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#86 Creating Ceramics Inspired by 16th and 17th Century Gravestones w/ Jeff Osgood
28 Plays3 years ago
On this episode of Shaping Your Pottery I got to interview Jeff Osgood. Jeff is inspired by 16th and 17th Century Gravestones from New England.
Top 3 Value Bombs
1. You learn how Jeff makes his gravestone sgraffito
2. Making your pottery look different and how this not only helps you standout from the crowd but is really great way to discover your voice
3. Setting a standard for your pottery and how this helps you develop your skills as a potter
and so much more
You can check Jeff's work on his Instagram @clay.of.the.dead
The First step to discovering your voice is finding what you like to make with your pottery Grab Your Free Guide to help you find what you like to make by clicking here
Check out other episodes here https://www.shapingyourpottery.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Finding Your Unique Voice in Pottery
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, real quick. The first step to discovering your voice is finding what you actually like to make with your pottery. That's why I created a quick start guide so that you can start discovering what you like to make with pottery without having to give up experimenting on your pottery. Now let's get started. Go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash ace to get this free guide.
00:00:24
Speaker
Do you love pottery and are ready to stand out from the crowd? Then you're in the right place. Welcome to Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres, where we help you discover your own unique voice. Now let's get started.
Interview with Jeff Osgood, Art Teacher and Ceramicist
00:00:34
Speaker
Hey everybody, it's Nick Torres here. In this episode, I got to interview Jeff Osgood. Jeff is an art teacher and he has been making ceramics for over 12 years.
00:00:47
Speaker
Jeff, in this episode, you will learn how Jeff makes his Clay by the Dead Designs with Scraffito, and we also talk about being different and setting a standard for yourself for your pottery. Let's get to it. Jeff, welcome to Shaping Your Pottery, and share with me what is one thing you believe potters should be doing to have success in pottery.
00:01:11
Speaker
Yeah, well, thanks for having me. That's a great way to start off. And it's something that I have to think about how I frame it for myself and how I frame it for students, too, because I teach high school, middle school ceramics. And I think it's one thing is persistence, for sure. It's just it's sticking with things because there's so much experimentation with, well, with all art, but especially ceramics. There's such a range in the medium that
00:01:40
Speaker
you know, sticking with things and even pivoting off things that maybe aren't necessarily working for folks is pretty important. And just, and with that really anything, it's keeping that open mind as to the possibilities that are in front of you, but also that open mind to give yourself a little grace when you're creating work to not be your kind of like,
00:02:00
Speaker
You're a worst critic, you're a harshest critic. Like hold yourself to high standards, but don't beat yourself up. So it's kind of open mind, positivity, persistence, I think allows folks to do really good work in anything, but I think it applies to ceramics pretty well and has worked for me and something I encourage with my own students.
Inspiration from Grave Art and 'Clay by the Dead'
00:02:20
Speaker
That was some wonderful advice. So I thought we would start off by you telling me the story how Clay by the Dead came to be.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, well, it actually came much later in my clay work. I'd been working with clay since around 96 or so, 96, 97, something like that. Took a little time off, had to step away when I was building a family. Kids take up a lot of time, and so does clay. And you kind of had to choose, and I chose clay. No, I chose my kids.
00:02:55
Speaker
And so, Clay the Dead was something that came along with my love of old cemeteries and the art in those cemeteries predated it. It was something that I was enraptured with. It was something that I was collecting through photography and I was collecting through doing grave rubbings. And then I started seeking ways to
00:03:19
Speaker
incorporate it into work so I could push that art forward to another audience, almost like give it new life and perpetuate it beyond the graveyard where it's anchored somewhere, in this case, typically New England. And I played around with it with some illustration and this and that. But then I started playing with it with clay. And the first thing I did was I took impressions off of gravestones and I was trying to translate it almost like sculpturally onto clay. And so I'd make figurines or I'd make a pot.
