making things happen

I loved a recent post from one of my art heroes, Elsa Mora. The title of the post is "Making Things Happen," and it's about, well, how a busy artist can make so many things happen the way Elsa does. The steps she names go like this:

• Think: sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and think about what to make and why. This helps to clarify the mind and gives you focus and purpose.
• Make a Plan: figure out what the big picture goal is, and break it down into small steps.
• Start: the hardest part-- do not abandon the project or plan. One foot in front of the other, and begin.
• Manage your time: try to work in 2 to 3 hours bursts with no interruptions (internet, phone, people) followed by a break.
• Discipline: set a deadline, hold yourself accountable to finishing the project.
• Have fun: Elsa believes projects are more likely to get done when it's fun, and a project stops being fun when one step has not been done correctly.

This formula has been incredibly helpful to me as I get back to working on creative projects. Like Elsa, I am very impulsive. Often when I get an idea, I run headlong into trying to make it, leaning heavily on my creative abilities to carry me through and not thinking about a concrete plan. My studio is littered with unfinished projects that seem to hold promise but stopped being fun to work on.

Her post inspired me to work on a large scale papercut for my front window at the studio. It's something I've been thinking about since the springtime, but I was hesitant to start because I know my penchant for starting big projects and then not finishing. I didn't want to let myself down or have some lame bullshit in my window. I followed each step, including the working for 2-3 hours at a stretch. This piece took about 8 hours and it about 3 feet by 3 feet:

The thing I really learned through this process is that I have a tendency to rush through "tedious" details. For instance, I wanted to somehow cheat on cutting the scallop frame properly.  I noticed that I wanted to rush, or get bored with the process, but then I remembered the plan, and that the scallop frame was really important to making the piece pop on the window. That helped me re-focus on it, enjoy it, and do the work so it would look great and not sloppy.

I've started using this technique with every project and I'm hoping it will continue to help me finish great projects. Stay tuned.

destroying and creating

An update is in order. I have been working on remodeling and reorganizing my studio, which is something I do about once a year since my space is pretty tight and every inch must be maximized to its fullest potential.

This time is a little different though. After using Rae's studio earlier this summer while she was in France, I saw how beautiful and inspiring her space is, and I was happy to just sit in there and read if I wasn't making anything that day. By contrast, walking into my own space made me feel constricted, antsy, and the very opposite of inspired. I think the opposite of inspired is depressed-- my studio made me feel depressed.

I looked around my studio with a critical eye, and realized that many of my storage, work, and display decisions were ones that I made years ago when I had very little money, and I was either using what was readily available for free, or spending as little as possible to make something work. What resulted was a mish mashy and ramshackle looking space-- a space where work could be done, no doubt, and had lots of character, but it no longer expressed my personal aesthetic or inspired me to sit and make some stuff.

The first order of business has been to repaint the walls and ceiling. I painted the studio myself about 13 years ago, and while the light green walls were calming and lovely to look at, they also made blue things looks green, gray things look lavender, and so on. Plus, with my work, maybe it was just all a bit too much green. I actually hired someone to do the work last week, which meant piling everything in the studio in the middle of the room:

This was quite humbling, because it just looked like a big pile of trash.

I've been piecing parts of the studio back together, which is another nightmare mess:

I've had to work very hard on keeping my head in the moment and not allow myself to be overwhelmed. Over the next few weeks I will be getting two new ware racks, building a glaze table, acquiring a new stainless steel work table, installing a dedicated workshop sink, and building new display units. No more half measures!

land of lost pottery

January is a great time to go through all the stuff you accumulated throughout the year and start throwing it out.  At home, I've been going through closets, my office, the kitchen pantry.  Throwing stuff out, organizing stuff, and giving stuff away.   The studio is also getting attention.  My studio gets cleaned regularly, I can't stand a messy and dusty studio, all it does is give me an excuse to clean instead of work.  The floors get mopped, shelves cleared, things put in order.  But I do have one blind spot, and that's hanging on to random bits of work that I went through the trouble of making and bisquing, and then lose interest in and never got around to glazing.

I think this is a problem that is endemic to many potters.  When I worked for Sandi Dihl, there were pieces of bisqueware that were hanging around when I started working for her, and were still there when I left a few years later.  When I would visit her over the years, the stuff was still there.  In the same place.  It's a lot easier to toss greenware into a bucket of water when it's not working out.  But once you bisque a piece it seems more permanent, therefore harder to let go.

I have to brace myself when it's time to throw out stuff that's collecting dust and taking up room.  I feel so sad when I throw my work away, but after a couple of minutes I get over it and start throwing away anything that's been sitting around for more than a month.  It gets wild, there in the studio.  Nikki was helping me last week while we did some re-arranging and throwing away of the stuff, and she stopped me  from throwing away a few things she thought were worth glazing.

So we put some pieces back on the shelf, and started glazing some right away.  These are images of a few things.  I have to say they are all nice pieces, I'm glad they got glazed up.  I'll be putting them up for sale gradually over the next few weeks in a series of "lost pottery" postings on Etsy, and if you're interested in purchasing you can keep up with new listings on the Facebook page.