daydreaming the future

I have not sat down to the blank screen of my blog for a couple of months now. I have a lot of things to share. First, I will simply catch you up on what I've been doing.

Mostly, I've been in my garden. I should not say "mine" but rather "our" garden since I share it, and the work that goes along, with my husband and a neighbor. Our garden is very big, much bigger than what you would usually find behind an apartment building in a city like Oakland. It has producing plum, peach, apricot, persimmon, and jujube trees.  And lots of square footage for tomatoes, artichokes, lettuce, peas, carrots, radishes, strawberries, beans, cucumbers, zucchini, celery, onions, melons, and potatoes. And flowers, all kinds. Herbs too. It's a rambly garden with multiple levels and a squirrel problem. It has basically taken all spring to re-establish the beds, fight back the constant encroachment of blackberry, morning glory, and bermuda grass, and get things growing.  We've been managing the garden for 8 years and I know for a fact that in the end, the blackberry will win.

Early in the spring, when it was a lot of plain old manual labor, I put on my headphones and listened to podcasts. I can listen to podcasts for hours at a time. My favorites are "WTF," "The Mental Illness Happy Hour," "Wiretap," "Snap Judgement," "Risk!" and "Strangers." I have about ten more that I regularly listen to, and then about 20 more that I drop in on every once in a while.

Then, I realized my head was always in this alternative space, listening in to a disembodied voice. My hands and body were working the garden, but my mind and soul were somewhere else. I took off my headphones.

A lot of what I'm do while I'm in the garden is stand around and look at the landscape. Spacing out. Trying to figure out the best way to work around the limitations and maximize what we have.

As a child, a constant theme from teachers was that I daydreamed "too much."  I'm daydreaming the future, so back off. I quiet my mind, turn off the podcasts and lower the volume on my own personal bullshit in order to fully engage with the garden and do right by it. I enter the garden mind zone, and pay attention only to what is around me.

I've made some mistakes: transplanted stuff that didn't want to be transplanted, ignored encroaching disease in one area, put shady stuff in sunny spots and sunny stuff in shady. I'm learning to not impose my will, but to listen to what the garden wants and needs first. It is not easy for me to stand down like this, but it makes me feel easier, if that makes sense.

The garden is never wrong. Me, I screw up all the time, but the garden doesn't berate me, or tell me I'm an idiot, or kick dirt at me. It should though. It should send me straight to hell for the death I accidentally bring to the garden. But, no. It just pulls me back in to try again.

I will share more next week, maybe even sooner!

temporary hiatus

I have not posted in a while, and I apologize to my loyal readers who keep checking my blog and seeing nothing new. I see you in my stats, and it jabs me with a little bit of guilt every time. Half of those visits are probably my mom, actually.

So, if you are one of the few people who are still hanging in there with me, here's the deal: I've temporarily run out of things to say on my blog. Or, it's maybe that I want to say something different, and I haven't quite formulated what that is yet. I keep starting a post, and halfway through I lose all idea of what my point was. Which can be entertaining in itself, sometimes, but right now it just seems unfocused and boring.

I'm taking a break from a lot of things, including my pottery business. I'm selling only stuff that is already made, and just needs to be glazed. I took down everything from my website and etsy shop that I have to make from scratch. I've been working in my garden every day and trying not to monitor external indications of my status, like my bank balance, facebook comments, and website statistics.

I think I have been burned out for a while, but I kept going because that's what I do: use my will to overcome obstacles. I'm ready to stop now, just be, and see what comes up next. Sometimes, I get scared that nothing will come up, I'm all washed up, my best work is behind me, and I'm going to drain away every penny I've managed to save the past 10 years and have nothing and I should just forget about taking a break and go back to the studio and do what I do.

But, I've gotten to the point where I can't-- I have no desire to.  I'm just trying to trust myself and my instincts.

