little demons down dark alleys

I'm always looking for new resources and tools to deal with myself-- my reactivity, my dark moods, my judgmental nature, my sense of entitlement, and my know-it-all attitude. That's only a partial list of this things I'm working on, by the way. I'm currently reading Pema Chodron's book, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves From Old Habits and Fears. I love Pema Chodron because even though she is a long-time Buddhist nun and has written a bunch of books about Buddhist practice, she freely writes about what a deeply flawed person she is. Even Pema can be at a meditation retreat, yet go into a downward spiral if she feels disrespected or ignored. She gives me hope that even as I fail, I can still improve my outlook. She reminds me that no matter how much I fail on a daily basis, I must still be a friend to myself.

One of the things she keeps reminding me of throughout this book is the importance of pausing  throughout the day to take a few breaths, focus on what is happening in front of me, and connect to how I am feeling in that moment. As an experiment, I turned on my meditation timer, and set it to make a gong sound every 20 minutes throughout the day. When I hear the gong, that's my reminder to take a few breaths, refocus, and also to stop standing on the outside of my feet, which is one of my bad habits. It's been an effective way for me to stay connected to the moment, and not go off chasing my little demons down dark alleys while I'm working.

Then, it all went to shit when I messed up my knee last Friday. Lately, I have been getting really harsh injuries doing things like trying to get up off the couch, crouching down all the way, or reaching for a glass. Yes, I know, as we get older these things happen, but I'm not understanding why someone as young on the inside as I am still receives this treatment.

Right now, I can't straighten out my leg all the way and I can't stand or walk comfortably. Being thrown off balance in this way made me forget all about staying focused and in the moment, and I struggled with rage and depression all weekend at my lack of mobility. I thought about how difficult it's going to be to work, and how I may not be able to go back to yoga class for weeks where I am currently enrolled in a 4-month intensive class. I thought about how much knee surgery is going to cost and then felt momentarily blessed that I am now covered through obamacare before flipping back into fear about long-term recovery. I tried to do some very limited yoga and I forgot to breathe while I was stretching. I was just holding my breath, doing yoga. At some point, I realized I was doing breathless yoga.

Pema reminded me this morning that if I know I'm failing, I'm not failing, because I am aware of myself and what I am doing, and that is the biggest battle of all. And in that moment, I can just let it go.

okay with okay

It's not a secret that I am prone to anxiety. This is how my anxiety works, and maybe yours too: 

• Take something that is causing me discomfort or uneasiness, like slow sales or the California drought. 
• Use that shred of doubt or uncertainty and spin out a scenario, usually a worst-case scenario, into the future. 
• Spend time thinking about how that is going to feel and what is going to happen. I'm going to lose my business and all my friends and colleagues will pity me; I'll witness the desertification of California and be one of millions of evacuees that are forced to leave the state due to lack of water. 
• Take those feelings of fear, dread, and panic, stuff them right into my chest, and bring them back to the present moment. 

All of you fellow anxiety sufferers know precisely what I'm talking about. And I know exactly what I'm supposed to do: stay in the present moment at all times, because the present moment is all we have. When you find yourself living in some dark corner of the future, very gently and without judgement lead yourself back to the present moment. Over and over again, that is what one does to overcome the pulsation of anxiety.

I've been getting a little better at this, here and there. My trick is to just say to myself, "what if it's just going to be okay?" Like, all of this worry energy is just a waste of time. Things are probably not going to be horrible, they are definitely not going to be perfect, they are just going to be normal, totally acceptable, and okay. I mean, obviously we are doomed, but things are okay right now in this moment.

I was having a instance last week while I was installing my paper butterfly sculpture into the window of a store, and it was taking me about 4 times longer than I thought it would. It didn't really matter because the opening wasn't until the next day, but my natural reaction when things don't go as planned is to start the anxiety drum. This can make me a really annoying person to the people who love me best, by the way.

I was stringing each butterfly, one by one onto this fishing line, but my mind was somewhere else, working out a play-by-play of a future disaster regarding the balance in my bank account, because I obviously don't know how to manage time or paper installations. All of the sudden I noticed that I really loved the process of stringing each butterfly. It was labor-intensive, but I was enjoying it. I liked stepping back after every few minutes and seeing how the thing was shaping up. It gave me a moment of freedom where I was able to say to myself, "what if it's just going to be okay?" I'm okay right now,  I'm doing something totally enjoyable that will bring others delight, I'm not hungry or thirsty, I'm able to just stand here and do this thing. At some point I'm gonna die and it will all be over, but for now I'm finding the pleasure in living, and it's okay.

