When Hanna Dausch was in middle school, she had a lightbulb moment. “I was always very artistic as a little kid—art class was always my best subject,” she tells Business of Home . “I woke up one day, and it just clicked, like, ‘Wait, this is my favorite subject. I love doing this. OK, I’m just going to do this forever.’” Dausch left her hometown of Pittsburgh and headed to Chicago to attend Loyola University, but then with the help of her professors who aided in building up her portfolio, transferred to The Art Institute of Chicago for a more robust program.

There, she studied ceramics and dabbled in sculpture and woodworking, learning how to use a lathe (the tool her woodturner grandfather used). “I became absolutely obsessed with it, and I was turning pieces on the lathe constantly be

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