00:03:49
Speaker
And I would just attach a piece to it. I would attach a skull face or an angel face to it. And where that was working, I also didn't consider it good work. I didn't consider it quality work. It wasn't something I looked at it and said, well, gee, I'd like to set that here and look at it, or I'd like to use that in my kitchen space or something.
00:04:09
Speaker
And it wasn't until I took a workshop with Cathy King. Cathy King is a fantastic potter and artist who teaches at a ceramics program at Harvard. And she came out to Boulder and did a workshop, and she was mainly focusing on
00:04:26
Speaker
decal work and also scurfido. Scurfido work was something I was appreciating before where people are coding their pots within her glaze and then carving away to create illustrations. But taking that workshop with Kathy and really seeing what she was doing and how she was pushing the medium, it was an awesome opportunity to play with something. She asked every student, she said, come in with something really a contrasty image that we can burn into a screen to turn into a decal.
00:04:54
Speaker
And I started thinking about that. And I immediately was like, well, these grave rubbings really work. They're really stark. And so I think I just took in one. I just took in a skull effigy with wings on it. And we printed it out. She showed us how to use, it's called easy screen. It's just a screen printing way where you can burn your own screens and then turn those into screen printing material. And it worked out that I just was able to, under her tutelage,
00:05:24
Speaker
introduce these new techniques that I had only kind of played with and then put them together on a pot. And immediately I was struck by it. I was struck by the contrast of the black and white, the ability to take a historic piece of art and transfer it onto a clay surface and work around it. And so I knew I was onto something
00:05:46
Speaker
and that what I needed to do is just refine, really refine what I was doing there. And it just opened up this possibility of, again, taking something that's historic, that's important, that's got a message, putting it on the pottery, working around it with original illustrative work,
00:06:06
Speaker
but you're getting to broadcast this message that's in these stones and whatnot. So I really liked it. And then it started to kind of hit with other people. Like I started getting feedback from folks going, wow, that's kind of interesting. I haven't seen people doing that kind of stuff. And also, you know, the quality was starting to improve as I continued to do scurfido work. And so to me, that was all signs to say, hey, you're on to something here and stick with it. That is really amazing. So you mentioned,
00:06:36
Speaker
Quality work, what is quality work for you? Yeah, quality work for me is, there are my own standards and then there's me projecting out and asking myself, not necessarily what a quote unquote customer wants, but more of like, what's gonna appeal with them? What would I want in my living space? What would I want to be drinking out of, eating out of, storing something in, putting on display?
00:07:04
Speaker
And really holding yourself to this standard of like this, this has got to measure up to something where someone might be using this on a daily basis. So it's got to be high quality on a functional level where it works. You know, if it's a mug.
00:07:16
Speaker
Is it rounded right? Is the handle workable? All these kind of things. You don't want to do Scraffito in a way that's going to make it where someone doesn't want to hold it or they're not going to put their mouth to it or something in that regard. And then there's obviously the quality of the decoration, the decor that you're putting on the piece.
00:07:36
Speaker
And I have pretty high standards for myself in the sense of, again, what is something gonna want? What is that level of quality that people are gonna want in order to interact with daily? But also, there's this weird added level for me too, is I'm honoring this history of this historic art.
00:07:54
Speaker
And I don't want to undersell it. So if I put a decal on and it doesn't turn out right, if I put a decal on and there's a bit of a crawl with a glaze, then I won't put it out in the world. I won't put it up for sale because I want it to be a pretty accurate representation of what the original artists were trying to communicate in the 17th and 18th century with their work. So it's something that
00:08:22
Speaker
I'm always listening to how people are reacting to things, whether they're giving me positive feedback or they say, oh, I wish your pieces did this or I wish you made plates that did this. I listen to that to a degree and let that guide me. But it's funny because my wife's an artist too. She's a book artist and they do such detailed work with these bindings and things.