The second part of this exercise is being okay with things being okay. Anxiety sufferers are always waiting for the other shoe to drop so it can be difficult to be okay with okay, because it's not comfortable. We'd rather be chasing thoughts down a rabbit hole because at least that gives us a sense of doing something, of being in control. Being in the moment challenges us to let go, and anxiety types hate that shit. If we let go, who will keep the world spinning?

Little by little, every day, I'm working at being okay with okay.

the problem with perfection

When people tell me they are a perfectionist, I take note. I am a recovering perfectionist and I’m interested in what being a perfectionist means to other people.  I generally regard perfectionism as a neurotic condition and I want to offer support, if possible, and learn more about letting go of perfectionism within myself.

Often people will say they are perfectionists with a little bit of pride. Proclaiming yourself a perfectionist is a sort of humble brag, because you are subtly sending the message that your standards are high, higher than most. And if your standards are higher than most then your work is probably better than most… right?

I’ve struggled with my own perfectionism because I believe my desire to be perfect and make perfect things has held me back from being a fully realized artist more than any other one of my tendencies. For me, being a perfectionist means rarely deriving satisfaction from the work I make because it’s not as good as I want it to be. That striving to be better is a trait of many artists, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with seeing how the work you just made would be even better if you did “x” differently. It’s called innovation and it’s how you get from A to Z and make amazing work. Amazing work doesn’t just come out of nowhere. Amazing work comes from lots of small failures and having the tenacity and drive to overcome each small failure. The problem with perfectionism is failure is often regarded not as a step forward, but as a sinkhole.

My studio is filled with half-realized ideas that did not come out as planned, so I drop it. My head is filled with ideas I’ve never tried because my perfectionistic fear-monger picks it apart before I give myself a chance to experiment. I started recognizing this tendency a while ago, and I’ve taken steps to recognize the voice of perfection, and dismiss it.  That voice disguises itself as a helpful friend who just wants you to make good work, and it's easy to confuse it with your intuition.

Given all the time I’ve spent thinking about perfectionism and trying to track it within myself and other people, I have some more ideas about the drawbacks of being a perfectionist:

1. Being a perfectionist is just not fun, because you are more focused on controlling the outcome rather than focusing on the process. As an artist or creator of any kind, you gotta love process, because to make anything takes time and attention to take each step toward completion. If you lose your way with that and focus too much on how it's not perfect before you are even done, you've crushed your own creative joy. Keep doing that, and the Muse gets reluctant to come around.
2. Unrecovered perfectionists will often try to use their perfectionism as a way to justify not sharing or completing their work because "it's not good enough yet." Perfectionism and procrastination hang out at the same club. They don't like to acknowledge each other because perfectionism thinks it's too good for procrastination, and procrastination doesn't like to acknowledge anything, but if you look closely they are swaying their hips to the same beat.
3. All of us have holes in our hearts that we are trying to fill, and perfectionists have a hole in their heart that they are trying to fill with an impossible ideal. Clinging to an impossible ideal doesn't fill your heart, it seals it off and makes you defensive and careful. As artists and creators, we must unseal our hearts wherever we have resistance so we can communicate the truth and beauty of what we are hiding in there.
4. Most perfectionists I know are workaholics. Again, these traits go to the same club, but they are besties, taking pride in one another. Like many "isms," perfectionism and workaholism function more as crutches rather than genuine support, and disguise our inner feelings of unworthiness and judgement.
5. Being a perfectionist means living with the constant fear that you are never going to be good enough, and people are going to find out. While striving to be a perfectionist may temporarily soothe our troubled souls, in the end there is only you, imperfection, and the choice of whether or not to accept it.

