In The Kitchen & Studio With Niki Shelley and Amy’s
Written by Katie Hintz-Zambrano
Photography by Senay Inanici
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The ceramicist invites us into her kitchen—and studio—to try out Amy's new breakfast offerings, and discuss motherhood, career, and more!
For Bay Area-based mom Niki Shelley, mealtime is not something she takes lightly. “My mother-in-law once said that meals together are her religion and that sentiment is one I definitely share,” she says.
This is just one of the reasons Niki was the perfect candidate to take Amy’s brand-new frozen breakfast meals for a test-drive, alongside her 8-year-old daughter Rilke.
A ceramicist by trade, Niki’s beautiful collection of plates, bowls, serving platters, and mugs (created under the Manu label) were the ideal backdrop for the easy and nutritious breakfast scrambles, wraps, and burritos that we served up.
Made with the highest quality organic, non-GMO ingredients, all of the breakfast offerings are free of eggs (they use protein-packed house-made tofu instead), meat, seafood, and peanuts, allowing everyone—no matter your dietary restrictions of preferences—to take part.
Niki’s verdict? “We loved all of the Amy’s breakfast meals we tried!” she says. “I was so pleasantly surprised to see how much Rilke enjoyed them. She especially liked the breakfast burritos.”
After breakfast with the adorable duo, we headed to Niki’s nearby ceramics studio to see where all the magic happens.
Not only was the space filled with her gorgeous hand-made creations, we also got to check out the sweetest mommy and me collaboration—an awe-inspiring set of fairy houses made of natural, foraged materials and filed with dozens of tiny wood fairies, clothed in festive scraps.
Check it all out—below and in our slideshow—while hearing about Niki and Rilke’s mealtime habits, as well as Niki’s unique journey to motherhood and becoming an artist.
Be sure to follow Niki on Instagram at @manueveryday and shop Amy’s new breakfast options online and at grocery stores nationwide.
What does breakfast usually look like at your home?
"I am a very firm believer in the quiet power of a shared meal! We usually eat breakfast together every morning. This looks different during the week than on weekends, as we’re all getting ready for our work and school days.”
“Weekday breakfast might be an omelette, oatmeal, or cereal. Weekends are more relaxed. We often have special things that my daughter can be more involved in the making of—pancakes or waffles (with Nocciolata!) are her favorites."
Do you have a philosophy around meals with Rilke?
"My mother-in-law once said that meals together are her religion and that sentiment is one I definitely share. What I have found over years working in community spaces is that building community is a labor of love and that conviviality is key. It happens slowly, over long periods of informal time spent together. Make space for people at your dinner table and you’ll never want for community.”
"I also really love to cook and have had the great fortune of knowing and working with some amazing cooks over the years. I have learned that how and what we feed people matters. One of my proudest moments happened recently when my daughter asked me to make brownies for her basketball coach’s birthday. We were all very busy and I suggested we just bring some store bought brownies to which she replied, 'No. They must be made with love and care.' Sometimes it feels inconvenient to be confronted with your own values! To be fair, I think store bought brownies are perfectly capable of communicating love and care, but we’re still working on the nuances over here."
“For those of us who put a lot of thought into making beautiful meals, eating together is a ritual. It’s not just about what’s on the plate, but also the plate itself. The whole experience matters—the lighting, the music, the way the table is set, the people at the table.”
What are your favorites from Amy's new frozen breakfast line?
"We loved all of the Amy’s breakfast meals we tried! I was so pleasantly surprised to see how much Rilke enjoyed them. She especially liked the breakfast burritos."
How important is eating organic, plant-based, and non-GMO to you?
"Eating mindfully is very important to me. I think a lot about where our food comes from, how it was grown/raised and what systems we’re supporting with our food choices. As a culture, we’ve become so disconnected from our food sources/systems and it has a real impact—not just on us but also on the environment and the people who are growing and harvesting the food we eat. Unfortunately, it’s a real luxury to be able to make mindful choices about the food that we eat—our food systems don’t afford us all that opportunity."
"We try to eat mostly organic and we’re lucky to live in a place with such great access to healthy, locally grown, non-GMO produce. There’s nothing like a dry-farmed, early girl tomato in late summer."
