is this thing on?

Life has been strange, and strangely wonderful lately. First, I'm just gonna put something kinda uncomfortable out there. It may wreck your image of me as a highly successful potter. This year --so far--has been the very worst year for sales... ever, I think. I mean, in the 15 year history of my business. This month especially, April, has been the deadest month I've had in years.

I don't really want to go into it, I'm just mentioning this as a way to communicate my state of affairs. In a weird way I am grateful that things are slow, because it's giving me the freedom and the time to work on my new pieces, make some custom orders, and put time into other creative projects that I have going. I also think when my assistant left last year to move to Hawaii and I did not replace her, I was signaling to the Universe that I desire a change of pace. I feel like it's a transition time, for me, for my career-- if that's what it's called-- and that transitions are by nature temporary, challenging, uncomfortable, and what I'm feeling -- like I'm walking on a very high tightrope in a stiff breeze-- is normal and natural.

But goddammit, every once in a while I fucking freak out. I mean what the fuck?! Am I here? Am I alive? Is the internet working?! Is this thing on?!!!

I've been working out all kinds of strategies to deal with the anxiety. I'm doing yoga and meditating every single day, trying to overlay the chaos with a sheen of sanity. Ultimately I know that even if it's not temporary, this is somehow the new normal, being a wreck is not going to make it better. Being a wreck will make it harder and also make my husband miserable. He hates dealing with me when I'm a wreck.

I was having a small moment last week where I was feeling alone and adrift. Very quickly I wrote down some goals for the week, something to focus on and stay engaged rather than feel sorry for myself. I wanted to share them with you because I think these are all good goals to keep in mind if you are circling the drain:

• Connect: with a stranger and with a friend. Write an email to someone you admire and tell them they are amazing. Even better, send them a postcard. I did both last week and it made me feel good. I also took the time to connect with a couple of friends who I've been out of touch with for too long.
• Promote: something easy and something hard. The goal here was to get myself out of my comfort zone a bit when it comes to promoting. I can do my usual thing, but what about reaching out to a store, or to another artist and suggesting a collaboration, or submitting a story to a blog/website? This is hard for me, because I prefer to have people chase after me, but it gave me something to work on and feel like I was planting a seed or two. 
• Finish: the thing you've dreaded and the thing you haven't made time for. We all know what that is in our lives. Get it done. You'll feel better.
• Do: something for yourself and something for someone else. Taking care of oneself is the kindest thing any of us can do, and doing something for someone else is the next kindest. Make someone else's day while making sure you are taking care of yourself too.

And here, for your enjoyment, are some pictures of my some work that came out of the kiln last week. Yes, it's for sale, you can buy it.

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.

meltdown!

Before I tell you about my kiln meltdown, I need to tell you that I will be at the Clay and Glass Festival in Palo Alto THIS weekend. Come and see me!

Since I'm about to have my biggest retail show of the year, that's usually about the time my kiln decides to go on vacation. Without telling me. Most people see kilns as an inanimate object, but ceramic artists know that kilns, in fact, have minds of their own and like to use their power for good and evil.

So, for the first time in many, many years. I lost a whole kiln load of pottery to a major overfire. My thermocouple, the brand new one I just bought and installed, was faulty, and not reading temperature properly. I just realized I'm blaming my kiln for screwing up when really, it's the thermocouple's fault. Yeah yeah, I know you are supposed to test everything, and use a witness cone, and blah blah blah.  I did not. Anyway, here is a sample of what I had to deal with first thing Monday morning:

Potters know what's happening here, the unschooled think it's trick photography. What happened is the glazes got so hot, it ran like liquid down the sides of the pots, fusing to the kiln shelf. If you look closely at the cake stand, you can see the drips. The only thing that can solve this problem is a hammer and a chisel.

So, how did this make me feel? Well, as I was unloading the kiln and seeing the damage, I felt a little sick in my stomach. It hurts to see beautiful work destroyed, and think of the wasted time and money.

But mostly, I just wanted to clean up the mess as quickly as possible, and move on. While I was chinking pieces of pottery of my shelves, I was listening to an interview with David Jay, who started The Scar Project, photographing women with breast cancer scars. So I'm listening, and chinking away, and comparing my disaster to losing your breasts to cancer, and I figure that this isn't even close to a really bad day. I know from experience that this meltdown won't even cross my mind in a month, so why let it totally get me down today?

Maybe I'm evolving, maybe I don't care as much anymore, maybe I'm able to keep things in perspective. Whatever it was that helped me get through this meltdown without melting down myself, I hope I can do it again!

choosing wellness

I'm sick right now. I started getting sick last week when I took the week off to go to Yosemite, and a couple of days into my trip, my throat started tingling. That is always my first warning sign, my illnesses always start in the throat. By the time I got home a few days later, I was in full-blown sickness mode. Sickness mode for me means I feel like crap, but I pretty much do what I do everyday without my normal infusions of coffee and alcohol. This is a completely different mode from my husband, who when he gets sick, collapses on the bed and doesn't get up until he feels better. He also likes to moan that he is dying, and makes me wait on him. He won't even get out of bed for a glass of water, I have to bring it to him.  The result of these two different modes is that I tend to have lingering coughs that can go on for days or weeks,  while Andrew is usually better within a week.

Even though on Sunday night I was feeling so sick I could not even get interested in dinner, on Monday I went to the studio to work. By 3 pm I was exhausted and totally congested, not to mention unsatisfied with the work I made. On Tuesday, I decided to try the bed thing. I have not lain in bed all day since I was a child.  It sounds fun as a concept, especially with a stack of library books and my iPad to keep me company, but in fact it was depressing. It was sunny and almost 80 degrees out, and I kept thinking how nice it would be to work on the garden. I watched movies, followed the election, and took medicine. I thought I could get some work done on the computer, but every time I tried to do something work-related, I fell asleep.