I love that people like Brene Brown are spreading the concept of the gift of imperfection so widely. I hope that on some level it's changing the way we all think about ourselves and the world.  As I was thinking about how to finish up this post this morning I was asking myself what I think the greatest gift of imperfection is. My answer (to myself) was that being imperfect gives us the opportunity to keep trying, keep going, and keep the fires burning. There's no where to go from perfection because... it's perfect! You can't grow and learn from there, it's done. What do you think about the gift of imperfection? Put your perfectly imperfect answers in the comment box.

lack of gratitude

This is a gratitude tree in my neighborhood.
I found it on my walk two days ago.

I've been thinking about gratitude, and the lack of it I've been feeling lately. I'm catching myself having a lot of unpleasant thoughts with a whiny edge. Things like wondering why a person didn't write me back to place a possible order, instead of thinking about the person who did just place an order for the exact same thing. Or worrying about a super slow week on Etsy and thinking it's all over for me, I'm washed up, instead of thinking about the super fat order I got off my website. Or wanting to resist a deadline and feeling like it's impinging on my work, instead of thinking about how it's all a part of my work and how fortunate I am to have meaningful work at all.

I think these are are pretty normal thoughts and I don't expect to be a perfect person and not have them. But I'm just noticing how crappy it makes me feel when I whine to myself, or when my ego starts squawking that I deserve better, more, now. It's been worse lately since I am going through a transition with my work, I've made choices to not take on so many orders, and I'm uncomfortable with it since I have no idea where that's going to land me financially over the next few years. Or artistically. Or anything else.

The man who planted it told me it's
been there since the recession
started almost 5 years ago.

There's part of me that has complete faith that the changes I've made in my work and personal life are going to take me where I need and want to go, and that place will also bring me more peace and a deeper expression in my art. And there's another part of me that craves success in the form of wider recognition, steady accolades, and financial rewards. This part of me can be very ego-driven and is never satisfied with what I have. It takes my ego about 2 minutes to forget the good thing that just happened to me and start demanding more. It makes me feel tremendously ungrateful.

It's very annoying and emotionally draining to listen this voice and for a while I was smacking it around and telling it to shut the fuck up. Well, that never works, the voice just gets louder. I've been doing some reading on the study of gratitude, the tremendous benefits it brings to your life in the form of better health and more happiness.  The recommendation to feel more gratitude is to simply keep a gratitude journal, write a few things down every day that you are grateful for.

I couldn't believe I didn't notice it
until a couple of days ago.

I've done this before for a few days, and then I lose interest or focus. But since I am trying to detoxify myself from ingratitude, I took this as an opportunity to buy myself a new notebook and get serious about it, and I've been writing 5 things in the morning, in the afternoon, and again before I go to bed. I'm committing to doing this everyday for at least a month, and I'm hoping it has a positive long-term impact on my attitude.

I'm feeling gratitude right now that I have people who read my blog. I'd love it if you would help me with my gratitude work over the month by telling me what you are grateful for.

never starving

Since I am an artist, I hear the term "starving artist" more than the average person, and it creates a deep fission of annoyance in my heart and mind every time. It's the term itself, and the way people say it.

Sometimes it's said casually, which shows the speaker is not thinking about it, just taking the myth as an understood truth. Sometimes with an edge of derision of self-righteousness, as if the artist in question-- or maybe all artists-- asked for starvation by choosing art and will get what they deserve. Sometimes it's said with earnestness, and this is the worst, because it often comes from other artists who think they must suffer in order to be an artist. Or their current low economic status is correct and will never change.

Also, I deeply dislike what the term implies: that for anyone to choose to be an artist in this world of practical need and hard realities means you will go hungry, not be able to provide for yourself, and suffer deeply.

I have a client, a good, longtime one, who discussed with me how his daughter wants to be an artist but he has persistently tried to steer her into a profession where "she can make some money." When I suggested she could make money making her art, he waved me off.  No no, honey, people don't make real money doing what you do, is the message I got from the encounter. Never mind he's handed over hundreds, if not thousands of his dollars to me for my art.

Artists don't starve, they are too creative and smart for starvation. They figure out a way to survive before they starve.

I understand the starving artist myth is a metaphor, and I find it to be an supremely annihilating one. The metaphor implies that creativity is of the lowest value in our culture, unless it directly serves the culture in the form of generating money. Lots of it. And that people who choose to be artists are of similarly low value.

