beautiful mistakes

I was working on one of my new pieces a couple of weeks ago. It was a large platter-type thing. Wide and flat with 90 degree sides that were just over an inch high. I sketched in a lotus and lily pad motif on both sides over layers of green and blue underglaze, and I liked how it looked. I put well over an hour into the piece when I totally cracked off one side. I got carried away with the detail work and did not realize that I had all the weight of the piece leaning on one edge.

Whenever I fuck something up, my reaction is always the same. First I yell in complete dismay, "Ooooooh NO!" Followed by a series of swear words. Depending on the severity of the fuck up, I contemplate crying and I often put out a couple of experimental sobs to see if it's going to take. Usually is doesn't, because my method for dealing with pottery fuck-ups, honed over almost 20 years of dealing with them, is to immediately throw them in the trash and move on. I can't get stuck on pieces getting broken, it's just part of the process and there's no point in ruminating on it. I'm kind of harsh that way.

But this piece was so nice. I really liked how it was shaping up. Yeah, I could make another, but there is nothing like the magic of the first. And then I just decided to repair the broken pieces, stick them back in their broken spot and secure it with slip, and not even try to hide the fact that it had been cracked, but emphasize it with some black glaze and really show it off. I felt like I was on to something.

Then, last night I was watching the first in a series on Netflix called "Chef's Table", a set of documentaries about some of the top chefs in the world. The Italian chef Massimo Bottura was talking about how one of his chefs dropped a lemon tart, breaking apart the crust and splatting the filling. Rather than freaking out, he was inspired by the idea of this, of presenting the lemon tart broken on the plate to the customer, because he thought it was beautiful, not destroyed. He says that to make mistakes is human, and therefore mistakes can be beautiful. The art comes from being able to see that, and then making the invisible visible for others to appreciate. His broken lemon tart is now a signature dish on his restaurant menu, and it is called, "Oops! I dropped the lemon tart!" Who would have ever thought to do something so whimsical with food presentation?

I just loved this whole concept of the broken lemon tart, and how the drive toward achieving perfection just misses the point of creating something beautiful. And now, my personal homage to the broken lemon tart dessert:

Oops! I cracked the edge of the platter!

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!

the cheese incident

I arrived in Vallauris yesterday after spending 5 days in Paris with my pottery posse, Rae, Sara, and Christa. Paris was slightly overwhelming. I was reading The Greater Journey while I was there and that book made me realize I should have made a serious plan in advance.  My laid back California ways basically mean you won't get shit done in a city like Paris, except for whiling away the hours in little wine bars and cafes, walking across a few bridges, and getting lost on charming, narrow, twisty streets.

But I did practice my French. Parisians are very good to practice French with. I say something in French, they answer me in English. I respond in French, and they answer again in English. In this way, we both get to practice, though I'm only good for about two go-rounds in French before I default to English, and they clearly don't need the practice.

The only time I am able to speak French with any flair at all is when I need food. I can ask for a baguette like nobodys business. All I wanted to do in Paris is go to the restaurants and outdoor markets and eat as much possible. I would circle patisseries, fromageries, and charcuteries like I was checking out hot men in clubs. In one fromagerie I went into, I said hello and strung together the longest series of words I had managed thus far:

je voudrais un fromage a manger maintenant ou ce soir.

This means "I would like a cheese to eat now or tonight," and I am not sure if that is the right way to say it, but it gets the hint across to a cheese man about what I need, which is a ripe cheese, something ready to go right now. The cheese man said something incomprehensible to me, and because I was trying very hard to pretend like I knew more French than I do, I shrugged in what I thought could be a Parisian way and said, "un chèvre...ou un bleu!?" Like, convince me cheese man, you are the expert! I could go for a goat cheese, or I could totally go for that cheese covered in mold right there! How bout you figure it out?  He pointed at some stuff, and said some things, and I nodded like I totally got it, and I ended up with two wrapped packages, a small little goat cheese, and a hunk of something that smelled like a goddamn barnyard. Oh, I was happy.


I went on to buy a chunk of duck pate the size of my foot, some olives stuffed with almonds, a teeny little basket of strawberries, and a baguette.  The perfect food for happy hour with my pottery posse. I walked and walked with Sara, and we went to the Louvre.  There were several times where the smell of barnyard would drift up to my nose from the bag I was carrying, and as I gazed at the master works of art ensconced in the Louvre, I though about what a great feast I was bringing my friends that evening.


Later, many hours later, as I was unpacking my bag of goodies, I could not understand why I could not find that giant hunk of cheese that smelled like a barnyard. Let me say that I had several large glasses of wine already, so I was easily confused.  I pulled all of my booty out of the bag, and turned it over several times. Everything was there, but the big hunk of stinky cheese was not there. Then, I looked at the bag that the cheese man put my cheese in.  The cheap, plastic, piece of shit bag that had a hole in the bottom the size of a big hunk of cheese. The cheese slipped out of that hole, and it was gone.


