sell. It was quite risky. At the same time, it was my own huge responsibility not to fail. Now I hope we proved that the business we’re doing has a great potential. Looking back from where we started and having a bigger knowledge and experience of how everything works now, I would take more risks and possibly get additional funding to have a place that I would own, rather then renting one for White Studio.
Will you expand White Studio?
White Studio is quite small and, to be honest, we have no intention to expand because above all what we do is art, and our products are art objects. Georgia has everything needed for the development of ceramics, clay, materials, taste, and yet there are so many things that have to be transformed and changed. Look at the souvenirs that are frequently sold in our shops... they are no good. Our tradition of ceramics manufacturing is very long in Georgia and it’s hugely disappointing not to present the best of it. That’s why we always try to introduce contemporary Georgian products as much as possible to international audiences.
Nino Gugunishvili