I think the metaphor persists because people understand there's truth in there, but it's backwards-- it's the culture that is actually starving for artists, dying for beauty, gasping for the meaning art brings to us. I believe there is a deep fear of articulating the truth of this because of the long hard look we would have to take at the way we live now, which debases and profits off the destruction of the most beautiful, valuable things we have.

I encounter people all the time who wanted to be an artist, but because of parental and or/cultural pressure, chose to go into a money-making or conventional profession.  And because their true calling has been denied and they are not creating for us, for the world, we all starve. What beautiful works have not been made, what deep truths have not been uncovered, what leaps of evolution have not been made because the people who would have brought that to us were coerced and intimidated into serving another calling?

For those of you thinking right now "real" artists will always yield to their calling, we haven't lost anything, I say bullshit.

I aim this post directly at teachers, parents, and other people who have any kind of authority over young people's lives. I want you to ask yourself how you respond when a young person says they want to be an artist when they grow up. Do you say, "Artists have really hard lives"? Do you say, "I hope you plan to learn something practical too so you have something to fall back on"? Do you say, "How do you plan on making money by being an artist"? Then I want you to recall what you wanted to be when you grew up, and try to feel how it would feel to hear those words when you stated your intention. I think that not many people who read my blog would say any of those things, but maybe you know someone who would, or has. Send this post to them.

I wonder what would happen if people let go of this myth. What if every child who stated they wanted to be an artist was met with "What kind of artist do you want to be?" What kind of new world could we create with that simple response?

art demons

I have been easing myself very slowly back into some creative projects the past few weeks. Gardening has so taken over my life that doing any kind of "making" has not been an activity I've been engaged with at all. Since making, doing, and creating is so much of my identity, not doing any of those things has created a strange absence in my life, but I don't feel empty.

I have not been working in my own studio, but in Rae's studio across town. Rae is gone for 6 weeks doing the France residency again, and she is generously allowing me to use her studio as my own while she is gone. I asked her for this favor because  every time I walked into my studio, my only impulse was to turn around and walk back out again.  Right now, my studio is a space that represents all of this struggle, and I don't want to be there. It's oppressive.

Rae's studio, on the other hand, is a wide open and beautiful space. As a practice, I've been going there every day, even if it's just for a couple of hours. Mostly, I've been doing paper cut art, which I have always loved and am currently totally obsessed with. I like to look at as many images as I can before bed so I can have paper cut dreams:

elsa mora

This image pretty well captures how I feel as a creative being right now: I'm sitting on all of this beautiful work I've made in the past, and I have all of this beautiful work ready to pop out of my imagination, but my arms are bound up, too connected to my head, and not my heart.  By the way, I wish I made this piece but I did not.  It's Elsa Mora, one of my paper cut heroes.

Paper cutting has made me come face to face with all of the demons I have created through my artwork.  Put a check next to the ones you have brought into your life:

• That's not good enough, it needs to be better.
• Don't waste your time on something that is going to suck when it's finished.
• That's not matching the vision in your head-- start over.
• You've spent six hours creating something that you will never be able to sell.
• That's not as good as Elsa Mora, Peter Callesen, or Rob Ryan, so why are you even trying?

It's interesting having these thoughts while I'm paper cutting, which is basically a leisure activity for me and does not need to be perfect, go to market, or wind up anywhere other than the trash can or on my mother's refrigerator door.  The fact that I like to use artists who are at the top of their game in paper cutting as my own personal bar is not only ridiculous, but bordering on something else quite unhealthy.

I've sacrificed a lot of the joy I find in creating in search of perfection. I've known this for a while, and it has taken quite a toll on my ability to create work that I love. But recognizing this, naming it, and sharing it with you all feels like one little step toward healing.

 This one is mine, with thanks to Pema Chodron. I had to resist the urge to make this piece again, making it better, before I shared it with you. I may, however, take a better photograph of it.

process is everything

I'm doing something a little weird right now, which is reading Thomas Keller's The French Laundry cookbook cover to cover.  The French Laundry is a Napa Valley restaurant about an hour away from where I live. I've never eaten there. I will eat there someday, and I know people who have eaten there and talked to them about the experience. The French Laundry creates two 9-course tasting menus every day for their customers, each course very small, and from what I've heard it takes hours to go  through the courses. The food is incredibly labor-intensive and made out of the highest quality ingredients, so the base price is $270 a person. It's not a casual meal and they are always booked out two months in advance.

