Strengths

I read something good in Danny Gregory's book, The Creative License, this morning. It say's, "Don't be obsessed with originiality. Be yourself and you will be originial. Acknowledge and celebrate your uniqueness. Keep burrowing deeper and shaking up you perceptions."

For a long time I worried about having my own style, something that was recognizable as mine the minute you saw it. I would try to come up with things, designs, decoration, this or that. It was frustrating and fake. Somewhere along the line I more or less gave it up and just made stuff. I still hear that voice from time to time but it's not as powerful. I have figured out that I just have to make the pots I like, the way I know how and in the end, after some years, they do become me. And I am usually surprised when people tell me my pots are recognizable because of certain qualities.

My new information, (Play on my strengths), has led me to thinking about my strengths in more detail and actually putting words to them. I have also been trying to put words to things that I like about pots and what I strive for. I know what I like when I see it, in my work and in others, but it is difficult to place a specific word on what it is.

Here's a list I started about parts of pots and what I want to achieve or to examine more closely.

Lips: Comfortable, inviting, lickable, undulating, moving, fat, kissable. (ha, I hadn't realized how sexy this might be)

Feet: Casual, smooth, torn, touched, atypical, inviting, planes,

Bottoms and bottom edges: Touched, dented, patterned, handled, revealing, exposed

Interiors: Voluminous, holding, womb-like, continious,

Exteriors: Movement, planes moving, stretched, skin, torn, exposed,

Handles: Inviting, thin-thick-thin, exciting, atypical, comfortable, spacious, tiny, questioning,

That's pretty fun so far. This is a good list to have in my studio to use when I make stuff, I can look and say, "okay was I able to get some of my desired qualities in these pots?"

Gotta go for now. More later maybe.
Ron