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What you can learn from an Award winning sculptor w/ Tessa Eastman
196 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, we delve into the life and insights of award-winning sculptor Tessa Eastman. Tessa shares her experiences transitioning from pottery to sculpture, the significance of teaching in her artistic journey, and the influence of nature and the natural world on her work. She discusses the impact of awards on her career, particularly her first award, which granted her a solo show and funding. Tessa also offers advice for aspiring artists on discovering their unique voice, the process of applying for art opportunities, and the importance of dedicated practice. Additionally, she emphasizes the value of attending workshops and learning directly from other makers. The episode concludes with details on how to learn more about Tessa Eastman you can learn more about tessa by checking out her instagram here https://www.instagram.com/tessa_eastman/
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00:00 Meet Tessa Eastman: An Award-Winning Sculptor's Journey 00:28 The Impact of Teaching on Creativity 02:56 The Evolution from Potter to Sculptor 07:08 The Significance of Awards in an Artist's Career 10:10 Advice for Aspiring Award-Winning Artists 11:26 Discovering the Sculptural Voice: A Journey Through Nature and Color 16:18 The Art of Hand Building: Bringing Sculptures to Life 22:00 Finding Your Unique Voice in Sculpture 25:53 Creating Opportunities and Navigating the Art World 29:37 Final Thoughts and Where to Find Tessa Eastman
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Transcript
Tessa Eastman's Award-Winning Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
Tessa Eastman is an award-winning sculptor, so I wanted to pick her brain and ask her what Tessa was feeling when she won her first award. I never really thought I was gonna win it and...
00:00:10
Speaker
What does it take to become an award-winning sculptor? Sometimes if you don't always get accepted, you know, you can actually... When was the moment that Tessa knew she was going to be heading in the right direction in her sculpture? The work was very different and I had quite a big break between... But before those questions, I wanted to ask for this. What is something that has helped you the most along your pottery and sculptor journey so far?
00:00:33
Speaker
Teaching is really helpful for me because I get to share what I do so subconsciously and communicate that to others. So usually I'm just making things in the studio on my own. It's quiet. And then when I'm with others, I get to share what I do in the studio. And it's you know, it's also what I do is quite isolating being in the studio. So teaching allows me to meet really interesting, lovely people from all different backgrounds and walks of life.
00:00:58
Speaker
and get to share with them how to make things and seeing the pleasure of them making and creating things that they feel proud of is really life affirming for me and uplifting and I can see it benefits them as well so yeah I think definitely teaching is something I really enjoy and really stimulates my own work. How does it stimulate your own work? How does it stimulate my own work? It's
00:01:24
Speaker
yeah I mean just like students often ask me about my work and what I'm doing and I get to share that with them and even just seeing things that they're doing and you know sometimes we work on a specific project and it could be something that you know I don't know about so I learn from them or something that I do know about and they're really interested in and they start sort of reinterpreting you know the theme and that I'm interested in in their own way and I find that really
00:01:51
Speaker
Yeah, exciting to see how they interpret something. Yeah, I'm sort of thinking about the natural world, so nature and kind of looking at nature under the microscope is really inspiring for me in my work. And, you know, sometimes we do projects around that. And when I see what the students create that, that to me is, is, is really exciting. I get to see how they interpret.
00:02:12
Speaker
a theme that I explore a lot in their own way and then equally if they choose something that I don't know much about. For example I was teaching a student from Greece recently and it was Easter and they were talking about all these kind of eggs and how they dye the eggs for Easter and they're all these red eggs and then they make all these ceramic trays that the eggs sit on so
00:02:32
Speaker
She was making these trays for eggs and I just found that really interesting hearing about her culture and her history and how ceramics is so ingrained in her culture and I can see how much pleasure she was getting from making these egg trays and she even brought in an egg box and tried to like press the clay into the egg box and then realized she wanted to make it by hand and not use the egg box so it was just really exciting seeing that. Absolutely love it.
Early Influences and Transition to Sculpture
00:02:56
Speaker
Now tell me the story how you got started making sculptures.
00:03:00
Speaker
I very quickly moved into sculpture from functional pottery. I was very lucky to have pottery in my school. A lot of schools in the UK don't always have a pottery studio and there are people today trying to kind of make sure that more schools I think have pottery studios because I think it's...
