recovering perfectionist

When I decided to take a break from making pottery earlier this year, I said to one of my friends, "I feel like my art is broken."  I felt like there was something fundamentally wrong with the way I was approaching my art making, that it had gotten twisted and broken, and making pots was no longer bringing me the joy that it used to. I had let it turn into a grind.

I have been doing a lot of reading, trying to understand how I can shift myself back into the joy of making pottery.  I believe my problem resides in my head, in the way I think. A book I just finished is called My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. She is a neuroanatomist, a brain scientist who studies the anatomy of the brain, and she suffered a severe stroke when in her mid-30's. If you haven't already watched her viral TED talk, just go and watch it now so you can get the idea of the amazing message she is bringing to the world. (For reasons that I don't understand, none of my links are working in this paragraph, so copy and paste this to see the TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html)

I have always thought that my streak of perfectionism comes from my creative side, the side that seeks beauty in all things. I suddenly realized while reading Jill's book that perfectionism is a left brain activity-- the logical, analytical, critical thinking side--and has nothing to do with right-brained creativity at all. It's the critical storyteller in the left brain, running its mouth again, ruining the right brained process of creativity. (Sorry, left brain, but you are a bit of a buzz kill in the studio.)

Through the process of recovery from her stroke, Jill was able to re-wire her brain to think differently, and to be more in tune with her right brain. She explains it beautifully in her TED talk and in her book, and I'm not going to attempt to lay it out here. One of her big messages is that the brain has incredible plasticity, and ability to recover from trauma. She's given me a lot of hope that with enough self-awareness and conscious practice, I can tune back into my right brain and make it stronger. And maybe learn to experience joy and lightness again in my pottery studio.

About a week before I read Jill's book, I had a funny thing happen. My beloved Grandma Stiltner died almost two years ago, and I finally sat down and made an urn to store her ashes. The design was based on the trillium flower, a flower that grew in abundance where my grandma grew up in the Pacific Northwest. When I finished the design on the still-green pot, it was perfect. Too perfect. It was bugging me. My hand, seemingly under its own power, grabbed a tool and started slashing at the design, roughing up the surface and breaking up the tight, perfect lines. Part of me was like, "Stop! Stop! If you ruin this you have nothing to replace it with!" (I was a couple of days away from going up to Washington to see my family and had promised to bring the urn.) But I was compelled by a force greater than my fearful left brain to do something to the surface of the pot to make it more interesting, even at the risk of ruining it. I think it was my right brain, showing some early signs that it is still kicking! By the way, I was happy with the way it turned out.

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.

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.