Here's What I've Been Doing Instead of Making Pots

Since early spring I've had some soreness and loss of range of motion in both shoulders. I thought that they were improving -- my right definitely was. And then one day I woke up almost completely unable to move my left arm from the shoulder at all. At least, not without howling in pain. Turns out I have adhesive capsulitis, or frozen shoulder.

Until this happened, I would not have guessed how hugely inconvenient it would be. After all, I've still got one good arm, right? Well, practically everything I want to do is almost impossible one-handed. Okay, that's an overstatement. I don't have much trouble cooking, for example, or driving. But: getting dressed, working in the garden, making pots...even reading is much more difficult. I've postponed the firing I had hoped to do this week; I don't even have a good guess as to when I might reschedule. My shoulder is light years better than it was, but it is still drastically limited, and I am very afraid of re-injuring, further slowing a recovery that my doc says will take months as it is. So I do my exercises faithfully, and am ever so careful. 

So, anyblah: I might try throwing tomorrow, just some small things. On the up side, work has begun (Doug's work, that is: building goes on the long list of things I can't do right now) on the kiln shelter! And a nice day is finally on tap for tomorrow. 

One Tough Custom Order

I don't do custom work, except when I do. I have often vowed not to take any more orders, because, in my experience, no matter how well someone describes what they want, even if what they want is well within my style, since I can't see inside their heads, the finished product is never quite what they had in mind. So even if the transaction proceeds, I am left feeling like I have let someone down.

As occasionally happens, I felt this order was different. A woman contacted me through a friend who had told her I sometimes make urns for a local veterinarian who specializes in cats. She had recently lost a beloved cat, one of a pair of littermates, and she was wanting a special container to hold the ashes, all she has left of her dear companion. I myself lost first one, then the other, of a pair of littermates who had been my loving friends since my college days; and then shortly after that, I lost Waldo, a beautiful, mysterious cat who came to live with us. I deeply understood this woman's grief. I accepted her order for an urn with a small sculpture of her cat on it.

Of course, because it is so emotional, it is important to me to get it right; which makes it more intimidating. I struggled, and then put it off, and struggled some more, and looked at the photos she sent me of her cat, Allegro. I wanted to get it right for Allegro.

I still want to get it right, and I hope I have done; and I recognize that I might continue to try to do better forever. So: the wetwork is done.  The surface, of course, is equally important, and I will work to get the markings right. I plan to use underglaze, so I can tightly control where the colors go -- they will stay where I brush them.  

That's Step 2. 

And I Almost Missed it!

I learned via Twitter this morning this is National Clay Week. If I'd known it was coming, I'd have fired a kiln! Instead I made lidded jars, which are still not quite what I have in mind. I was trying for jaunty; the word "circus" kept coming to my mind, although I didn't want to be literal about it.

Happy National Clay Week!

Here's What I am Making Today.

I hope. I don't usually sketch first -- I just keep making variations, sort of sketching three dimensionally -- but I can't quite get what I am after. Maybe drawing it will help.

June Goal Setting

I had a wake up call this week, in the form of a voicemail from the director of Watershed, asking for a callback regarding the kilns. Tyler is my buddy and a great guy, but I managed to convince myself that he was going to tell me I wouldn't be able to use Watershed's kilns anymore. The truth turned out to be no big deal -- thye are having some work done on the facility, so will need to limit access to the kilns to summer residents and staff until that is done. But it brought home to me that I really need to move forward on rebuilding my kiln, so I can do all my firings at home, not just the bisques. I love Watershed, and I love spending time there while I fire, but it's a little untenable to remain dependent on them. Also, it just starts to feel a little -- what? amatuerish? -- to be again using someone else's kiln, no matter how awesome the folks and facilities.
So: I have one main goal for June, and that is to get started on the kiln shelter, which is the necessary precursor to the kiln rebuild. I will not come up with $4000 all at once, but once the shelter is built, I can start stashing brick, buying a hundred (or whatever) at a time.

"Make What People Want to Buy"

This is the most common advice I read online for artists. I saw it today in the Etsy forums; I see it everywhere. Not selling as well as you'd like? Change what you make to something people want more! Do market research to find out what to make!

Well - pardon my Klingon - fuck that noise. If you aren't going to be true to your aesthetic, what's the point of being an artist at all? If you just want to sell stuff and you don't care what, why not sell insurance? I know a guy making six figures doing that.
Here's how it might play out in my case: Let's say my market research informs me that in Maine, a lot of people seem to enjoy buying smooth rocks with lobsters and lighthouses painted on them. How could that translate to pottery? Why, I could make pots with lobsters and lighthouses painted on them! I'm not interested in that imagery, but I'd probably sell 'em faster than I could make 'em. Unless I didn't...because I'm not interested in it, I might not do it well. And then I'd have a bunch of pots that even I didn't like. Or, I would sell bunches of them, and I'd spend hours of the only life I get making stuff which is meaningless to me. It's a no-win.