00:03:18
Speaker
so important for people's wellbeing and yeah, even sort of people who are not very creative, maybe more academic students, I think doing pottery can be really helpful for anyone, not just creative people. I was lucky to have a studio at school and I was not academic and struggled quite a lot at school. I just found the pottery studio a place of sanctuary for me really and I just loved being there and I was blessed with a really good teacher who let me go in there when I wanted to out of school hours sometimes.
00:03:45
Speaker
and make in there. There was a really nice group as well of us who were there so I think the group, you know, I've always been lucky with having like really nice groups that I've worked with or studied with. I think people who do ceramics are generally really nice I find. So yeah it developed early on at school but I do come from quite a creative family and was kind of making things with my hands for like really really like really young like age six. I sort of was making and drawing always being creative but yeah I sort of yeah much prefer to
00:04:15
Speaker
to make things, that's kind of my favorite thing to be doing really is to use my hands and that started from my mum at home and then into my school years. So you mentioned that you were first a potter and then you transitioned into sculpture. Tell me about that.
00:04:33
Speaker
Yeah so that happened at school. My mum wanted me to study art and learn how to draw and I had a really good friend at that time who, her mum was American I think, and I think her mum had been to a lot of the open access pottery studios that there are around the US. They've only just started happening in the UK so her mum had had a big introduction into ceramics and so my friend was going to do pottery and I wanted to join my friend and do pottery and
00:04:59
Speaker
It just sounded exciting and interesting. And so, yeah, my mum was like, no, you should go and learn to draw. But I went and did pottery and loved it. And we had all these projects and very early on, I sort of moved away from functional things into mortal forms, really. I made this nick thing that was based on a spaceship because we had a project about press molding. So I press molded two kind of plates.
00:05:25
Speaker
and put them together and then it was also about mechanics so we had to find mechanical things and add that in so I started.
00:05:31
Speaker
making kind of clay screws and nuts and bolts and adding them and making this. So I think I just felt, yeah, and I do feel suffocated a bit by the wheel and things always being in the round and I get really excited when I can adjust the form and the shape and move away from the functional part. Although I do very much see myself as belonging more to ceramic function really than to this kind of sculptural, the world of fine art and sculpture. And I teach in a place that works with sculpture
00:06:01
Speaker
And I also teach in pottery studios and I really like that juxtaposition. But from working in those two studios, I sort of really sometimes feel a bit more akin to the potters. I think just because of the level of discipline and organization and sort of systems required within pottery for drying, for looking after the pieces, for firing, for glazing and sculpture can be a bit more messy and chaotic.
00:06:25
Speaker
So yeah, I think the kind of systems of pottery and the way that you work as a sculptor in play, those systems are very similar. And my work is actually based on clouds and clouds contain water. And so I feel like in a way the clouds is very much a
00:06:41
Speaker
link back to pottery history and pottery where pots are a vessel for containing water for humans to have life and of course humans have you know have water in our bodies so I feel like the fact that I'm making clouds is very important to symbolize you know the vessel and the human body because clouds the body and the vessel all contain water so yeah
Career Milestone: Winning a Pivotal Award
00:07:05
Speaker
Absolutely love it. So you have won a lot of awards for your sculptures. Can you tell me the story about when you won your first award for one of your sculptures?
00:07:15
Speaker
Yeah so one of the first awards, probably the most important in some ways because it granted me a solo show, was that it was called Craft Emergency, which sounds a bit desperate doesn't it? But I think the award only ran for like a few years and then it stopped so I don't think it exists anymore and it was in the UK in a lovely gallery that was an old, I think it was an old boat house in right by a harbour in Portsmouth Harbour
00:07:41
Speaker
which is near the Isle of Wight in the UK. But yeah, I went to the show and it was a mixed media craft award so it wasn't just ceramics and I never really thought I was going to win it and yeah I did and I was a bit in shock and there was actually a ceramic artist I knew, Sue Paraskiva, and she was shortlisted and
00:08:01
Speaker
She came up to me afterwards and said, oh, really well deserved. And yeah, I just received a lot of kindness from her and from others. And the award was really significant because it granted me a solo show within the space a year later. And it also came with some funding as well to work towards that. So that was the kind of first time that I received a solo show like that and some funding to go with it.