We have a friend staying with us right now, and he was encouraging me to stay in bed while throwing throat lozenges and decongestants at me from the safety of the bedroom door. I complained that not only was I sick, I was getting depressed from laying around all day. He said, "Maybe you could look at it as just choosing wellness, an accept it for whatever form it takes." That was the best thing to say to me, because as usual, I was holding myself to an impossible standard: wanting to do things healthy people do even though I was sick, judging myself for falling short, then getting depressed because of it. That is so my world in a nutshell.

So today, I actually do feel better. I'm not going to lay in bed all day again, but I am going to take it easy, try to choose wellness, and not judge myself for it.

hole in my head, bubbles in my brain

I had a tooth pulled last week to make way for an implant.  I was told the Chinese regard losing a tooth as an event that signals change in your life.  Since I'm not Chinese, I regard it as an expensive pain in the ass. Even so it does seem as though change is afoot.  I've been pushing for certain changes for years, and it seems as though there are areas of my life opening up and making way for some of these changes to finally happen.  But no matter what, change makes me uncomfortable. I can get very insecure and have moments of anxiety where I feel like I've lost my footing.

 I've had to confront the fact that I've lost my drive to be in the studio all the time, and I'm thinking about other things to do with my life.  This means I've cut down my studio work to 4 hours a day, where I am mostly focused on custom and creative work, and Nikki takes care of production work and a lot of other stuff that I don't want to deal with anymore.  Basically, anything that doesn't have to get done by me, the smallest things, now get done by her.  The rest of the day I'm working on my writing.  And doing other things.   The great thing about working on writing is that anything you do can be something that can contribute to you being a better writer, so I can justify just about anything I feel like doing

So it's great, but still, it's change.  And a  lot of shit has been bugging me.  Like, sales are just slow right now.  I go through periods of hyperactive sales and then, no sales for days.  Days!  It freaks me out and makes me angry.  Actually, it makes me sad.  I'm trying to pay more attention to how I actually feel.  I often insert "angry" for every slightly negative feeling because at least then I can feel powerful.  I mean, people get scared when I'm angry.  Not so much when I'm sad.  Then I'm just pathetic and people pat me on the back to make me feel better.  And it does make me feel better, to get patted on the back and told, "It's going to be okay."  That's what everyone says.

I've been coping with the fear in my meditation practice rather than screaming at my husband and stupid drivers on the road, which everyone appreciates. The thing about sitting in meditation and just breathing is that while you try to empty your mind, shit is constantly bubbling up.  The comic Bobby Lee actually said in an interview that when he meditates, he views all his thoughts as bubbles and he just pops them and gets back to meditating.  Until he has to pop another bubble, which he inevitably will throughout his meditation.

So I keep having this fear about my slow-ass sales bubble up, and I acknowledge the fear and accept it, and then I pop it.  10 seconds later the same thought comes up and I have to go through the whole fucking thing again.  And again.  And again.  Really, it's annoying.  I'm like, "Yeah, I know I have fear, I have insecurity, and I can let it go and be in the moment instead of  freaking out.  Do you think you could back off now??!!"  There's the anger again.  Two more steps back from enlightenment.

Before all of you supportive and wonderful people who read my blog rush forward to give me the virtual pat on the back-- which should be it's own word in the dictionary-- I should mention in some ways work is really great.  I have a big project in the pipleline with a major retailer, and I'm sending off a big fat order to my first store in Paris.  And I'm going to Paris in a couple of months and then heading down to the south of France for a ceramic residency for four weeks.  So even though I may act pathetic every once in a while, don't feel sorry pour moi.  And my suggestion for a word describing a virtual pat on the back is e-pathy.  Got a better one?

no resolution

I've been an undisciplined meditator for about 4 years now. Every other week or so, I meditate with group at Shambala Meditation Center in Berkeley, and there is always a reading on Buddhist practice that we discuss after the 45 minute meditation. The last reading from Pema Chodron's Living With Uncertainty was about resolution. She wrote that as humans, we are always reaching for resolution, but resolution does not exist. This immediately caused a stir among the over-achieving Bay Area types who typically attend this meditation session, all of us quite comfortable with the idea that hard work will bring results, then resolution, quickly followed by happiness. The writer went on to say we don't even deserve resolution, but something better than that, which is mindful awareness. When it comes to mindfulness, I'm still batting in the Little League. But the concept of no resolution is something I grasped immediately.

Pottery is all about no resolution, which is why many ceramic artists are driven slowly crazy by the medium. It's difficult to accept no resolution. For me, that means nothing I make is perfect, shit is always falling apart, the work is never done, and there is always something more to learn. I have intellectually understood this about pottery for quite a while now, but practicing acceptance without resistance is exercise that gets me all sweaty. I get there every once in a while. Meditation helps. So does an ice-cold cocktail. With apologies to Pema Chodron, I've reinterpreted some of her writings to address the potter-warrior:

A potter accepts that we can never know what will come out of the kiln. We can try to control the uncontrollable by following the glaze recipe exactly or firing the kiln to the same temperature each time, always hoping to get a perfect result. But the truth is that we can never avoid uncertainty. This not-knowing is part of the adventure. It's also what makes us afraid of opening the kiln and wish we majored in computer science so we could be making money writing apps for smartphones instead of spending our days alone in a dusty studio. If we find ourselves in doubt that we're up to being a potter, we can contemplate this question: "Do I prefer to grow up and accept what comes out of the kiln, or do I choose to live and die in fear of what comes out of the kiln?"