Running a very high-end restaurant and a pottery studio has one major issue in common: every day you go in, and you create from scratch something over and over again. The major challenge is to not become bored, or to hurry through it with your mind elsewhere, or to become deadened to the process and just create by rote. All of these things have happened to me over the years, and when I'm there, I don't even like my job anymore and I feel like a failure. As an artist, this is the most painful place to be. Thomas Keller writes about maintaining passion for the endlessly repeated acts he performs in the kitchen, and he does this by giving each step his full attention. When you give something your full attention, no matter how mundane, you have the opportunity to be filled not with boredom and the urge to rush, but with a sense of wonder and pleasure with your process.

I know this, but still, I can find myself in the studio, banging stuff out as quickly as I can and just trying to get through the day. Reading Keller's cookbook has re-focused me in the studio and made me once again realize that the finished product is worthless to me if I don't enjoy the process.

Both potters and cooks know there are all of these steps that happen in between the idea of what you want to make, and then the finished product. Most of the time what you have at the end is not something that is perfect, or exactly how you imagined it. But this does not necessarily decrease its value.  Thomas Keller writes in his book that we must acknowledge there is no such thing as perfect food--or pottery-- only the idea of it. But that doesn't mean we don't strive for perfection anyway. We continue to try for one purpose: to make people happy.

When I read the recipes that Keller has created for the French Laundry, I am filled with wonder. He takes each ingredient and brings out its full essence, not by some kind of magic but by fully appreciating what that ingredient is and treating it with his full attention and respect. He understands what each ingredient can do and in his process, he creates a peak experience. In the flurry of running a successful pottery business, I've put aside labor-intensiveness in favor of efficient production, and frankly, that bores me to death.  Keller is inspiring me to not be just about production, but to focus once again on process. Slow down, take my time, and create pieces that receive my full attention. Even when I am reading a recipe in the French Laundry cookbook, I can find my mind drifting and my eyes skimming over the text. When I notice this, I re-focus and start over. And in the studio, when I find myself wondering how soon I can be done with one thing so I can move on to the other, I take a breath, and re-focus.

my name is whitney and I'm a {recovering} workaholic

I'm a recovering workaholic.  I used to work a minimum of 10 hours a day plus weekends.  10 hours a day probably doesn't sound like much to the workaholics who work 18 hour days, but I am a very lazy person, so for me a 10 hour work day is crazy.  I cut back on my schedule when it became obvious that everyone and everything that was not clay was just annoying.  This meant that when I wasn't working, I was annoyed.  Not unlike a junkie who cannot get a fix. Hard to enjoy life with an approach like that.

Since I  became a recovering workaholic, I'm always re-jiggering my schedule.  It's a constant effort to balance meeting the obligations I have to my work while not becoming a slave to it.  There are a lot of other things I want to get done every day besides working with clay:

• a time slot of writing in the morning
• an hour or so of exercise
• a brief nap (my lazy self demands extra sleep)
• time to write in the afternoon
• time to meditate

It occurred to me recently that the day is simply not long enough to do all I want to do.  And if it were "long enough,", then it would just be exhausting, or we would just be another kind of species that only needs 3 hours of sleep a night.  And still, I would want an even longer day.  So the struggle is to be satisfied with what I have-- a really short day-- and also be realistic about what can be accomplished in any one day.  And this is the tricky part: not beating the crap out of myself for not managing to cram 14 hours of activity into 8 hours.

Days melt away, then weeks, months,  and years.  It creates the unstoppable flow of time, and it's so easy to float and bob on the surface of it, either getting carried away by the juggernaut of daily accomplishments, or just giving up and not being driven to do much at all.  I have both kinds of days.