I dont know if you have ever lost your cheese before.  But me, I have lost my cheese. First, I was in disbelief.  I looked in the olive container to see if the cheese was there. It was not there, and I could not believe it. Then I was in denial. The cheese had to be somewhere! I started looking all over the kitchen, even though I had only been in there for 30 seconds and did not have time to do anything but pull it out of the bag. Then, I got angry. I threw the stupid goat cheese I had left. Stupid goat cheese, I can get you anywhere!  Where is the cheese I really wanted! I ran back to the place where Sara and I had those gigantic glasses of wine, and looked everywhere. People helped me when they heard I lost my cheese, but it was not to be found.  I ran to another fromagerie around the corner, but the store was shut tight, as was everything else.  I thought about crying, but that seemed extreme, and maybe a little crazy. So I just got really, really sad. And then I cheered the fuck up, because I was in Paris, with my pottery posse, and I still had that pate. Thank god I did not lose the pate also.


Some favorite pictures from Paris.

cake stand and I are breaking up

I have a boyfriend, and his name is Cake Stand. We've been together a long time. I realized something recently when I walked into my studio and found all of the cake stands I made earlier in the week with large cracks across the surface of the plate: Cake Stand and I have an unhealthy, co-dependent relationship. Cake Stand is a bad drunk, and I'm the girlfriend who runs around trying to mitigate its problems by thinking of what I'm doing wrong to make Cake Stand go bad, trying over and over again to come up with solutions that will get Cake Stand to come out perfect, excessively babying each piece to the point where my days--and nights-- are dominated by making Cake Stand and I have no time for thinking about other pottery pieces.

I've had problems with Cake Stand in the past, but I was determined to have Cake Stand in my collection so I worked really hard to figure out what made it tick, and for a while, things were good. I took cake stand orders, and I filled cake stand orders.  And I got complacent. I thought we had worked out our relationship and I could relax.  Then late last year, the plates started popping off the stands.  This is not a new problem, and I knew how to handle it. Cake Stand started drinking again, so you throw out all the booze, go to some meetings, and deal with it. But there was an immediate relapse, and Cake Stand started warping in ways I had never seen before. Something was obviously very wrong, but what?  I made another round of stands, and no matter how careful I was, how I babied Cake Stand along,  how many years of knowledge I apply to the making of these dastardly things, Cake Stand has continued to find ways to fuck up.

I opened the kiln the other day and both Nikki and I were so happy, a perfect white cake stand with little green birds!  So beautiful!  We lifted it out and it took us both a few beats to realize the entire stand was cracked in half, across the plate and all the way down the base.  There's my boyfriend, trying to act sober and telling me he's going to go have coffee with his sponsor, and then getting arrested in a bar fight an hour later.

When I looked at the row of cracked stands, I went into my codependent pattern: I thought about my week ahead, and I pictured myself bent over the wheel, going through a box or two of clay, throwing another round of stands, delicately trying to manipulate them into perfection.  The thought made me feel bored, constrained, grumpy.  I wasn't even angry, just passively accepting that my upcoming week would once again be spent nursing the boyfriend, calling his boss to say he can't come to work because he has the flu, and putting aside all of my own plans. Then I had another thought.  I thought, "I can break up with Cake Stand" I thought, "I have three orders right now, I can just refund them, and walk away." I thought, "Wow, who knows what I could make if I didn't have to spend so much time taking care of Cake Stand."

 Maybe I need some therapy, because after I took down every listing for cake stands on Etsy and my website, I immediately started thinking about a new Cake Stand.  This New Cake Stand will be different, it won't be able to do the things Old Cake Stand did because it will have a new design, a new look, and new production method. It will be different this time, I just know it!

the cost

I just had to deal with a very clueless customer. He ordered a set of dinner plates from me that he clearly thought were too expensive because he wanted a discount (I didn't give him one,) then started hounding me within a week about when they would be done, and groused bitterly about how long he had to wait. This customer, by the way, will never be allowed to order anything from me again, I keep a blacklist right next to my bed and his name is on it. I made an attempt to explain the process of making a set of anything ceramic, why it costs what it does, and why it takes longer than 5 days, but I don't think I got through to him. In fact, this person seemed to think I was taking his money and putting him on the back burner just to make him wait even longer. Which, after that conversation, I did.

It must be said that this customer type is very rare for me, most of my people are incredibly patient and tolerant of delays. Recently, I was trying to send out a bird creamer/sugar set to a customer. It's almost always small stuff that ties me up in knots. First, the creamer comes out and the yellow glaze on the bird ran over onto the robin egg blue of the creamer itself. The yellow glaze is very runny, and you have to glaze it in a very particular way to mitigate the running issue. Sold that one as a second, contacted the customer that the order would be late, and went for round two.

