When I kicked off my goal to make 500 pieces in 2022, I shared that I started pottery in 2015, but 2022 would be my first year of intentionally taking my pottery to the next “level” of improving my skill and growing the business side of my hobby turned to side hustle.
I’m making progress! I made pieces #77 – #104 during April and pieces #105 – #165 in May. It’s hard to believe that I participated in three markets within five months. When I set my 500 pieces goal at the end of 2022, I was expecting to be ready to participate in my first market by the end of summer or fall. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m continuously so grateful for the Made with Maum team for reaching out.
After I spent so much time and mental energy preparing for my first market in February, I didn’t think I would be ready for another market for a while. Maum Market had a March event, but I decided to not participate because ~3 weeks didn’t feel like enough time to produce a few more pieces. When I saw the opportunity to join co-mkt, which was happening a week later, somehow the additional week and the opportunity to connect with an additional group of makers swayed me to apply. I was so thrilled when I got accepted to the event, and I quickly got into market prep mode (glaze glaze glaze!). Fortunately, all the prep for Maum Market set me up really well for co-mkt and I didn’t spend days trying to figure out table set up, packaging pieces, and payment system. The hardest part was pricing, which is so hard whether I’m selling in person or online. Even though selling in person takes a lot of time in one day, I realized I really enjoy meeting and talking to people about pottery (very not like my introverted self) and not worrying about shipping is amaaaaaaazing. Now, a little recap of this month’s pieces
I realized I didn’t have a specific purpose or benefit in summarizing all the pieces I work on in a 1-2 week period so I paused updates to figure out how I’d like to continue documenting my process/progress this year. For now, I’m going to focus on posting monthly updates with lessons learned and pieces I’m excited (and not so excited) about.
Posting weekly updates is turning out to be harder than I expected! The last two weeks were verrrrry busy with finishing pieces and figuring out my display and logistics for the market with maum. The market was my first craft show/market experience! More details about the market after a little recap on my most recent pieces.
After a couple weeks struggling to spend much time in the studio, I was able to spend more time in the studio to make 18 (!) pieces, and 17 pieces made it off the wheel. I think the flop was a mug but it was the first of 18 so I can’t even remember anymore. This week’s pieces:
Before I got this texture tool, I would shape all my pieces by hand, which I enjoy but takes a lot more time. I think the only downside to using a texture tool is it’s harder to make a unique piece. I’ll be buying more texture tools though and try to find ways to add my own design to the pieces.
I haven’t been motivated to recap the last two weeks because as you can tell from my pieces count, there hasn’t been much progress. I’m still not spending as much time in the studio as I would like – particularly on weeknights – but I’m working on it! More significantly, I didn’t account for all the time I’d need for trimming and glazing in addition to the actual throwing. Very duh…but I forgot to calculate that time. Anyway, despite the few pieces I made, I’m pretty excited with a few pieces.
This week was definitely more challenging with my return to the virtual office, but I miraculously churned out ten pieces thanks to a failed attempt at throwing off the hump.
I started my 500 pieces project with one of the most simple shapes for throwing on the wheel, a cylinder, because I hadn’t been throwing consistently for a couple months.
I used 1.5 lbs of a light clay (b-mix from Aardvark) to throw cylinders that are about 4″ tall and 4″ in diameter.
I started pottery about seven years ago for the same reason as many pottery hobbyists: I was working in front of a computer all day and was looking for an activity that had nothing to do with screens and could hopefully help relieve stress. Pottery definitely fulfilled the requirement of not requiring a screen, but I’m still not sure if pottery relieves or causes additional stress. Just thinking about the times when I can’t center an-y-thing on the wheel or the glaze I applied over several days comes out of the kiln with blank patches on the clay… In all seriousness though, pottery has had a really positive impact on my life to remind me that I need to set work-life boundaries in order to have time for pottery and to take care of my body/health in order to be able to create.
rachel om pottery 