ULUALA® is a one person brand

Hi, I'm Ele and Uluala means modest
and simple shelter in Estonian language

My Story

I’ve always been crafty as long as remember. My grandmother showed me how to make my own wooden toys when I was 4. She showed me how using hands grows your imagination and gives you endless possibilities to create and solve problems. “If you don’t have the right tool for the job, then you make one.” she always told me. I had a great childhood growing up at countryside. I painted, did some crafty stuff and worked with horses. 

But life brought me to the city and I started working towards career that seemed more suitable for city life ― graphic design. I got my Bachelors degree in Estonian Academy of Arts and during studies also started to work as Graphic Designer. Having worked in this field for over ten years I started to feel that that my hands need more skills and usage. So just one fine day I decided to try something new and joined a ceramics class that took place once a week, just to see if I only like this idea in theory. Started with pinching a small bowl as so many others. But after this first touch of clay I was looking through my options to go and get a real degree in ceramics. After doing this short course in 2019, I applied to a school of ceramics and got in. 

Shortly after school start in 2020 I bought myself a potters wheel and decent sized kiln to get as much skill and knowledge during this 2 year period while studying this craft. I was so hooked and I still am, as I know that I have found my true medium, the earth.

Name of Uluala

When I moved out from the city center some years back I found myself with this old neglected garden. There were old building materials lying around in piles and lots of neighbours in every direction. And no room in the house for my creative head to work. And I was really missing greenery.
Had been watching these piles of “rubbish” from our kitchen window for quite some time, figuring out how to clean up this garden, it came to me one spring. I could solve many different problems at the same time. 
I wanted more privacy, more greenery, a space for my crafts, reuse those piled materials and better view from our kitchen window. I spread all the leftover materials around the garden to see what we actually have and tried to find a place and usage for all. Only things that I needed to buy were screws and couple of posts to complete the pergola roof and some wood varnish. Fine, added a greenhouse too. Everything else came from these ten and more year old piles. Nothing needed to be thrown away and I got myself a corner where to do my crafts, grow tomatoes, a shade from neighbours and a neat garden. An old pine that fell down with a storm got also a new purpose as a table with stools. So I made myself a simple shelter and called it my uluala. Eventually the plants will grow over the beams and form a roof too.