Rose Frankel loved the Twilight saga like every other fangirl out there, awaiting movie and book releases and coveting the characters on and off-screen. Unlike many other fans her age, Twilight accidentally led to Frankel starting her pottery business, Granola Girl Pottery, on a whim.
She had already been doing pottery for 15 years, and initially just made pottery for friends and family, always worried about the shipping logistics of her fragile pieces, and the time-consuming nature of a small business.
She began growing a following by posting a joke about Midnight Sun, her favorite Twilight series novel, and then eventually made her first piece around when the novel came out.
Her Midnight Sun pottery quickly gained popularity, and as people online began asking about purchasing her work, she began her Etsy shop during the free time afforded to her by the pandemic.
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“So I posted it and it sold out pretty quickly and that’s kind of how it started,” Frankel said. “I’ve just been making stuff and posting stuff and people have been really nice and I sell out really quickly now, which I still really can’t believe what it’s become.”
Frankel said that when the Harry Potter movies ended, she began looking for a new fandom to fill the void. She said her “fangirl personality” always left her with a proclivity to fandoms, and the timing of Twilight allowed her to transition into a new obsession.
Her teenage fixation on Robert Pattinson, and hence, Edward, also contributed to her love for the Twilight fandom that lasted into today
“I think Robert Pattinson was like my first crush, like my first celebrity crush for sure,” Frankel said. “I remember getting an iPod Touch when they were first coming out. It was my first big purchase with my babysitting money, and he was my background.”
Frankel even made her own viral series reviewing every movie Pattinson ever acted in, which she said also built her following. She’s also fond of the self-deprecation of his own work, his devil-may-care attitude when it comes to speaking honestly about the films he stars in.
Frankel said that she only had a few friends that also enjoyed Twilight, and even then she couldn’t talk about it much for fear of the ridicule that usually followed fans of the series.
“I was a huge Twilight fangirl when I was a kid and now it’s cool to like Twilight. You’re not made fun of for liking Twilight anymore, because I think when Twilight first came out, it was just because it’s always cool and easy to hate on stuff that young girls love,” Frankel said. “Now that that’s a little bit less of a thing, people my age in their mid-twenties who were obsessed with Twilight when it was coming out, we’re experiencing being Twilight fans without the mean bullies.”
While some attribute “Twilight resurgence,” as it’s been called, to the movies being put on Netflix, Frankel thinks it started around the release of Midnight Sun, which fans like her waited patiently for over a number of years.
A lot of her pottery centers around her interests, so making Twilight-themed pottery aligned perfectly with her love of the craft, the fandom, and the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. Twilight has even influenced other aspects of her life, like her taste in music, so the fusion of the series with her pottery that had also been a part of her life for so long was a “natural fit.”
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“I was doing more straight Twilight stuff where I took Edward and Bella’s handwriting from the books and I was inscribing it into a lot of stuff,” Frankel said. “But then I started mixing it with the mountain stuff that I was doing anyway, and that seemed to really take off and people seemed to really like it.”
Her favorite part about Stephanie Meyer’s latest novel, and Frankel’s personal favorite, Midnight Sun, was how readers got to know Bella from Edward’s point of view, breaking her out of the shell of insecurity fans saw her in before.
“A lot of girls didn’t like Bella throughout the whole series, but I think seeing Bella through Edward’s eyes was so cool because Bella didn’t think much of herself and her self-esteem was a huge theme in the books, too,” Frankel said. “So getting to see Bella through Edward’s eyes was just a really cool moment.”
Frankel’s day job as a producer makes the technical elements and little details of shots in the movies some of her favorite parts. While New Moon remains her favorite movie overall, she felt drawn to the scene of Bella waking up in Breaking Dawn.
“I think it was just really well done. There are certain scenes that they just did really well,” Frankel said. “In New Moon, it is definitely when she’s sitting at the window.”
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And in case it wasn’t already obvious, Jacob eats dust behind Edward as far as Frankel’s love goes.
For now, Frankel wants to make sure her side hustle stays that way and doesn’t take over her established profession. The pottery was just a creative escape from her work and just became an accidental pursuit as more and more people showed interest.
“It’s actually really important to me that the pottery stays at most a side hustle, and not a career because for my mental health I need a creative outlet for my creative job or I’ll go insane,” Frankel said.
For now, Frankel will travel to Washington and attend the Forks Festival as a vendor along with another friend who creates Twilight pottery. While she’s excited to visit the classic Twilight locations in real life, she’s especially looking forward to seeing the nature she’s loved from afar. She even plans to drag her companion up to Mount Rainier.
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“I’m excited for the Twilight Festival part and to sell my pottery there and all that,” Frankel said. “But the thing I’m so excited to do is hike out there because, as I said, I’m just obsessed with how beautiful it is.”
Frankel acknowledged that she’s slow on restocking her online store, but says she’ll “get her act together” as soon as she can sit down and dedicate her time to pottery again.
“I feel bad because I don’t know if the demand is actually high or if it’s just that I’m really slow. But people seem to be understanding,” Frankel said. “It’s been fun. It’s been very weird to see my hobby become a side hustle. I never thought it would be quite this insane.”
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