In 2025, Happy You and Mee is celebrating 10 years of playing with clay on Portland and the extraordinary day when two creative minds met by the most beautiful chance. 

Shani is a Portlander, well known to our community who has supported her while growing up as a blind child on the island. When she returned from her studies at the National College for the Blind in Hereford, she set up her little hobby ceramic sculpting studio in Weston. A few months later, fate sat her next to Anaïck at a Dorset Blind Association social meeting. Anaïck asked Shani if she would consider teaching her ceramics and they discovered that they lived either end of Weston Street. This day changed both their lives, for the utmost creative better!

Anaïck became Shani’s apprentice and together they invented Happy You and Mee as a ‘self propelling hobby’. Attending a few Christmas fairs to secure a little funding for the following year’s clay and electricity bills.

Since 2024, Anaïck has taken the reins and developed Happy You and Mee as her own business, teaching ceramics workshops in her studio on Weston Street.

Shani and Anaïck have been meeting up every week for 10 years to play with clay and create sculptures inspired by our island, the sea and Shani’s imaginary world populated with exquisite fairies, cats, hares, mermaids and dragons. They cannot wait to see what they will create in the next 10 years!

Together they also enjoy sharing their love for the ceramic art, giving inspiring talks, conducting demonstrations and supporting children around Dorset on a voluntary basis.

You can follow their adventures in clay @happyyouandmee on Facebook and Instagram