00:08:45
Speaker
And potters, I work with several potters who, when you're unloading a kiln, if you pick up a piece and it's got like a bloat on it, or it's got a crack, or it's got, you know, the craziness, right, or something, you know, it's taken. There it goes in the trash. You throw it in the trash. And my wife would be like, ah, don't do that. And we're like, no, you know, I can make more. You know, at the base of, it's only mud, right? I can go back and I can make another pot. You know, I can start over.
00:09:13
Speaker
And so letting yourself kind of, again, giving yourself that kind of grace allows you to kind of elevate the craft to your work. And to me, I have pretty high standards. If I'm going to put it out in the world, I want it to be something that someone really is going to enjoy and treasure. I
The Evolution of Jeff's Pottery Style
00:09:31
Speaker
love that. I always say to set a standard for your pottery so that if you can meet that standard, then your pottery is going to look that much better. Absolutely, I agree.
00:09:40
Speaker
Before you started with your clay by the dead, what did your pottery look like? It was kind of all over the place in the sense of it was just another potter starting out, starting out on the wheel. And so you're kind of throwing what your teachers are telling you to throw. You're going to make a mug. You're going to make a bowl. You're going to do this. And then I think, too, that then you start to gravitate into
00:10:04
Speaker
It's almost funny, especially with wheelwork, is I feel like, I don't know if this is for every potter, but for me, there's almost like a default thing that my hands want to throw. And if I'm not thinking and I start working on the wheel, I throw a bowl. Other people would be like, I start making the body of a mug. So I made a ton of bowls, big bowls, big plates. But all of it was stoneware stuff. It was mainly, it was all just glaze, content type stuff.
00:10:31
Speaker
I had a chance to start playing around with a wood fire cone and got to do some wood fire pottery, which is interesting. I like the atmospheric firings like salt and wood, where you're leaving a bit of chance up to how your pot's going to turn out in those atmospheric firings. I also liked hand building. I liked creating box-like structures and things like that.
00:10:57
Speaker
And so I was playing with those things. I even, and I still do this now, I also joined a group of potters and we do Southwestern replication pottery where you're trying to figure out kind of through the archeological record how people made pottery back in Mesa Verde and things like this, and even picking up on their decor and stuff as a way of better understanding history. And so I'm all over the map with my pots. There's no real clear pattern and it wasn't until
00:11:26
Speaker
I locked into that decor with a Scoffito that my pottery started to have a consistent look and theme to it. So before, I was definitely a person on a quest and I was just experimenting, experimenting and playing around. And I still do to some degree at times. So yeah, it was a bit...
00:11:47
Speaker
It was a bit manic, all this different stuff that I was making. And it really took this something that resonated with me and then obviously resonated with other folks who wanted it that helped dictate for me, like, well, what is your style? What is it that you're making here? That was absolutely amazing. So you are obviously inspired by gravestone art, but specifically from 16th and 17th century. Can you tell me about your fascination with gravestones?
00:12:16
Speaker
Yeah, I think it started, I was contemplating this the other day. I was trying to remember the first time I'd seen some of these old, old stones. And I think it was a school trip that I took in middle school. I grew up in Ohio and we took a trip to Massachusetts. We went to Boston area and whatnot.
00:12:42
Speaker
And I think we stopped at least two of these cemeteries and immediately I was struck by how different the stones were. They're these kind of thinner, taller slate stones. And so immediately they struck me as different because where I was growing up you were seeing these kind of large granite monuments, big blocky things. And it reminded me too of things I'd been seeing on like
00:13:10
Speaker
haunted house album covers and stuff. You put on these Disney albums and it have scary noises and whatnot. It was like these archetypal gravestones that you would see with the arch and they were dark. I was like, where are these things? I was immediately curious. Then of course we went in and then you start seeing, holy moly, look over on these things. There are faces, there are skulls, there are hourglasses, bones, and shovels, and coffins.
00:13:39
Speaker
And at first you're kind of like, oh, you know, it's almost repulsive. But then, you know, but immediately, if, you know, I think if you have any curiosity within you, you start going, wow, wait a minute, how is that made? And then you start to see that they're hand carved and everyone's just a little bit different. And even the lettering is hand done. And you start to immediately appreciate the quality and the artistry that went into making these things.