We love how your ceramics pair with these meals. Can you tell us about your pieces on the table?
"A lot of ceramicists come to clay through food and I’m one of those people. For those of us who put a lot of thought into making beautiful meals, eating together is a ritual. It’s not just about what’s on the plate, but also the plate itself. The whole experience matters—the lighting, the music, the way the table is set, the people at the table."
"Those who are really serious about food tend to have a deep appreciation for the details. They understand where our food comes from and how handmade objects carry an affective quality you’ll never experience with something made by machines in a factory."
"I love a big serving bowl because of what it communicates: abundance, generosity, community. The work that I make is in service to the collaborative act of radical hospitality."
Did you always know you wanted to be a mother?
"I have to admit that I never actually wanted to be a mother, quite the opposite. I say this with some embarrassment because I know and love people who have always wanted to have children and who have struggled tremendously, but it’s the truth."
"My own mother died when I was sixteen and I forever felt like I was too much of a mess to raise a child. I had all of this anger and unresolved stuff—stuff I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be resolved. There’s a certain juvenile romance to wallowing in one’s own suffering. I had a hard time after my mother died and I found a lot of comfort in chaos, but life likes to throw you some funny curveballs!"
"Having Rilke was the best thing that ever happened to me. I love being a mother and take the challenge of working through my own stuff in order to be as good a mom as I can be very seriously."
How has your identity shifted after becoming a mother?
"It’s been a rollercoaster. In the beginning, I felt like I had to completely sublimate the person I was before having a child. It was like dying, in a way, like an ego death. I had a hard time understanding who I was. I wanted nothing more than to be a steady, loving parent but at the same time there was all of this turmoil under the surface: I had to give up unhealthy coping mechanisms and relationship dynamics, I had to learn to ask for and accept help, and I had to really work on practicing some serious self-love. I cried my way through a lot of self-help books!"
"I don’t always find it easy. More recently, I’ve been able to reintegrate parts of the pre-mom version of myself that is still a little rough around the edges, which is to say that I have let go of the impulse to personify some unrealistic ideal 'mother' and be myself."
"My daughter is old enough now that she can understand contradictions and I think it’s healthy for her to see her mom as a real person who is working through normal human things. I try to teach her that accountability is more important than never messing up—messing up is inevitable. I talk about the stuff I’m having a hard time with. I apologize a lot."
How old is Rilke now and what is she most into?
"Rilke is EIGHT! She’s the greatest kid—so kind and brave and thoughtful and sensitive and smart and silly. I’m incredibly lucky to get to share this life with her. She’s game to try pretty much anything at least once. She’s just gotten really into reading, which is so exciting to witness. She’s learning to play chess and piano, both of which she really enjoys. She loves making art, singing, climbing, and riding bikes and she is an excellent friend. She loves being around other people. She’s a rockhound, a beach comber, an animal lover, and an expert snuggler. She knows how to appreciate a beautiful day and a good meal."
“We loved all of the Amy’s breakfast meals we tried! I was so pleasantly surprised to see how much Rilke enjoyed them. She especially liked the breakfast burritos.”
What excites you about motherhood right now?
"I am deeply appreciative of the endless opportunities for growth that motherhood provides. I am very aware of the fact that all I have control over in this relationship are my own actions. Understanding the impact that my actions can have means constantly course-correcting. It’s exciting to make new choices! Caring about another person so much that you’re willing to do hard work on yourself is a real gift."
What makes you most nervous?
"I don’t feel that nervous about my parenting. I’m not perfect but I think I’m doing alright. For me, being a good parent is less about being right and more about being real. Letting her know that she is loved is paramount and I truly believe she feels that."
"What I do feel nervous about is the world that she’s growing up in. Seeing how emotionally intelligent her cohort is gives me a lot of hope but accepting the fact that your kid will have to learn some hard lessons on their own is particularly scary when the world is so polarized and the margin for error is so razor thin. I don’t have much material wealth to pass on to her but I try to make up for it by putting serious effort into building loving community around her."
What was your own upbringing like?
