All Things Love & Lovelier with Aquila Cook
Aquila (Quil for short) lives in the Welsh Valleys with her two daughters. She started her ceramics business Love & Lovelier as a way to make her work life more flexible around her home life. Both of her daughters have Cystic Fibrosis, and she says 'I needed a way of working that I could fit in round all the hospital appointments and so forth.' The business has grown from there, and she recently took the step of selling through STDAVIDS.WALES, so we caught up with her to learn a bit more about it.
Like many working parents, Quil acknowledges the complexities of running a business while raising a family. 'Like most 'creatives' probably, I don't think I do a great job of balancing! I work whilst the kids are at school, and sometimes a bit whilst they are busy doing other things in the afternoons and evenings.' So Quil snatches any time she can to whip up a mini bunting!
Love & Lovelier's name came from Quil's wish to bring across a certain message - 'I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to sell when I started out so I wanted a name that wasn't too definitive, but that had a message of thoughtfulness and love behind it,' says Quil. She sources her clay and glazes from a company in Newport, and by the looks of things, as little as possible is wasted. Her heart brooches are created out of the cut outs from her love spoons, making them each that little bit more unique.