00:14:07
Speaker
But I think, too, it was it was even at a young age, it was such a stark contrast to what I was seeing in other cemeteries that I was like, wow, what were these people trying to communicate through their art with these winged winged skulls and winged kind of angel faces type of thing? You know, what were they saying that nowadays? At least what I'm seeing is just words. You get a name, you get a couple of dates and maybe a little epitaph or something. But these things are are
00:14:37
Speaker
communicating at a very different level. And they're beautiful in their own way. And so that really struck me. And so moving forward, a combination of things started happening. I started getting more curious as I went into cemeteries, because they're everywhere. Everyone's got one in their town usually. But when you're traveling, you drive right by them. And so I started poking into these things and looking around and looking to go just paying a little more attention.
00:15:04
Speaker
to how these things were showing up. And where I was growing up, again, they weren't very artistic. They were artistic in their sense that they were sculpturally interesting with large obelisks and things like this. But the artwork on the stones was pretty limited. And there definitely wasn't a whole lot of the human form showing up on these stones. But I was a gravedigger.
00:15:27
Speaker
or cemetery maintenance guy type of dude. But I did dig graves. I did that for two summers when I was just starting out college. And so I spent a lot of time in cemetery in Ohio, really got to know that area. But any chance I got, I was in New England. I was visiting family in New England or something like that. And I become a graveyard tourist. My kids know. I'm like, dad's going to pull over at the next cemetery, and he's going to go walking around. And I make them come with me occasionally.
00:15:55
Speaker
And so I started to see more and more and more of this stuff. And it just, again, it's something that to me is such a stark contrast to the norm that we're living with now as to how people represent someone who's past and memorialize that person. And there's a ton of artistry that goes into it that you just have to respect. And so that stuff all just kind of captivated me. And I'm not the only one. There's a lot of other folks out there
00:16:24
Speaker
We consider them kind of, they call themselves taphophiles. They're people who really take a keen interest in the history and the art that belongs, that is in cemeteries, that's dedicated to memorializing people. And it's just, you know, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but you know, it's definitely something that I find pretty fascinating. That was really, really, really great.
00:16:48
Speaker
So now let's talk about how you make your graffiti designs. Can you give me a simplified version of how you create your designs? Yeah, it first starts with that decal, right? So what I've taken is old grave rubbings that I've done. And I don't rub graves anymore. It's kind of
00:17:07
Speaker
It's something that people started to realize there's a potential to actually harm these old stones when you put a piece of paper on them and then you use a piece of like a large crayon or wax to get to pull the relief of the rubbing onto the paper. So I don't do it anymore. But I do have a collection of them, like I bet you have like over 200 sitting in my basement from a trip that I did to New England where I was actually shooting a film as well.
00:17:34
Speaker
kind of documenting some people going through the process of exploring these graveyards. And I use those to create a decal that I can screen print and I print on the newsprint. So I'll take, you know, a skull with wings and I'll get my, I'll take like an Amaco underglaze and I'll dehydrate it enough to turn it more into like the consistency of like printer's ink. So it's kind of tacky and thick.
00:17:58
Speaker
And that's a good consistency to use to essentially screen print. So if you screen printed t-shirts or anything like that, it's the same principle. And I screen print on the newsprint. And I get those prints and let those dry. And then I can use those as transfer decals where I'll grab a bug, I'll grab a plate, and I'll lay it on. And I'll just sponge some moisture on there, use a nice soft rib, and it transfers the decal onto the pot. Not new to most potters who have done this before.
00:18:29
Speaker
But that anchors the piece. That's the thing. That's the central piece of historic art that I want to really highlight on the piece. And then I'm just coating in black underglaze. And I usually put down two coats. And the only thing I have to be careful about is getting that tombstone shape around that decal. But everything else is black. So two coats, pretty thick. And then I usually let things set up in a damp box.
