There’s a reason the giant cookies on alumna Caroline Dockery’s Instagram page for her bakery, Morsel, look so good.
Part of it is that they’re giant cookies, obviously.
The other part is that Dockery’s degree in art from UNC Asheville help guide her photography skills as she works to promote her independent, small business.
“I had a concentration photography, so I worked closely with Carrie and Eric Tomberlin, and they were phenomenal,” Dockery said. “It taught me immensely about just thinking through concept more than the product itself. It’s definitely learning experience…it's lent well to what I'm doing now.”
Dockery never imagined she’d find herself in the cookie business. Growing up Dockery would help her mother, a full-time baker, and it wasn’t an experience she particularly cared for. “I grew up helping her in the summers, and I was like, ‘why do you do this, this sucks so bad,’” Dockery said. “It was so painful and so long, so many long hours.”
But toward the end of her college career, Dockery found herself falling back in love with baking. The tiny kitchen in her apartment was filled with stacks of pans as she worked out the perfect ratios for her unique cookie creations. She started selling cookies to friends and co-workers, and developed a small following on Instagram using her enticing photographs. So she decided to try and start her cookie business for real.
“I was in a very privileged position where I did have access to my mom's kitchen. I established a couple wholesalers, one farmers market, and then it just has been snowballing way faster than I ever expected it to,” Dockery said, “to the point where now I just had my last shift in my part-time job and I'm doing a full-time in my cookie business starting next week.”
Dockery now is signing on to work out of a kitchen in Asheville, and is planning on participating in business workshops and classes to help guide her as she continues to grow and expand her operations.
Dockery says she’s looking forward to continuing her work in the Asheville community, and enjoying the close-knit connections she made while at UNCA. “I love the fact that I still stay in touch with one or two of my professors, I love that I still live in Asheville and I'm neighbors with one of my professors,” she said.
“I learned so much at UNC Asheville about who I was as a person, and who I wanted to be, global citizenship tactics, things like that about the world in general, and how it works and how perspectives come together….it was just very useful and practical information that's really necessary to be a decent person.”
Read more about Caroline Dockery in Mountain Xpress.
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