00:08:23
Speaker
And yeah, it allowed me to create a new body of work and it was really, I never thought I would win it. So yeah, it was really helpful for my career. What were you feeling when you won this award?
00:08:36
Speaker
What was I feeling? To be honest, I just remember going down on the train, it was in the evening and I probably had to cancel a class or get someone to cover my class so that I could go down. I was just looking at all the work and thinking how amazing and the variety was really amazing. It was all very contemporary work. There was a lot of ideas behind the work, conceptual thinking behind the work.
00:09:02
Speaker
all different metal textiles there was even like these kind of sculptural paper mache pieces which were really interesting but yeah I was just sort of excited to see you know the other work and didn't really know what to expect so yeah I mean I was it was much younger then I feel like I've matured a lot more in my career since then but yeah I was and I guess I was really lucky to win an award because I know now it's competitive to win an award and it's challenging
00:09:28
Speaker
and yeah and there's a lot involved in who you know and who wins and why and yeah and you know the maker the artist doesn't often know.
00:09:38
Speaker
you know, the criteria or the reasons why, you know, there's often an agenda with an award. So yeah, I feel very privileged and honored to have won that and to have had the solo show and the prize money that came with that. And I actually, I also got to teach a workshop as a result of that to a group of people based around my work. So that was really, yeah. And I got paid to do that, which, you know, you don't often get those opportunities. So that was really, really positive. Lots of positive things came out of that award that I wasn't expecting.
00:10:09
Speaker
I absolutely love it. So now, if someone wanted to become an award-winning artist themselves, what should they do to make that become a reality?
Advice for Aspiring Artists
00:10:18
Speaker
Ah, what should they do? They should just apply for loads of things. Yeah, there's a good newsletter called ceramics now and you can join the newsletter and they'll share like international prizes and things that are going on around the world. And I would say just like keep in touch with, you know, what's going on in your field and things that are relevant to your work and just keep applying for things. It does take a lot of time applying for things.
00:10:43
Speaker
Yeah, so maybe save your applications and keep them all together because sometimes you can kind of look back at one and then sort of try and use it for the other or sometimes if you don't always get accepted, you can actually look back at that application and go, oh yeah, I could have done this was now a bit stronger and I can
00:11:03
Speaker
reapply or apply for something else. But yeah, I would say that the key is just keeping applying for things and keep a good record of what you apply for and good systems in place to keep all the applications that you apply for and all the paperwork that goes with that together. Absolutely love that. Shaping Nation, if you're looking to become an award-winning artist, the more you apply to things, the better chances that's going to happen. So let's talk about your sculptures. Tell me a story how you started making the type of sculptures that you make today.
00:11:30
Speaker
Ah, so yeah, it's been quite a long journey and my work has changed quite a lot. But nature has always been fundamental, the natural world, looking at the natural world as a kind of starting point really. So yeah, as I said, I very early on when I was kind of in my teenage, young teenage years moved from functioning to sculptural work.
00:11:51
Speaker
And that was very, yeah, inspired by nature. And people, I used to look in all these books at school and they're all like a lot of kind of Bernard Leech brown kind of pots. Not that, you know, I love pots, I love pots and I do like brown glazes, but...
00:12:06
Speaker
It's not what I want to use or do with my work. And I just sort of used to get a bit disheartened that, you know, when you look in fine art books, there's like loads of paintings with colour and abstraction. And why, when I was looking in these books, I couldn't see much of, you know, a kind of colourful work and things. I think today it's very different. But in those days, there just weren't many books published about people working with colour and sculpture in clay.
