Surveying my new body of work, I am overall not impressed. Sure, I’m still learning this clay body and these glazes, getting used to firing my own kiln, and experimenting with forms and surface design to develop my style. Reviewing the work thus far, what I see laid out on my studio table from my three glaze firings are a bunch of random vessels, some incredibly ugly, some quite lovely and most are just dull.

I’d like to blame their lackluster nature on my kiln- I miss the flow and dynamism of reduction firing and I haven’t attempted a soak period with the manual kiln, but that’s not fair to my dear, sweet, hard-working elderly kiln that I’m so grateful to have been given. I’m like a kid on Christmas, too excited to sleep when the kiln is cooling, I wake up early and open it while it’s still too hot, revealing one or two winners and a bunch of hot disappointment.

I approach my craft open to experimentation and unexpected results, my attitude is one of collaboration with my medium over dictatorship. In the past, some of my favorite pieces came from improvising after a mistake, but what I crave right now is intention. My vision is fluid and inchoate, an intuitive wandering without the guidance of a goal. In some ways this relieves the pressure of failure, but it’s a total cop out when I’m generating a bunch of mediocre work.

My focus for the year to come is cohesion. Repetition is boring but iteration leaves space for evolution and refinement. It’s time to narrow my scope and develop a series of identifiable forms and styles and challenge myself to work creatively within these perimeters. I can cut myself some slack during the experimentation phase with my new set up, and I accept that unexpected results are inevitable in any creative endeavor but especially ceramics. But listen up universe, I am committed to expanding within confinement, exploring the self-imposed limitations and finding it boundless.