00:18:57
Speaker
I have my own damp boxes that I've made where you're just getting big plastic totes and you're pouring in a few inches of plaster in the bottom. And those will keep leather hard stuff, it'll keep it pretty damp. And so I'll let it set up for a day or two, and then I'll start pulling those pieces out one by one. And if they're not
00:19:21
Speaker
If they're not safe to quite handle yet to start carving on, I'll actually hit them with a hairdryer for a little bit just to get a little bit, let it firm up a little bit. But I do carve damp. So I carve into them damp. And I do know potters and have seen scurfita work where people are carving into bone dry clay.
00:19:42
Speaker
I've never had much luck with that. I get a lot of chipping and things like that. And I lose some of the detail that I'm going for, but other folks are masterful with it. So I carved damp. And so when I'm carving, again, I always start out with that central headstone. There might be one or two on there. And I make sure I get that shape on. And I'm usually using Dolan tools or I'm using diamond core tools to get the different lines that I want.
00:20:10
Speaker
But once I have that gravestone anchored,
00:20:15
Speaker
Then I just kind of freehand it. I freehand because it really, what I mainly do after that is I do a landscape, right? I put in contour lines for hills and I add more stones that aren't going to have the decals on them. They're just going to be the shape. And then obviously clouds or stars or a moon or these kinds of things, trees. And really, I kind of let the pot tell me what it wants, you know, what it wants in the sense of
00:20:41
Speaker
contour lines and placement and filling negative space, you really, you start switching over to almost like an illustrator's mindset when you start working the pot. And so I carve and carve, you know, and I usually do all the line work and then I'll go back with larger tools to take out material if I'm like, you know, carving out a big moon and it's a big white surface, I'm revealing the white clay underneath.
00:21:06
Speaker
or if I want to actually clear the entire sky to really make a tree pop on that white surface. And so that's the carving. And then I set that out, let it dry accordingly. And when it's bone dry, I'll go back with tools again and clean things up. Because you'll have little burrs and stuff like this. And you have to go back. And it's almost like a re-carving.
00:21:30
Speaker
It doesn't take as long. But to do that initial damp carve, you know, for just like a mug, it takes about an hour just to carve it. So that doesn't even count the making of the piece, the decouling of the piece, the coating of the piece. So just the carve itself takes about an hour. And then there's other pieces like big plates or, you know, I've been fortunate enough to work on a couple of urns and things. Some of those can push up two, three, four hours just to just to pull the carve of this graffiti carve.
00:21:58
Speaker
And then typically I coat with a clear glaze and I'm firing two cone six in the oxidation kiln, electric kiln. And voila. That was a lot. That was great though. Is it too much though? Is it too much detail? Because I don't want to give away trade secrets. I'm not giving away secrets. We're just talking pottery, man.
The Role of Community and Collaboration in Art
00:22:20
Speaker
So you have been making pottery for 12 years. What would you say has helped you the most?
00:22:29
Speaker
Surrounding myself with good people, actually, I think. I didn't go to school for ceramics. I didn't take a single high school ceramics class. I don't know why. I think I was just too busy doing other goofy stuff. But I didn't pick up pottery until I was about mid-20s and took a couple of classes and then I took an apprenticeship.
00:22:54
Speaker
Um, or, and, and so it was really, I was immediately reliant on the people around me to go, Hey, how does this thing work? Like, what does this glaze ingredient do? Um, and so really surrounding myself with other people who are knowledgeable, who are, who are kind and kind of giving with their time has really been key. And that's also turned into more recently, it's morphed into collaborations where I'll actually work with another potter and be like, Hey,
00:23:24
Speaker
um, I want to bring my decorative technique to what you do. And then we'll, we'll kind of hash out ideas of what we can do. And it's led to some really fun collaborations, which, which is something that I highly encourage for people, even if you're starting out a little bit is collaborations force you to really expand your thinking, um, as to what the possibilities are. But it can also, if you start to get a bit established with what you're doing,
00:23:53
Speaker
maybe even a little bit rote in the sense of it's repetitive. Collaborating with someone who brings you like a different form or a different technique.