And then the other kind, the good kind of day where I maintain my focus and awareness,  and get about half the stuff done that my most driven self want to accomplish while doing twice as much as my most lazy self wants to do.  One thing that has been helping me a lot lately is a simple day planner.  I know a lot of you have been on to that one for years and good for you.  I bought this one last year and I like how it has a limited amount of lines for each day, and a place to cross stuff off.  I've started carefully planning each day, usually starting the day before, and I'm telling you, shit gets done. And I know that when I start cramming more than 4 or 5 things on there, I'm asking too much and shit ain't gonna get done. So it's an exercise in restraint and organization, which for a recovering workaholic, is almost as good as a 10 hour day.

the way of the sloth

I have been easing myself back into work, not unlike how a three-toed tree sloth would get back to work. For those of you who don't know what a three-toed tree sloth is or how they act, their most distinguishing characteristic is the fact that they move very slowly and deliberately. It's quite comical to watch, actually. Years ago, I was on a beach in Costa Rica and a tree sloth fell out of a tree behind me-- something that happens all the time since they cannot react quickly-- and I was so startled my first reaction was to get up and run away. I am a total chickenshit when confronted with strange animals. I expected the sloth to be angry and maybe run toward me, but it just rolled over veeeeeeeery slooooooowly and began its crawl back to the tree. I felt sorry for being fearful when I realized it was terrified of me and was doing its own version of a flat-out run for safety.

Anyway, that's my totem right now, a three-toed tree sloth. And it feels pretty good to take it easy after holiday bedlam and plan for the year. Of course, I've had to do some work which can sort of ruin the sloth vibe. I had my first firing of the year last week, and I was very disappointed with the outcome. Cake stands, as usual, giving me problems. I really should charge $200 a plate. I found myself fuming around the studio and even throwing a couple of things. I haven't thrown things in a long time. It's not that I'm worried about what the customer is going to upset with their delayed order-- I've become expert in handling anxious cake stand customers-- I get so worn down by the persistent and ongoing problems with these pieces, it's hard not to feel defeated.

Then, there's a whole new problem that started showing its ugly little head, first every once in a while over the past couple of years, and now all the time. The plates have started popping away from the stands. Sometimes it's already happened when I pull it from the kiln, sometimes it happens after a couple of days. I don't know why this happens, and it only happens with certain glazes, my white glaze being the top offender, of course. I've done everything you can imagine to try and mitigate this issue, and I finally had to give up and re-design the way I make these things, not for the first time. I've always made the stands and the plates separately, so I can really pack them in during bisque firings. But now I'm attaching them while they are green, then bisqueing them like that. It takes up some serious space in the kiln, and I feel less efficient, but when I consider all the stands that get sent to the shard pile, I feel I have no choice. This is the best way to deal with this problem.

I'm finding, more and more, that the energy I spend on being stressed and upset in my work is energy I am totally capable of channeling into finding solutions and just moving on. I really am attempting to train my brain to stop having a panic response to stress; it is super annoying to get a surge of adrenaline when a problem comes up, which makes my heart pound and my hands shake. The three-toed tree sloth does not get panicked. The sloth falls out of the tree, and then immediately gets up and starts climbing again, in the exact same deliberate way he was before. He does not freak out and try to make up for lost ground, or throw coconuts around, or charge at the nearest person standing by. Watch me as I work on my sloth attitude.

tokyo or bust

This morning at 10 am, a freight truck came to my studio and took the Japan order. The driver was a young eastern European gentleman who obviously thought I was insane as I took pictures of the pallet and slapped a bunch of "fragile" stickers on the wrap. He was gone 10 minutes later. I went back into my studio and cried. My studio felt very empty with this crazy, colorful order gone, leaving a big, empty space. My babies were going to Tokyo! Then I got over it about 15 seconds later when I remembered that I already got paid. I could go to Tokyo.

The order left about 10 days earlier than I planned. Almost 2 weeks ago, I was working with the clients to get the order down to Los Angeles where it would be put into a container and literally shipped to Japan. It quickly became apparent the logistics were not working out in my favor. The order needed to get finished and shipped out now to meet the ship's sail date. There was really no time to panic or get upset. I just did it. And, I was kind of glad. I had a good, strong, consistent pace going for almost 5 weeks. I was ready to sprint and cross the finish line.

I'd like everyone to take note that I have not been writing about about crazy emotional meltdowns or a growing shard pile. That's because there is nothing to say in that department. I had a few semi-sleepless nights, especially right around when I took a vacation 3 weeks ago. Thank god I didn't know about the ship date then, because I would have never gone; or, I would have gone and been a basket case the whole time. And I lost very few pieces. I fired 132 pieces, and out of that, I smashed about 4 of them. None of them cake stands either, and there were 28 cake stands in this order. I had a few that didn't make the cut, but are still totally sell-able. Right here, as a matter-o-fact.

