Last night as I was working open studio at the BGCW studio, I was internally grumbling that the piece I was working on was not working out as I wanted. Another studio member walked by and commented on how great my pieces were turning out that night. Mike and I also spent quite awhile talking with one of the fairly new members about how much work it takes to really improve when you start pottering.
And I was reminded, yet again, of what Ira Glass had to say about being creative.
I find it so easy to give this advice and remind the new folks about this process, but often forget about it as I continue to work through that "gap" myself. That I have to struggle through the disconnect between what I'm actually making and what I want to create. And that it takes a lot of work to get even close to the perfect form that you can see in your head.
The last time I ran across this bit of text by Ira--and of course, "I heard it on NPR"--it really had a huge effect on me and my pottery practice. It spurred to to make a conscious decision to put a lot my effort into my pottery, creating my little garage studio, and started this silly blog. And as I look back at the posts from last fall, I see that I was SO excited to bring home four mugs after a session at the studio. I'm still frustrated when I flop something, but it's hard to get really worked up when I can see that I've filled all my bats with new pots at the end of a studio session. And that I'm producing so much more and better work, with much less cursing and effort. And mostly, I'm pretty happy with what I create, despite the fact that I'm still reaching for more than what I can do now.
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