00:24:02
Speaker
it forces you to get out of that box. It forces you to be a little bit more creative. And usually, it's a give-give. It's not just like, hey, this guy's going to hand me a batch of mugs, and then I'm going to have the joy of decorating them. It's also making him think, well, what kind of mug is going to look great with that scurfido work on it? And so it's a benefit on both sides.
00:24:28
Speaker
I think the best thing you could do is find a community of artists that are kind of working in your medium or even something related that you can have conversations with. And not just about like, oh, let's talk about how cool my work is. It's more of this conversation about having curiosities and exploring possibilities. If I hadn't met along the way the kind people and had the good kind of instructors and workshop mentors and whatnot,
00:24:57
Speaker
that I've had, I absolutely would not be where I am with working with Clay at this point. Absolutely. Super great advice. I love that. For those who are listening, it's really important to just kind of build relationships now so you can leverage that later.
Finding Your Unique Voice in Pottery
00:25:11
Speaker
So before you found your unique voice, what would you say was your biggest struggle? Part of it was actually finding that voice. It was kind of like I'd make a bunch of pots and I'd be like, okay, now what?
00:25:25
Speaker
What do I do with these things? Especially when they weren't good enough to sell. Oh my gosh. We're all there whether you're making that pot and then you're done. It looks pretty and you go to lift it and it's like, wow, why does this thing weigh eight pounds? And it's got such a thick base and you're like, oh, this thing's horrible. Or this thing's wobbly or whatever. But beyond that, I was making things and I was like, cool, I made a pot. Someone could actually eat their cereal out of this.
00:25:53
Speaker
But there wasn't anything kind of going on with that pot beyond it being functional. And so I was always looking for like, well, what's going to make my work different from somebody else's? What's going to make my work kind of stand out or what's going to make my work more meaningful for somebody beyond just I can eat my my Cheerios out of it. Right. And so and that's why, again, as I mentioned earlier, I was I was kind of I knew I wanted to do something with this gravestone art. I just hadn't.
00:26:23
Speaker
latched onto it and I was experimenting, experimenting to try to build in that kind of meaningfulness with this so that that functional piece of pottery, it becomes, it transcends that, it becomes something a little bit more for somebody. Either, hey, this is beautiful and I like looking at it, or in the case of the stuff that I'm making, for some people, it actually is, it's a roundabout way of actually mourning and memorializing something.
00:26:52
Speaker
And so, you know, I think the biggest struggle for me was was finding that and literally taking that workshop with Kathy King was a huge aha moment for me. I was like, oh, hey, I can do this thing, this graffiti that I wanted that I've been trying for a while. But I was taught in a very masterful way. And it just it just opened up like this makes sense to me. And so I think it's it's totally worth the struggle of trying to find
00:27:22
Speaker
your voice as it is, because you're not just going to, you're not, you're not going to just stumble into it. It takes development over time. And also you've got to, you've got to work the fundamental skills in order to be able to deliver that voice. So I don't begrudge the journey at all. And it can take a while. Like I said, I started working with Clay in like around 95 or something like that. And, but I didn't, I don't feel like I found
00:27:48
Speaker
this voice that I'm communicating with until the last three, four years. So it's been a while. It's taken a while. For those that are listening, how can you make your pottery different, but also how can you cultivate the skills needed to make your pottery different? So what advice would you give to someone trying to develop their own unique voice?
Staying Authentic and Elevating the Craft
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think it starts with authenticity. What are you actually interested in?
00:28:17
Speaker
Um, cause you might, you might start to latch onto the idea of like, Oh, I'm a, I'm a potter out in Colorado and, uh, I want to sell my mug. So I'm just going to start putting mountains on them. You know, cause that's kind of, I'm going to pander to the mountain people, you know, the skiers and the hikers and all this.