I'm not sure why everything came out so good, but here are some theories. One, I took this order right after taking a month away from the studio. So I was kinda relaxed and ready. Two, I was very aware of keeping a good attitude, which you may or may not know, I have problems with sometimes. Especially when "good" stuff happens. Three, I was very careful. This order took some extra time because of all the layered colors that I usually don't put together, and I gave it all my full attention and never took short cuts. What can I say, it paid off. Here are the lessons, all nice, for those of us who need it simple:

• take a break from work to make better work.
• be aware of your attitude and work on adjusting it when necessary.
• take your time.
  

And P.S.: here is a photo album of more pieces and the pack-up. It's on my facebook fan page, so while you're there, you may as well become a fan.

my real job

I've written before about how many hours I have to spend on the computer with work-related stuff, and how it makes me feel like I'm wasting time, and I get resentful. Not only do I sometimes resent computer time, I also resent lots of other tasks, like packing and shipping, glazing, popping and cleaning molds, and sweeping the floor. A lot of the time I find myself gritting my teeth and mumbling, "Where is my dang intern/assistant/slave when I need them? Why am I doing this job?"

Since interns come and go, my assistants are usually busy with a million other tasks I assign them, and I have yet to source any clay slaves, I've realized that my resentful attitude about daily tasks is not helpful to me. In my quest to improve my attitude around my work, I've started thinking of all of these mundane duties as not annoying little things that get in between me and my real job--making pottery-- but as an integral and important part of my work. Everything I do that is related to my work is my job, my real job.

Since I usually only count making pottery as working, and the rest of it is just stuff that I do, I always think I'm not working enough. This is a self-defeating mind set because I always attempt to do more than I possibly can, then I blame myself for being a slacker when I get behind "schedule," which is pretty much every day. Really, what is happening is that I think I can walk into the studio and just make stuff, not taking into consideration that I have to perform a bunch of other tasks to get there. It's like the bee who gets mad that he can't deliver the honey before he gathers the nectar. That's a dumb bee. For me, and probably for you too, it's time to start thinking like a smart bee.

attitude adjustment

This past week I've been working really hard, trying to get ahead of the overwhelming order, while also catching up with my orders from August. I haven't worked hours like this in a long time: yesterday I was in the studio at 7 am and stayed there until 4:30. I had to immediately go and drink a martini afterward, but after a long day I think the reward system should be in full effect. I almost forgot it was possible for me to work a straight 8-hour day.

I've broken the overwhelming order down into its smallest parts, and I keep looking at it, looking at it, and looking at it again. The more I look at it, the more I feel like I may actually pull it off. As I've been spending hours and hours with myself in the studio, I've started working on my attitude. Part of the reason why I took a month off from the making work was to get some perspective. My stress levels have been getting cranked all year from studio issues: not having enough assistance, nagging glaze issues, misbehaving cake stands and the relentless orders for them... all of it has made me feel like failure is the default setting, while success is something always just out of my grasp. Talk about lack of perspective... for every failure out of the kiln, there are probably 20 successes, but when you start losing your mind, all you see is the failure.

The failure mind set is completely debilitating and also totally self-fulfilling. As I deal with the overwhelming order and a few others that came in on its heels, I've been asking myself how I can think about my situation in a more positive light, starting by just appreciating that people actually want to buy my stuff at all. I also try to see all the pieces finished on time, perfectly fired. And normally I would hedge a big order by making a bunch of extra pieces. I recently read a brilliant article by Sequoia Miller in the current issue of Studio Potter magazine about this very practice, and what a waste of time it can be. I really don't have time for hedging right now, I want to count on things coming out right the first time.

