“Madison County and the state were very supportive of a woman-owned business that was creating jobs-150 employees at our peak. She quickly outgrew the 1,500-square-foot studio created in 1988, built a 7,000-foot studio in 1991 with an investor who took on a business management role, and by 1998 expanded to a 60,000-square-foot manufacturing plant. had gone to commercial scale using the collector quality techniques I was using.” “Hand-painted pottery was just beginning to be imported from Portugal and Italy,” said Pittman, “but nobody else in the U.S. Pittman’s colorful designs on bowls and platters expanded to dinnerware sets in multiple patterns. It’s one thing to create products and sell them when you can, but to be responsible for delivering on time - then it becomes a business.” “A crossover point came when Carol Puckett, founder of the Everyday Gourmet, asked to carry my pottery. “After my husband John gave me a kiln, my greatest aspiration was to show at the Canton (Mississippi) Flea Market,” said Pittman. Pittman, founder and president of Gail Pittman Inc., did plenty of fast moving, however, as she built her company into the largest manufacturer of hand-painted pottery in the United States. But for ignorance, I would probably have run the other way.”

“I started out in 1980 painting pre-made clay bowls on a revolving spice rack in my kitchen in Jackson and eight years later moved into a 1,500-square-foot studio, bought my first commercial kiln, hired three employees - one of whom was my mother, who couldn’t work on Tuesdays because of bridge club, and took out a $10,000 loan. “God gives you a double bucket of ignorance when you need it,” said Gail Pittman, reflecting on her first years in the pottery business.

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