00:28:35
Speaker
And you can do that and you probably sell some pieces, but I think your art transforms a bit when you've got a passion behind it, when it's actually something connected. And so if you look for someone who's got a passion around, look for someone who's got a passion with botany or something. They love plants and they love flowers and things like that. And they start to bring aspects of that into the decor of their pottery or possibly their color palette with glazes.
00:29:05
Speaker
there's just gonna be a drive behind it that's gonna be, I think take it to another level beyond someone who's just like, I seem to pay the bills in my pots. And so I think it elevates the craft. And so being authentic to what are your interests? I'm thinking the name's gonna escape me, but I bet you people can find it really easily. There's like a dude, he loves Star Wars. And so he makes these pots.
00:29:31
Speaker
that pull Star Wars decor into him. Now he's not like throwing stormtroopers and Yoda onto the side of a mug. He's actually pulling up on like some of the lines that you see on the spacecrafts and some of the insignias that you see on the different vessels. And he's incorporating them onto his pottery. And it's pretty clear that could the dude soullessly just be doing it because he knows there's a bunch of Star Wars fans? Sure. But I actually think he probably digs that stuff. He's probably a complete sci-fi nerd.
00:29:59
Speaker
And he's translating a passion of his into his pottery. And so, and if it's a passion of yours, if you're authentically passionate about it, you are going to strive to kind of deliver it with that same authenticity. And so, like I was saying earlier with like, you know, when I'm transferring on a decal of a stone carving that someone did back in the late 1600s, early 1700s, that was meant to
00:30:27
Speaker
mark the memory of a human being, it's like, dude, there's a little gravity to that to get this right, to get that piece on there with authenticity and respect it. And so I think it's look to the things that you're interested in, what are your passions, and how can they possibly meld with the medium you're working in? I think it can lead to something a little bit deeper and more meaningful.
00:30:55
Speaker
Absolutely love it. That was really great advice. So as we're coming to a close here, what is one thing you want to hammer home with my audience today?
Persistence, Patience, and the Role of Feedback
00:31:02
Speaker
I think stick with it. You know, stick with whatever you're doing, whatever you're creating. If you don't feel like you've kind of hit that stride or as you frame it, a lovely so is like finding your voice type of thing.
00:31:18
Speaker
Keep at it. Keep creating. Keep speaking. Keep using that voice. Eventually, the hope is that you're going to come around to that thing that does work for you, that feels right, and is something that also resonates with an audience, resonates with a customer.
00:31:38
Speaker
If I had set a standard for myself very early on of like, hey man, I got to find my style and my voice and I'm going to give myself five years, or you know what? I'm going to move on to something else. Dude, I would have been done. It's something where
00:31:51
Speaker
You've just got to give yourself the time and patience and have the persistence to kind of stick with things. And be open to listening to people. It can be so hard to hear criticism. Even if it's constructive, it can be hard. But if you kind of take yourself out of the equation and really let it be about the work, that too can really help you. I think it took
00:32:19
Speaker
another potter, one of those people that I really rely on for a lot of advice, looking at a piece and unsolicited going, dude, that's really interesting. That's something interesting. You ought to pursue that, that reinforce some of the ideas I was having and gave me a green light to go ahead. It's having that persistence, having that patience, but also being open to listening to people to get that good advice and feedback. I think those could be good parting words to folks.
00:32:48
Speaker
Really, really great advice. Jeff, it was awesome talking to you today. Where can my artist go and check out your work? Yeah, predominantly on Instagram, Clay the Dead with periods in between each word. That's the main place. There's links to my website on there, but I'm mainly on Instagram in the sense of showing people how I'm working and what I'm working on. And I do online sales through there on occasion, which I advertise pretty, pretty heavily on Instagram when I do it.
00:33:14
Speaker
when I have my little small batch sales, but that's the best place to see my work and see what I'm working on at present. Thanks for listening to this episode of Shaping Your Pottery. If you have questions about developing your voice or just pottery questions in general, send them to me my way. Go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash contact to send me your question.