The way I see it, part of an artist's job is trying to find the people who want to buy what you want to make. Sure, it would be easier to change what what you make, but if that's the priority, it's much easier not to be an artist at all.

Sorry for sermon.

Temporary Table

You know how you always need extra table surface when you are glazing? I found a perfect temporary table at the curb outside a neighbor's house. Of course, I didn't know that's what I wanted it for when I grabbed it, but I knew it must still have some usefulness. Because the summer studio is a small space, even a card table is too big to work around, and there's nowhere to store it when not in use; the ironing board folds up flat and narrow and can tuck under my work bench.

Problem solved, and for free. I love recycling. 

I Hope This Isn't Happening to Me

Life Choices Leading Area Man to Career in Self-Storage
For "self-storage," read "insurance." Ugh, no. Burn the boats!

Verbs, All of Them Tiring

In the book Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, the heroine Ada is in desperate circumstances before she meets the resourceful Ruby, who shows her how to turn what she has into a comfortable life. Ada's transformation from a helpless waif to a competent woman, while not exactly the central theme of the book, is very inspiring to me. My favorite chapter is entitled "Verbs, All of Them Tiring," in which Ruby walks around the farm with Ada, taking stock of what they have and what needs to be done. There's a long neglected apple orchard, a crop of tobacco abandoned in the spring, with which the women can barter for other goods; they have hayfields, which need cutting, and a root cellar which needs to be dug out deeper. All in all they have a great deal to work with: work being the operant word. 

This is inspiring to me because, as you read the previous chapter, Ada's situation seems quite hopeless. It is only seeing it from Ruby's perspective that both Ada and we, the readers, see what it could become. 

I feel I need to take stock, too. What assets do I have? What potentials? What needs to be done to develop the potentials? What am I able to do right now?

• I have a kiln, a home-based studio, and all the necessary equipment to produce pottery. This is the baseline. The kiln could be more useful if it were rebuilt, because it is too loose and inefficient to be used for glaze firings; right now I can draw a plan for the shelter (no point building a new kiln if it's going to sit out in the weather), and purchase the materials for that. 
• I have several consignment outlets; those could (perhaps) do better if the work were refreshed more often. Right now I can schedule a firing for this week, and switch out the work at some of them. 
• I am juried in the the Center for Maine Craft; instead of waiting for them to call me, I can contact them about a wholesale order. 
• I have a good camera, and a graduated backdrop to shoot my work. I can take some new shots and apply to the Northern Clay Center's upcoming jurying.

Tiring verbs, indeed! I need to stop there, as I am beginning to feel overwhelmed. Imagine if I'd been Ada, listening to Ruby's much lengthier to-do list! Of course Ada had the additional motivating factor that her alternative was starvation. I have to IPTOG which effectively insures my continued comfort, if not affluence (HA!) Which brings me to the next phrase which is caught in my head: Burn the boats?

The Reward for Impatience

I was in such a hurry to get these dishes into this bisque that I did what I absolutely know better than to do, and I put them out in the sun to dry. They were fine, actually, in the mottled sun on my deck but they weren't drying fast enough for me, so I out them on my south-facing front steps, with the predictable result that one of them -- the one on the top right -- developed an s-crack. These are for an order. I wanted to get them into this bisque, because if I didn't, it would put off their delivery for another month -- and I was already a little slow getting started. A couple of weeks went by before I even threw the pieces. It's worth remembering that once I started, it only took fifteen minutes to throw four of these, and they don't need to be trimmed. These particular pieces (which didn't start out to be custom, but she kept getting gradually more and more specific) don't need any decoration, so the fifteen minutes, plus a minute or two with a rubber rib on the bottom, is all the wetwork time I have in them. Fortunately I only need two. 

The surviving three did make it into the bisque, and will be fired on Wednesday; and I can cross one more thing off my to-do list.

One Down...

Three to go.

The Problem is...

That everything needs to be done at once. Here's my to-do list for today:

1)Pack and ship orders

1)Price items for White Mountain Artisans

1) Finish urns, quiche dishes, and platter

1) Drop off work in Conway, Casco, and Bethel.

And that's not even including household stuff like "Mow Lawn" or "Change bedding." Those items would be numbers 2 & 3, which makes them slide off the list entirely.

Still, can't complain. We'll make the deliveries today & visit friends in Bethel. It's a nice bright day for a drive.