00:12:32
Speaker
and there was Kate Malone who was a big influence who I actually went to work with for a big period in my early years and there's also Richard Sleigh which
00:12:42
Speaker
I don't think many people outside of the UK might not have heard of him. Kate Malone was on the pottery throwdown, so people might have heard of Kate, but, richardsly, yeah, his work is kind of very colourful and kind of, yeah, bizarre and kind of sculptural and kind of references a lot of kind of British Britishness. So, yeah, I don't know if he's shown a lot outside the UK, but he is a very prominent maker. And so these two artists got me really excited because they were
00:13:10
Speaker
making kind of unusual, non-functional, maybe suggestive of function but not always totally functional works that were kind of brightly coloured and yeah so I got really excited by that and that helped me to move into a kind of more
00:13:26
Speaker
sculptural, colourful, glazed vein. Getting the glazing right for me took longer than getting the making right and takes a lot of practice and testing and understanding a bit about glazes. So I feel like I was always getting very frustrated that, you know, I was happy with the form but the glaze, the pieces would come out the kiln and then the glazes would be awful and not go with the form or suit the form or be right. So I did start using commercial
00:13:53
Speaker
brush on glazes. And then when I went to a masters, my tutors were like, you cannot keep using commercial brush on glazes, you have to stop. So I started to make my own during my masters, but nature has always been fundamental to my work. And I used to use kind of casts of children's toys and things like that. I think my work was quite
00:14:12
Speaker
Well, it's still quite childish in some ways and playful, but it was a bit more childish in my early years, but understandably, and now, yeah, I'd say my work is more sophisticated, you know, having been practicing for longer and working with clay and glaze for longer. But yeah, what was your question, Nick? How you started making the sculptures that you make today?
00:14:31
Speaker
Yeah, so it's been a long journey. I've been lucky enough to study and do an undergrad and a postgrad and that has really significantly helped me develop today and having great teachers who have always been really inspiring. I think that's really important. But yeah, does that answer your question? Yeah. Why do you enjoy making sculptures instead of doing something else?
00:14:57
Speaker
I tried doing other things, I mean I tried, I tried, I did go and try and become a full-time teacher but yeah I just felt that that was after I'd done my undergrad and I felt like I hadn't worked really hard in my undergrad only to go and do a teaching qualification. I really wanted to give my work a go and to give it my all really and just to see where it would take me so I did try doing other things. I also worked in a sculpture shop for a while and
00:15:23
Speaker
you know, they would have all these phone calls about resins and certain plastics and what hardeners do you need and what fixes do you need and what's the P464 or whatever and I was like, I just know about plaster, clay and glaze and I can tell you a lot about those things but when you're starting talking to me about certain sculpture materials, I mean, I've always worked with clay and glaze and I think I'm lucky to have done that because I feel there's so much to learn in that area and
00:15:50
Speaker
the more you know the less you know it and yeah I feel like because like yeah I have a painter who's a very talented painter friend and he's always like why are you just always working with clay like why don't you try something else but the clay is just it never ceases to tire me I never get bored of working with it I think there's always a new challenge around the corner and something new to learn and to discover so yeah
00:16:17
Speaker
I absolutely love
Mastering the Art of Hand Building
00:16:18
Speaker
it. So something I found interesting is you are committed to the challenge of hand building in clay. The often overlooked details of micro organic structures are observed to develop sculptures of curious ambiguity. Tell me more about this.
00:16:33
Speaker
yeah so yeah they're as i said committed to the hand building so yeah hand building is super important to me i just yeah i mean so during my post grad they wanted to like break you down and build you up again so they wouldn't allow me to do any hand building and i had to try other techniques like zip casting and and you know throwing on the wheel and mold making and things and i did it but i also wasn't allowed to use any color which i found really hard because color is just so life-affirming and
00:17:01
Speaker
intrinsic to what I do and how I live and yeah so that was a challenge so hand building is I feel it's yeah I feel like hand building is a challenge and I enjoy that challenge and I'm always spurred on by how to create something and how to make the work feel alive that the piece has to feel really alive and
00:17:21
Speaker
like it's a kind of living organism even though it's like a static sculpture that challenge spurs me on to get the clay to feel alive because the clay it comes from the ground it can feel very alive but as soon as you fire it things can look dead so the challenge is getting the piece to really sing and breathe and have a life of its own after the firing process yeah
00:17:45
Speaker
I can't remember the question. So that, yeah, okay. Got it. Sorry, Nick. Yeah, I got it. So hand building is always a challenge and that challenge spurs me on and kind of leads to the next piece. So I'm really committed to hand building as my primary way of working.