When I have something to say again, I will be back. You can sign up to follow my blog by email and when I write a new post, it will be delivered to you. That way you don't have to waste your time checking, and I don't have to feel guilty that you keep checking and there is nothing there. Not that I'm going to check those stats... anymore!

my studio

My studio is less than a half block from my house. I live in a quiet, residential neighborhood, and my studio is housed in a row of unexpected storefronts. These storefronts used to serve as neighborhood businesses back in the day. There are people in my neighborhood who have lived here since the 50's and remember when my studio was a hair salon. The giveaway that my place used to be a hair salon are the electrical outlets every 5 feet on one side of the studio, and virtually none on the other side. The storefronts now house specialized businesses. In our storefront "family" are: an interior designer, a baker/bicycle builder (my husband), a massage therapist, a photographer, a photo stylist, and a musician. And me.

my studio is the third one up.

I've been in my space since 1998, which is the longest I've ever been in one place my whole life.  We lived further down the street until about 6 years ago, and then moved into our current place, which shaved 20 seconds off my commute. My studio is 600 square feet, which may sound like a good-sized space, and it was about 10 years ago. Now, it's a constant battle to maximize every square inch without making the studio feel crammed. I like a spacious, uncluttered workplace, and creating that in a room that needs to serve so many purposes is a constant challenge. Pottery is an inherently messy medium, and no matter how neat and tidy I keep things... it's still kind of a mess. I recently moved my packing and shipping station to my husband's studio next door, which has freed up what was a dark, messy corner in the studio. 

click to make bigger

Sometimes, I think I should just move into a warehouse space, where I could have another 1,000 square feet, but I can't bring myself to do it. For one thing, I love my 30 second commute. In the Bay Area, that short commute is worth its weight in gold. And, I have great landlords who know what I do for a living, and have raised my rent only nominally in the past 15 years. I won't tell you my rent bill because it will only make you jealous. (Thank you, Chris and Rebecca.)

And finally, I just love my space. I've grown a business in it, I've grown as an artist in it, and the very walls seem to be a part of me now. I have dreams about my studio, and in the dreams there are whole other floors, and warrens, rooms and levels to it. I think that's not just a dream of desire-- how I would love another room-- but a representation of what my studio means to me.  A complex, multi-faceted, sometimes mysterious place where I live, and that lives inside me.

click to make bigger

the way of the stressed-out potter

Sunday, I woke up at 4 am.  I would have liked to have gone right back to sleep since there was no reason in the world for me to be awake at 4 am, but no, that's not how it works around here. I had some thinking to do. I had an order cooling in the kiln at that very moment, an my highly tuned antennae were taking flight down the street to my studio and hovering over the kiln, trying to figure out a way to get in and see what was happening.

Why was I all stressed about an order? That's a good question. I generally don't get stressed about orders anymore. I get bothered, I get frustrated, I get disappointed, but not stressed out. I've gotten to this place where I've decided that no amount of money is worth my peace of mind, and that has released me from a lot of stress and tangentially, a lot of problem orders too. I don't know why it works that way, but it does. Orders still go wrong, all the time, but it doesn't keep me up at night anymore.

But... but. But. I took a last minute order from a design company in very late November for six place settings, three pieces each. Big plate, small plate, bowl. Twenty-eight pieces total.  Not a big deal... but they wanted it in 3 weeks-- by December 20-- for their client, and they wanted it in white. All white. The last time I took an order for an all-white dinnerware service set, I ended up grinding down miniature bubbles, giant freckles, and blue spots on almost every plate and re-firing everything. It came out okay, but I was not satisfied. The customer loved it, I didn't care that they loved it. I did not love it. I was mildly traumatized by this order.

But, I did learn something soon after that: my white glaze likes to be mildly under-fired. Firing it to a very cool cone 5 does it right, which is how I've managed my white glaze since, and it is very reliable now.

I won't go into the details of why I was waiting for it to cool down the day before it had to ship out with absolutely no wiggle room. Or why every large plate had to be absolutely perfect because there were no extras in there. Or why the kiln had fired a bit too hot, hotter than I like to fire the white glaze. It happened, and it was totally stressing me out.