So right now it's all about long solid days in the studio, deep breathing, positive visions, 8 hours of sleep, and not toooooo many martinis!

the hard way

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is try and figure out what day it is. This process can take some time and usually starts with trying to figure out what day it was yesterday. Then I go from there. This morning when I woke up and figured out it was Monday I thought, "I hate Mondays!" Then I immediately thought, "Well that's not a good way to think about the day that you haven't even started." I was feeling exceedingly negative for some reason. I just spent the weekend in Santa Monica with my sister and I should have been all relaxed and stuff, but no. I went to the studio and felt immediately overwhelmed with the big fucking mess that greeted me: orders piled everywhere, the floors covered in dust, garbled messages on the answering machine, stuff that came out of the kiln while I was gone not looking so hot. Chaos was reining. I should have turned right around and scheduled a massage for myself, but I like to do things the hard way. Always have. I packed an order and I could feel the angst building as I realized there were still items missing from it. Then I had a meltdown. Actually, what preceded the meltdown was a board bonking me in the head when I pulled out my vacuum cleaner. You should have seen it. First, I grabbed the board and threw it out the back door. Then I went after it and jumped up and down on it. That temporarily assuaged me. I went back inside and noticed half the plates I threw last week were warped. I piled them up into a huge pile and then smashed them to the ground. I really wish I hadn't done that because it made a huge mess and a rather unsatisfying smashing sound. Then I sat on my wheel and cried for about 5 minutes. Then I organized a few things and left for the day. I don't know why or how this black cloud descended on my head today, but here's to a better tomorrow!

what's next

My poor neglected blog. I don't want anyone to think I've given up on blogging-- far from it-- but there is so much happening right now I'm having a difficult time figuring out what to write about. I don't want to be tedious or boring about the cascade of details I'm having to cope with at the moment.

Basically, I'm getting ready for the Buyer's Market of America trade show in Philadelphia. This is the show I was wavering about going to last fall, but after speaking with the director of the show I realized I've simply invested too much money in my wholesale business in the past two years to just drop it. I've been working to adjust my attitude about... everything. Meditation and yoga have been helping me to cope with my usual demons of fear, anxiety, and sleeplessness.

The biggest obstacle I'm facing at the moment is new items for wholesale. I made the pledge to myself to only wholesale items that have been made into molds. That way I can avoid being chained to my wheel throwing batches of 100 pods, 100 vases, etc etc. Did I ever tell the story about the first time I went to the New York Gift show, took all my orders, went home and threw everything on the wheel? I had blood blisters on the tips of my fingers from throwing so much. I'm willing to suffer for my art as much as the next artist but I draw the line at literally putting my blood into the work.

Getting back to new items: I want to add my poppy bowl, poppy plate, and three sizes of cake plates. Those cake plates... I feel like that's all I've been throwing for the past 6 months. The poppy bowl, everyone just loves them but I don't really make them anymore. And the poppy plate is another crowd favorite, but for the past two years I can't make one without it cracking. This used to never be a problem, I made them for years, but I had to stop making them because they never come out anymore.

Talking to Hector about the cost of making these molds was a little scary. A well-made mold is so dang expensive. I could possibly train Sara to throw some of it, i.e. the cake stands, but then I'd have to buy another wheel... I could just commit one day a week to making wholesale items... but I know that's not what I want to do with my time... Trying to balance everything is difficult. I'm optimistic about the growth of my business but I also have to be realistic about how much debt I want to carry. It's hard to feel successful when all your profits go straight to the bank! But I'm grateful to be wrestling with my business rather than dreading getting up and going to work for someone else tomorrow morning

too much, not enough

One of my biggest challenges as an artist, a business owner, and a human being is knowing what I am capable of accomplishing versus what I think I am capable of accomplishing. I notice how I always start my morning with a gigantic list of things I intend to accomplish that day. This list can cover a multitude of tasks in a variety of media: throwing, trimming, decorating, packing, shipping, updating, organizing, calling, faxing, emailing, ordering, paying. At the end of almost every day there are still items on my list left undone. I get frustrated with myself because I then feel like I failed to meet my goals for the day.

Lately I've been wondering if it's possible that I simply try to do too much, and in the process set myself up for defeat. Because no matter what I do manage to do, I still think it's not enough. There's always more. In the meantime I've been working more and more weekends, something I haven't done on a regular basis for years, to make up for my shortfalls during the week. Anybody can see that this can turn into an unsatisfying week in-week out cycle.

This is my curse: ambitious expectations outstripping the limits of reality. That was a mouthful. Frankly, at this moment, it sucks being me and coping with the cascade effect that my curse brings-- frustration, stress, grumpiness . I'm working on re-adjusting my approach and attitude, this one ain't doing it for me!