Today we’d like to introduce you to Julie Robertson.
Hi Julie , thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
It started with a daydream.
What if I could do something I loved every day?
That question planted itself in my mind and wouldn’t let go. At first I thought big — maybe a retreat, a place where people could come and just escape for a while. But that felt enormous, so I sat with it. And then life did what it always does — it started leaving clues.
I found myself driving out to Pittsboro, NC for pottery classes, passing storefronts along the way, watching communities build themselves around art and craft and creativity. And somewhere on one of those drives, a different question showed up:
Why not me? Why don’t we have something like this in Apex?
We need this in our community. We need a place to throw a pot or take a painting class or just spend an afternoon making something fun with our hands.
But honestly? The more I paid attention to the world around me, the more urgent that question became.
We are living through an incredibly noisy, overwhelming, disconnected time. People are stressed, and so many of us are quietly running on empty. What I kept seeing — and feeling — was a deep need to slow down. To be present. To take a mental health break. To create something in a world that can feel really out of our control.
There is something profoundly healing about working with your hands. When I am working with clay, my nervous system settles. And I don’t think about anything else. My mind goes quiet. And I felt like I was learning something again.
Science backs this up — creative making reduces cortisol, eases anxiety, and gives us back a sense of agency and accomplishment that life so often takes away. But honestly, you don’t need a study to tell you that. You just need one afternoon creating something.
And we need each other. We need to laugh around a table, struggle together over a lopsided bowl, celebrate each other’s tiny victories. Community isn’t a luxury right now. It’s essential to our well being.
That spark became Firefly Clay & Craft Co. — a creative studio brand born out of a simple but powerful belief: that art and pottery and community belong in Apex, NC. Not someday. Now.
Today we’re showing up at local markets and pop-up events around Apex, offering craft nights and workshops that bring people together around the joy of making. And we’re building toward something even bigger — a permanent studio right here in Apex where creativity has a true home. A place to breathe. A place to belong. It all started with one question. But the answer, I’m discovering, is so much bigger than I imagined.
I was asked recently what three words I would use to describe what I want people to feel when they experience a Firefly event or class. My thoughts were Warm, Creative, and Yours. I really want people to feel like they are part of a community. And I can’t wait to bring that to life here in Apex.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Has it been easy? No. Has it been worth it? Absolutely — without question. The truth is, building something from nothing is messy and wonderful and humbling all at once. Every step forward has come with its own set of questions I didn’t know I needed to ask yet. Building Firefly has asked more of me than I expected, and given back more than I imagined.
And then there’s the quieter struggle — the one that doesn’t show up on any business checklist.
The self-doubt.
For me it showed up as a very specific question: Do I know enough about art to actually do this? Am I the right person to lead this? I had the passion, I had the vision — but imposter syndrome has a way of poking at your softest spots. What I discovered though, when I started putting myself out there, was something that genuinely moved me.
The people showed up. They want something like this in their lives.
Artists, potters, crafters, creatives — people right here in our own community who wanted this just as badly as I did. People who didn’t just encourage the dream but said I want to be part of building it. That answer has been an astounding and overwhelming — and it gave me more confidence that this doesn’t have to be all me. It doesn’t have to be perfect. We can build this together.
The biggest practical hurdle? Finding our home.
The Raleigh-Apex area is a wonderful place to live — and apparently everyone agrees, because finding a space that can actually hold this dream has been genuinely hard. We need room for pottery wheels, kilns, classroom space, creative energy, and a community that wants to gather. That combination in the right location at the right price? It’s a real search. We’re still in it, still knocking on doors, still staying hopeful.
So if you know a guy… we’d love to hear from you. 😄
And then there’s balance — or the ongoing, creative pursuit of it. Working full time while bringing a dream to life is no small thing. Some days it’s a lot. But here’s what keeps me going: every single time I teach a class, or walk into a pottery workshop, or watch someone’s face light up when they make something with their hands for the first time — I am so excited to bring this to more people.
So I just keep going. Trusting that the pieces will fall into place. Getting creative when they don’t. And remembering that the dream is worth every complicated, wonderful, exhausting, exciting step.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
By day I lead a UX Design team at a Fortune 500 company — work I genuinely love. But in my free time I am a crafter, a hobbyist, a lover of all things art and nature. A self-proclaimed master of none — and I mean that in the best possible way.
I don’t have one signature style or one medium I stick to. What I’m figuring out about myself as an artist is that I really like detail and color. The small things that make a piece interesting. The colors that just make you feel good when you look at them.
If you ask me what has really grabbed me lately though, it’s Raku.
Raku is a firing technique where the pottery is heated to 1800 degrees and pulled out of the kiln while it’s still red hot. It goes straight into a container packed with combustibles like newspaper and sawdust that catch fire around it. You seal it up, the fire removes the oxygen, and you are left with an effect you honestly can’t predict or control. When you open the lid you know you have something completely one of a kind. No two pieces ever look the same — and I love that. Every single time you open that lid it’s a surprise. That never gets old.
That feeling — of making something and not knowing exactly what you’re going to get — is kind of what Firefly is about too.
Because here’s the thing. Firefly is for people who don’t think they’re creative. You know that person who says “Oh I could never do that, I’m not artistic”? That is exactly who I built this for. The people who have talked themselves out of trying. Who think art is for someone else with some special talent they weren’t born with. That’s just not true — and Firefly exists to prove it.
Art should be accessible. Fun. No pressure. Something that belongs to everybody.
And I mean everybody. One of the things I’m most excited about for Firefly’s future is building a nonprofit arm that brings art and pottery to people in our community who may not otherwise have access to it. That is Phase 2 of our Firefly plan — and it’s one I am deeply committed to.
Because here’s something I truly believe: art isn’t about talent. It never was. It’s about practice. It’s about showing up, trying things, making a mess, and trying again. Every artist you admire started there and you can too.
You don’t need experience. You don’t need to feel confident walking in. You just need to show up — and we’ll learn and grow together.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
Do I believe in luck? Yes. But I don’t depend on it.
I’m a little old school that way — and I probably get that from my dad. He worked a full time job and ran a real estate business on the side. He was an entrepreneur before that word was cool. He worked hard, probably harder than he needed to and without enough time off, but he showed me what it looks like to build something through sheer determination and consistency. I think about that a lot when Firefly feels overwhelming.
That and being a Gen X kid. We were raised to figure things out, work hard, and not wait around for someone to hand us anything. That’s just in my wiring at this point.
But if my dad gave me my work ethic, my mom gave me the art bug. She is a retired teacher who used to make my clothes growing up — she paints, draws, and crochets. Creativity was just part of our home.
So when it comes to Firefly — do I feel lucky? In some ways, absolutely. Lucky to have grown up with parents who modeled both hard work and creativity. Lucky to have found something that lights me up. Lucky that when I started putting this dream out into the world, the right people are showing up to help me build it.
But luck gets you to the door. You still have to walk through it and do the work – which can feel really uncomfortable. That determination to keep moving forward part – that I learned from my dad.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://fireflyclay.com
- Instagram: fireflyclayco
- Facebook: Firefly Clay and Craft Co