So there I was, laying in bed, trying to get myself back to sleep at 4 am. My mind cleverly created a deck of flash cards, each card with an image of something horrible, like a rash of bubbles across the surface of a plate, a cracked edge, a warped foot. Every time I would drift off, one of the flash cards would pop up, and I would startle back awake, my heart racing.  I thought I was past this level of stress, but apparently, I still have some things to work on. I took on the challenge the order, and in the end, I won. The order was beautiful, and it shipped on time. But me, I feel a little bit fractured, a bit delicate around the edges. It's definitely the holidays.

clearing the shelves

Skipping out on all of the holiday shows was one of the kindest things I've done for myself in a while. At the same time, I simply don't sell as much work. On the other hand, I don't have to make as much either, or spend money on things like show fees, show help, and $5 beers. So I'm almost wondering if in the end, I'm going to wind up clearing the same amount of money as I usually do. The law of diminishing returns, or something like that. My bank balance will tell me everything I need to know in a few more weeks. 

In the meantime, I'm doing every little thing I can to clear out my studio of every single piece of work. That means I'm having a major sale, and testing the limits of how many tweets and facebook postings people can handle. And now that I have your eyeballs, I'll let you know that time is running out to order. In fact, if you want something from me, the last day to order is Monday. And how can you resist me with these beautiful choices?

Poppy plate: 20% off

Split pod: marked down to $58

the cutest cupcake stand in the West is on sale

come home with me, beautiful

Do not even try to resist me.

Leo 1996-2012

Our cat, Leo, died earlier this week. Our lightfooted and athletic kitty started showing her age gradually, then all of the sudden with a round-the-clock sleep schedule, a stiff walk, and inability to jump on our laps without help. The last week she had to be helped to her food bowl, then her cat box, and then the vet came and put her to sleep. I don't like euphemisms, but I like the word "euthanize" even less. Andrew dug a deep hole in the garden, and we put her there.

It was one of the saddest days for my me and my husband. We received Leo from a friend when we were first living together in 1997. Leo was just a year old, mostly a kitten. She loved to be snuggled, and she was so hard to put down I would wrap her in a big scarf that I then tied to my upper body, and carry her around like a baby. That's weird, I know. Leo would lay there until she fell asleep, and then I would hang her on a door knob and she would continue to sleep there. She would come when called, very un-catlike in that way. When my husband and I would walk down to our local business district for dinner or errands, she would stalk us for four blocks until we got to a busy intersection, and she would wait there until we walked back. Sometimes that would be an hour or more.

Leo also followed me to the studio almost every day until the past couple of years when she lost interest in being outside all the time. I never worried about her knocking stuff over, she was so sensitive to her surroundings. She would post up on shelves, or next to glaze buckets, or on the floor next to her food dish, willing me with her penetrating stare to run home and get her more food. I always did because Leo was very hard to say "no" to. There was one time where she made a miscalculation and and didn't quite make it up to the next shelf she was jumping for. She swung, monkey-like, claws dug into the shelf she was trying to get up to, and knocked over a huge vase I had just worked on for 4 hours, shattering it. I grabbed her, and wanted to shake her, but how can you really punish a cat? I put her outside and slammed the door. She gave me about 15 minutes to recover and then started meowing to let her back in. Of course, I did.

I've been coping with overwhelming sadness all week. There is something particularly poignant and painful about losing a pet. You are supposed to look out for them, to take care of them, but there is a communication gap. You don't know what they really need or what they are thinking, you can only guess. Leo added so much to our lives, and now, there's just this absence where she once was. The last week she was alive was so hard, because I knew we were about to lose her, but she was already gone in so many ways. She could only lay there, and there was not a thing I could do to help her, except to let her go.

holiday open studio

The kiln is firing away as I get ready for my annual Holiday Open Studio. I will have all of the usual goods: lotus bowls, flower bowls, poppy plates, vases, creamer and sugars, and lots of cake stands. So many cake stands. Also one-of-a-kinds, samples and experiments, and a few marked down seconds. If you are in the Bay Area, you can visit me, and then visit some of my colleagues with this self-guided open studio map. I hope to see you.