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This is where I'm supposed to do an artist statement, isn't it?
I don't really consider myself much of an artist. Maybe that's because I don't really resonate with a lot of 'art culture,' or more likely because I don't think I'm very good at art. I'm not particularly conceptual. I just like making things which I think are cool, or want to use, or want to see being used.
The distinction between art is craft is generally argued to be that art carries meaning, whereas craft is making for the sake of it. I like to think the rituals we build up around the things we use daily give them with enough meaning that they're art to us, the users.
My mugs and jugs and bowls and things aren't necessarily art, but maybe in your hands they could be a little closer to it.
Who am I?
Woah. Big question. I'm Saul. I grew up in Manchester, and currently reside in Glasgow in a little studio flat with my cat/daughter Pancho.
I started my creative career making guitars - interning back in 2018 under Serek Basses, and then going on to study luthiery at the Newark School of Instrument Making. In the fallout of COVID, I ended up dropping out and moving from Newark to Nottingham. Here I maintained a small woodworking studio, did some freelance joinery, but over the years creative pursuits fell to the side as I found myself working more and more in coffee.
This would be fine if coffee companies didn't, on the whole, kind of suck. Since starting my coffee career as a teenager, and maintaining it for the last decade, I've watched employers repeatedly treat my coworkers like shit, serve customers the cheapest product possible while passing it off as specialty, and generally grew very disillusioned with the personas put forward by companies that were (in my humble opinion) deeply disingenious. So I quit and started my own company - the first iteration of The Wandering Goblin.
It started as a series of popups ran between a trailer pulled on the back of my bicycle and a wonderful woodworking studio on Nottingham's Sneinton Market (By Our Hands We Make Our Way). I used a charcoal burning samovar and a camping stove to heat my water, and served hand brewed filter coffee and thoughtfully sourced teas (building a relationship with Cha-ology which I maintain and am immensely grateful for to this day). The aim was only to serve things where I could explain fully where they came from, and to only work with people in the industry whom I genuinely believed were nice and good. The coffee industry has some of the best and some of the worst people, and I'm lucky to have encountered many of the best.
I ran sober speakeasies, early morning coffee and tea events (Goblin's Respite and RISE with The Goblin respectively) as well as a few one-offs.
Eventually I was offered a permanent spot with a cocktail bar in town, who, after I obtained funding and worked to the schedule they set, pulled the rug from under me. Having borrowed money at this point, and also ran a successful crowdfunding campaign, I couldn't do the rational thing and back down. I was far too proud for that, so instead I found the cheapest unit I possibly could in all of Nottingham, fitted it out on a crazy tight budget with no power connected to the unit, and opened up shop in October of 2023. The next two years were hard work - spending most of the first year working entirely solo, 6 days a week, baking in-house every day, curating my offering, and generally building as genuine an experience as I could. I ran events, raised money for charity, made silly merch working with so many amazing local artists, and I like to think I built a really robust and kind community.
I closed the shop down in August of 2025, and was at a bit of a loss as to what to do next. So I did what most mid-20's sort-of-creatives do and went back to university. This brought me to Glasgow, where I study design at the GSA, and where I started my ceramics journey. I started learning with Stef Baxter Pottery in Govan (whom I cannot recommend enough as a teacher when starting out), and am now a resident member at Genuine Quirk.
I'm planning on reincorporating fine woodwork into my practice, and building my metalworking skillset over the coming months to develop my practice further and continue to make cool and fun and interesting things.
Anyway, that's probably a lot to read. Thanks for sticking through it.
Hope that answers some questions, and if you have more, feel free to contact me!