"I grew up in rural Delaware and Maryland. Super small-town vibes, lots of unsupervised time messing around outside with friends. Both of my parents worked. My mom was a gifted, though somewhat reluctant, elementary school teacher. She had been told as a teenager that she could either be a teacher or a nurse, but she was really an artist and my childhood was filled with her abundant love and creativity."
Are there things from your upbringing that you're consciously trying to incorporate (or not incorporate) into your parenting?
"The greatest gifts my mother gave to me were her unconditional love for my brother and I and her creative spirit. If ever I feel like my daughter and I are out of sync, I can always rely on a creative project to bring us back together."
"Things I am consciously trying not to incorporate: harmful attitudes around food and bodies. I think most mothers of my generation are grappling with this one."
When did ceramics first enter your life?
"I messed around with ceramics in high school and again in junior college but I didn’t immediately fall in love with it. When I went to art school I studied painting and printmaking and then, after graduating, I went on a wildly meandering career path. I had to work from a young age and always had multiple jobs throughout college. My father had made it pretty clear to me that I would never make a living doing creative work and so it was always something I did on the side."
"When I was in my 20s I moved to New York and ended up working in digital advertising for several years. It was the most depressing time of my life. I wasn’t doing anything creative and I lacked the confidence to assert myself in a way that might have made that work more rewarding. When I left New York I floated around for long time, unsure of what to do with myself."
"When Rilke was born, my entire world was turned upside down. I felt desperate to do something that I cared about and that I had creative control over. I wasn’t sure what that was but I started taking ceramics classes and at some point I said to myself, 'you have to pick something and commit to it.' It was as if all of these outside voices fell away and I knew that if I gave myself the chance, I could create a meaningful life. And I wanted my child to witness that. So I picked ceramics. I liked that it was creative but also a utilitarian craft with a long lineage and endless possibilities for exploration."
"I’m lucky that my husband was supportive of me taking this leap. That said, I have worked really hard. I think that you can be successful at anything if you have the opportunity to put in enough time. Unfortunately it’s not something that all of us have."
How would you describe your work?
"I make functional objects that are inspired by folk art traditions. I’ve tried to take my ego out of it as much as possible. Occasionally I meander into a more sculptural realm but I really do love to make objects for everyday life."
What does success mean to you?
"There’s this narrative out there that success is big and loud but I wholeheartedly reject that. I think that small gestures can be paradigm shifting and I work on that scale. A geological scale, I like to say. That’s what mothers do anyway, we teach our children to be caring citizens of the world through an endless series of small moments. If I can make an object that attends the small moments in someone’s daily life in a way that communicates care and human connection, then I think I’ve succeeded."
Tell us about your studio space—it's gorgeous!
"I have a private studio in a ceramics guild that’s been around for over 50 years. West Berkeley used to be home to a lot of ceramicists and other craftspeople, but that’s rapidly changing. I’m very grateful to have affordable studio space, it’s hard to come by in the Bay Area!"
Do you have any creative practices or rituals to get you inspired?
"As a production potter, my work most days is just about showing up and making the donuts, so to speak. In the beginning, when I was developing my line, it was a lot more creative and I do miss that. I’m really lucky to have a handful of regular accounts and clients who continue to support me. I work almost every weekday, going into the studio after I drop my daughter off at school until I have to leave to pick her up."
"It’s probably a good thing that my studio is not at home because once I leave, work is pretty much over for the day. I try to set aside time for play and exploration, but it doesn’t happen as often as I’d like. I’m in the same boat as a lot of solo creatives, trying to navigate building a business that is sustainable long-term while keeping the little flame of what drew you to it in the first place alive. I have friends who have scaled up to a degree that has wiped out the magic. I’m here for the magic, so I move slowly and deliberately."
How has your view of career and art shifted (at all) since becoming a mother?
"Since becoming a mother I have adopted the view that every aspect of life can be done creatively. I have no interest in making art in a silo, I want it to permeate everything I do. It doesn’t have to be serious or extravagant; my style is very scrappy and make-do. It’s as simple as making your loved one the perfect cup of tea in the morning. It’s about slowing down and paying attention. That’s what motherhood has taught me."
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