This time, the bird comes out perfect, but there is a big pinhole on the side of the piece. At this point, it's been 14 days since the order was placed. I fill in the pinhole with a mix of clay and glaze-- a trick I learned from Joanna Mendicino-- and pop it into my baby kiln which can do a firing cycle in 12 hours from pressing the button to pulling out the pieces. The creamer comes out great-- no more pinhole-- but I put the handle up against the side of the kiln like a total rookie, so now I have some kiln brick attached to the handle. I stomp around in a circle of fury for 10 seconds, then grind the kiln brick off, touch it up with some more glaze, back into the baby kiln. Next day, a perfect piece. Final count for this one $44 creamer: 16 days, 2 separate pieces, 5 firings, including the bisque firing.

And for those of you wondering, this customer was totally cool about it and thanked me for my quality control. You are welcome! And the plates? Out of the seven I made, the four I actually needed came out perfect, shipped off to the persnickety customer, for which I received a half-hearted "thank you." You're welcome... I think.

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.

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!

both ends

It's Thursday.  I'm in the finishing zone of a three-day intensive of bisque, glazing, firing. Three rounds of glaze loads as I get ready for the Palo Alto Clay and Glass Festival, my biggest retail show of the year. 

It's been a very dark place in my head the past three days.  I basically did it to myself; I've had so many regular orders to deal with that I kept putting off glazing and firing the more complicated and expensive pieces I make for Palo Alto in favor of quick kiln loads to get

my orders out the door.  In the end, everything is riding on good firings, no room for mistakes or re-fires because each kiln load is packed tighter than a Japanese subway, all space sold out.  Each night I go home, drink one beer, just one beer, eat dinner, and pop an ambien that I don't have a prescription for.  I read until I pass out, and the ambien makes sure that I don't wake up in the middle of the night with panic attacks.  I fire during the night, and even during the best of times I usually wake up around 3 AM, sure that something is going wrong in the kiln or I forgot to do something.  Sometimes I can't go back to sleep until I pad down the street to my studio and check that everything is good.

I always think I can do more than I really can, or what is good for me.  When I plotted out this schedule, it seemed perfectly do-able.  Now, I feel like I've been run over by a clay truck.  And when I get tired, the voices from Radio K-FUKT start.  Man, those voices really know all my weak spots.  By the end of yesterday, I had decided to quit pottery and write a book.  I decided to stop wholesaling and only make work for people who can make it through my vetting process.   I wondered how long it would take a neighbor to call the police on me if I just started throwing pottery into a pile on the sidewalk in front of my studio door, just got rid of everything in my studio.   I thought about getting a job.  A job where results don't matter, and I'm not responsible for anything.  The DMV sounded good. I wondered what kind of price I could get for my work if I put out the word that I was quitting and not making anything ever again.  And then I wondered how long it would be before I forgot about the pain and got back on the wheel.

one piece, one glaze

Yesterday I put this pot up on my etsy site. It's a really old piece, I think I made it in 2003. Back then, one of my main muses was the lily pad and lotus flower, and I made a lot of raised relief designs with slip trailing, emulating the veins of a lily pad. Very labor-intensive, but the results were lovely. The shape of this pot was also very standard for me. I wanted a continuous and unbroken line where the lid met the pot. There was something about a typical pot where the shoulder has a little rise where the lid can rest that I just did not like. The shape seemed too conventional and brought down my design. I always had to fire the lids separate from the pot, which is kind of a no-no, but it worked for me.

This pot was glazed during a period of time when my matte green glaze was not firing out at all, it was coming out a grayish-green, like on this piece here, and it was making me completely insane. I could not appreciate it the way it was, all I saw was the way it should be. Man, the pots I marked down because the color did not satisfy me! It's kinda sad the way I tossed my children into the cold when they didn't please me, but good for the people who found them all covered in dust at my studio sales. That matte green glaze has made me insane several times over the years; it is an utterly beautiful and completely undependable glaze. I have referred to it in the past as my bad boyfriend glaze.

One time I wholesaled this matte green for a season, and I sold the hell out of it. When I started firing off orders, the glaze started bubbling. All over, really bad. The galleries get it, they love the wabi-sabi of bubbles, but the retail home accessories store in Dallas, Texas does not get it. I could not get a single piece out of the kiln without a bubble on it. Nowadays I only use it for my own customers, and I don't worry if there is a bubble or two on it. It's a picky glaze that likes to be treated like it's a superstar and doesn't want to be part of a production line. Hey, I get it. I don't call it my bad boyfriend glaze anymore, it's my special baby.