I’ve always been hopelessly nostalgic, romantic.
I love stories - especially the ones that really happened.
I love old things, weathered things, places that have been changed by water, wind, sunlight, and time. Things that wear their stories on the outside.
I collect places — not because I want to own them, but because I want to remember how they made me feel.
Sometimes with a camera.
Sometimes with a notebook.
Sometimes with a pocket full of rocks.
And sometimes with clay.
I’m Allison, the maker behind Born on Sunset.
I collect places. I tell stories. I make things.
The name Born on Sunset isn’t just a metaphor. It comes from an independent pottery studio on Sunset Avenue, where what started as a much-needed escape slowly turned into something much bigger. I’d left producing TV to stay home with my kids and was just looking for a creative outlet… and a couple of hours that were very, very far away from Thomas the Train
Temple of Mediclaytion Sunset Ave. Venice, circa 2015
Pottery quickly became an obsession
I begged for, borrowed and stole every hour I could to be in that studio. Then one day something pinned to the studio bathroom bulletin board stopped me in my tracks —
I needed ceramics to be part of my everyday life and clay dust had no room at the family kitchen table (although I did cheat out of desperation a few times).
So I began building a studio one mismatched piece at a time. We saved what we could, I hunted down secondhand equipment, and learned almost everything through trial (and an equal amount of error).
It started with a wheel sitting on a mound of mulch under our carport. Then we found some leftover floor tiles in the side-yard and laid those down. We ripped away shrubs and painted the brick walls white and my husband Josh had the clever idea to use an old closet door to build me some shelves.
It stopped feeling like a hobby.
And then, there it was:
somehow - it happened.
September 2016
life is messy, clay teaches patience
As exciting as it sounds, it was also terrifying. Everything happened faster than I expected. I didn’t go to school for ceramics. I had this entire universe that I needed to learn. But I jumped in headfirst anyway and before I knew it I was waking up in the middle of the night checking my kiln like it was another sleeping baby.
There were school drop-offs, parent conferences, bedtime routines. Deadlines. Flopped pots. Glaze tests. And countless throwing sessions squeezed into the margins of everyday life.
Somewhere along the way, I looked up and realized I wasn’t just learning how to make pottery—I was learning how to begin again.
I didn’t leave television because I stopped loving it.
I left because, after becoming a mother, I realized it no longer fit the life I wanted to build.
The long hours, constant deadlines, and unpredictability that made me successful in that world were the very things pulling me away from the version of myself I wanted most: Mama (the artist).
I traded a big paycheck for something that felt infinitely more valuable - being there.
At the same time, Josh was building the filmmaking career of his dreams, so mine became the steadier, more predictable role. Because I was home, he could say yes to opportunities that required long bouts of travel, even longer days, and impossible schedules. We were a team, each making different sacrifices so the other could thrive. I’m deeply grateful that he believed in my creative work, too, long before I thought about making it a business. His support gave me the space to keep returning to the studio, even when the path forward wasn’t always clear.
We lived on less, but gained so much more.
The greatest gift wasn’t the time I found to make pottery - It was the life Josh and I built around it.
It was my hand our kids reached for on the walk home from school. My arms that comforted them through sick days. My hands that bathed them and made endless snacks and scratch-dinners. And my voice that sang to them at bedtime, every single night. There is nothing in this world that has ever felt more right.
Careers can be rebuilt. Money can be earned again. But those years, when my children still reached for my hand, were a once-in-a-lifetime gift.
Piece by piece, clay has taught me resilience - not because it was easy, but because it rarely was.
Through every season since, clay has been my constant - the place I return to when I need to think, to feel, to reset, be be challenged, and to be welcomed, no matter what.
Cracks became lessons. Failures became new ideas. Every finished piece carried a little evidence that starting over is part of making something worth keeping.
today my studio lives in our 92 year old garage in Venice, CA
Born on Sunset is where all those seasons meet: motherhood. curiosity, travel, joy, uncertainty, and the quiet belief that it’s not too late to build the life that’s been waiting for you.
I travel when I can. I collect rocks, shells, rescue-dogs. I mother teens, I cook, and I keep showing up to the work. All of it finds its way into my clay practice.
The walls are full of holes and some days I swear the termites might be winning, but it’s all mine. Every piece is made by my hands in small batches, with care, intention, heaps of gratitude, and a little bit of that Venice magic.
Studio interior today.
I hope something I make reminds you of a place you love - or inspires you to discover a new one.
I’m so glad you found your way here
(it took me a while, too)
