Stanley Pottery and Weaving celebrating 50 years in business in P.E.I.
- Judith Mendiolea Lelo de Larrea
- Aug 15, 2025
- 5 min read
(Story originally published by PNI Atlantic News on July 05, 2025)
It all started with a sign. A wooden sign nailed to a post at the edge of a rural P.E.I. road in 1975.
Malcom and Christine Stanley had just moved to the Island, bringing with them a passion for handmade craft and a quiet confidence that their work would find its place. The sign, simple and hand-painted, was their only advertisement.
“We didn’t have a business plan,” Malcom said. “We put a handmade sign at the end of the driveway of the house we were renting and hoped people came in.”
That first gesture — hopeful, homemade — became a symbol of the life they built. Over the decades, their business, Stanley Pottery and Weaving, found its way into homes across P.E.I., and beyond. And 50 years later, today, their work is still sold in Victoria-by-the-Sea, where they live now, not far from where they raised their three children and ran a farm for forty years.
Flashback to the loom and the wheel
Their partnership, both creative and personal, began a year earlier in Fredericton, N.B.
Malcom, then a young apprentice potter, was studying under a well-known Canadian ceramicist. Christine was immersed in her weaving program. Their paths crossed every day: to get to the pottery studio, students had to pass through the weaving department.
“She was sitting behind a loom,” Malcom recalled. “And she’s still sitting behind the loom.”
Christine wasn’t easily impressed.
“It took him three tries to ask me out,” she said. “I said to him, 'Do you like farm animals?' And he said, 'I’m just asking you out on a date.' And I said, 'I’m not wasting my time. I want a farm.'”
That clarity set the tone. Christine envisioned a life in agriculture, surrounded by wool and the quiet rhythm of her looms. Malcom, already deeply drawn to the tactile language of clay, found her vision compelling enough to follow.
The chicken house and the schoolhouse
After arriving on the Island, they settled in Wheatley River. Their first studio was a converted chicken house behind their rented home.
“Every time it rained, it kind of smelled like chickens,” Christine said.
They later purchased a decommissioned one-room schoolhouse in 1978. It had only been closed for a few years.
“A lot of the people in the community had gone to school there,” Malcom said. “So I would meet a lot of locals because of that.”
While Malcom ran the storefront and shaped clay in his studio, Christine wove quietly at home. Their first child, Michael, was still a baby. The space was modest but meaningful, filled with handmade items and the energy of starting something from scratch.
Making a living with craft
For decades, they lived on their craft. Through recessions, changing markets and raising a family, they never stepped away from the work.
“We were interviewed many times in the past because people wondered how two craftspeople could make a living,” Christine said. “A lot of times one person has to get a paycheck, like farmers. But the two of us were able to do it.”
Christine, ever practical, kept the books.
“At the end of the day, I do the books,” she said. “We’re totally debt free. We don’t owe anything to anybody.”
“We didn’t get rich,” Malcom added. “But what we had, we managed well.”
They played to their strengths. Christine, a self-described math person, took care of inventory, accounting and ordering supplies. Malcom focused on production. He worked long winter hours at the potter’s wheel, and painted each piece by hand.
“I didn’t get into pottery to be a business person,” he said. “Luckily, my son is a much better business person than I am. Now I just make pottery, which is what I like doing.”
The farm years
In 1980, they bought 40 acres in Glencoe and started building their dream from the ground up.
“The hardwood floor in the living room came from the gym at UPEI that I took out,” Christine said. “I’m a recycler.”
They milled their own lumber. They raised goats, ducks, chickens — and, finally, sheep. Christine always had a clear goal in mind.
“I only wanted purebred Bluefaced Leicesters,” she said. “People want soft things to put on their heads.”
Before she could import her own flock, she sourced fleece from a woman in New York. She washed, dyed, spun and wove every strand herself.
Malcom had a studio on the property, and Christine’s looms took over much of the house. They raised three children while running a full-scale farm and a two-person business.
“We lived there for 40 years,” Malcom said. “It was a great place to live.”
The new generation builds differently
Michael didn’t always plan on becoming a potter. He was working as a chef and a musician when he came home for Christmas 25 years ago.
“I was complaining about the food and music industry,” he said. “Dad hadn’t had an apprentice in 10 years, and he was behind on orders. So I just decided, hey, why don’t I try the family business?”
Now he manages his own studio and storefront, selling both his and Malcom’s pottery, along with work by other Island artists.
“A lot of people love mugs, and my dad and I just cannot make enough mugs in the run of the year,” he said. “So I buy mugs from potters who have a home-based studio. It allows them to have their work in my shop.”
Christine’s weaving is sold just down the street, out of their daughter’s summer house. There, she leads a weekly rug hooking group, teaches knitting and shares old skills with a new generation.
“The 15-year-old next door is doing fantastic work,” she said. “He even got alpacas.”
What they built that lasts
In 2020, they left the farm and moved to Victoria-by-the-Sea.
“It was our favourite house,” Christine said. “Built in 1818. Big, huge old place.”
Their business is now divided in two separate locations close to each other. The weaving shop is on 5 Main St., right beside island chocolates, and the Pottery shop is at 22 Howard St., beside the Victoria Playhouse.
They no longer need 40 acres or barns. But the rhythm of their days hasn’t changed. Christine still dedicates long hours to weaving and design. March is “Fringe Month” — a time when she ties the ends of her scarves while watching British television.
Malcom works in the studio four hours a day, sometimes more, throwing pots and painting glaze by hand. He splits his time between Michael’s shop and Christine’s.
“I still enjoy making pottery,” he said. “It’s a good thing, because I make a lot of product.”
Visitors still bring in mugs purchased 30 or 40 years ago, well-worn and well-loved.
The signs may be newer. The display cases are brighter. But that same handmade spirit — from a painted sign on a rural road in 1975 — still welcomes visitors inside.
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