Small Victories, Creative Process

In the midst of frustrating phone calls and being trapped in endless phone-tree land (press 3 if you are ready to fling the phone out the window. . . ) I took a break to stop into the ceramics studio.

These were out of the kiln and ready for me to take home.

Wheel thrown

Hand built

I enjoy both aspects of ceramics.  Throwing on the wheel allows for a smooth, symmetrical finished cup or bowl, and one of my goals has been to throw a set of something.  While nothing made by hand will be perfectly identical, I think I've done a fairly good job of making a set of cups.

Hand building is both easier and harder than wheel throwing.  Easier on my body, certainly.  And harder?  For me, that's because of the greater freedom I have in hand building. I also think it's more difficult to make something 'organic' and asymmetric look finished and intentional, rather than accidental.

That pitcher with the belly and the texture?  That was my 3rd attempt, and I still see where I would do things differently another time. I find it far more difficult to make related sets with handbuilding.

But I do both, because both allow me a fuller expression of my creativity.

It is the same thing in my writing process.  I try not to be too dogmatic in my approach.  I am neither strict plotter, nor pantser, but I do practice aspects of both as the project at hand demands.

 

Perhaps when I am plotting, I should drink my coffee from the thrown mugs and when I'm pantsing, the handbuilt ones.