00:18:02
Speaker
And what was the other thing? Ambiguity. So I want the pieces to look strange and bizarre and uncanny and kind of otherworldly to have resemblance to life, but be out of this life like a fiction movie or something like these cartoon characters from another planet. But I want to somehow escape the mundane of life to go into another world through these
00:18:26
Speaker
pieces and of course the colour and the glaze helps that but yeah so that's the kind of curiosity. I want the pieces to be curious for people for people to bring their own interpretations to them. I like it when there's a kind of ambiguity work and that people can bring their own thoughts and ideas to something even though it might not be what the artist has originally intended. I mean there can be work that very much wants you to think and is telling you that like maybe political work for example it wants to
00:18:54
Speaker
you know, to tell you a political way of thinking or being. But I feel like I want there to be an openness for people to reinterpret something their own way and to bring their own feelings, emotions, thoughts, ideas to the work because I feel the work becomes richer and better for it. So you mentioned that you want your static pieces to feel like they have life to them. How do you achieve this?
00:19:19
Speaker
hard way to do that. I guess through hand building, I think with hand building you can build and construct things and you know you can take and you can suddenly be building straight up and then you can go oh I want the piece to start coming out to the side so you can start coiling it or slabbing it outwards so I think the hand building allows me to
00:19:38
Speaker
achieve life within the work through the kind of flexibility I have whilst making. So yeah, I will start by drawing a sketch or making a kind of small maquette or a kind of test piece before I'll go into like the final work. But what I really like about clay is its malleability and its kind of
00:19:57
Speaker
it being very process led as a material, you're led by the process over the kind of original idea. So when you're making and building things can change. So I love the fact that there's never a kind of fixed outcome whilst you're creating and the clay kind of speaks to you and tells you what it needs and says, right, I need to go, you know, down now. I need you to take me back down to the ground or I need you to take me up or
00:20:21
Speaker
So I feel like the clay really speaks to you while you're working it and tells you, dictates how it needs to be sometimes. And if you really listen to it, it does, it tells you things. So I think that's how I try and achieve the aliveness in the work by listening to the material and responding to it as I'm creating an original idea that does often change.
00:20:45
Speaker
absolutely love that. Shaping Nation, you have to list it in the material because the material is going to tell you the direction it wants to go. That way you can make the best piece you can possibly make. So now, what advice would you give to someone that is to make the best possible sculpture that they can make?
00:21:03
Speaker
Oh, how do they make the best public? Oh, well, I think if we could achieve our best, I think we just stop straight away. I think it's the fact that you can always do better or achieve better or try something different or adjust something or, you know, that you think it's going to be for the best.
00:21:20
Speaker
allows you to keep going and but I think you're only ever as best as your last piece which I think is why one needs to make their practice really dedicated. I think you know pottery requires, ceramics requires a lot of dedication and times put into making and designing and creating and testing and firing and I think to make your best work you need to make your practice a dedicated one and dedicate yourself time to work with the material because it's only through
00:21:48
Speaker
constant practice that you get better. Yeah. Absolutely agree. Shape a nation. Keep practicing. Keep making tiny improvements. And that's how you make the best pottery and the best sculptures that you can make. I love that. So let's talk about discovering your voice.
Refining Artistic Voice through Education
00:22:03
Speaker
Can you tell me about the moment when you knew you're heading in the right direction with your sculptures?
00:22:07
Speaker
Oh, moment when I knew I was heading in the right direction. Yeah. So, I mean, the current work I make today kind of grew out of my postgraduate degree, really. When I was on my undergraduate, the work was very different and I had quite a big break between my undergrad and my postgrad. And I really found that was helpful because it gave me a chance to kind of start teaching, start being in the real world, start setting up a studio.
00:22:33
Speaker
establishing a dedicated practice so that time between the undergrad and the post-grad was really valuable for me. I did apply for the post-grad straight after my undergrad and I didn't get in and in hindsight I feel really grateful because it yeah it just gave me more time
00:22:48
Speaker
to just get established in the real world and not always be stuck in education. So I did apply for the post grad again because my work, I was working in a particular vein with casts of toys and commercial glazes and I just felt that I'd kind of done all I had to do with this type of work and said all I needed to say and I just felt really like I needed a change and I wanted to develop and
00:23:17
Speaker
grow and explore new avenues which was why I reapplied and it was during my undergrad that I kind of got broken down and built up again and all my current ways of working had to change but I did eventually sort of go back to the things that I loved you know the hand building working occasionally with press molds
00:23:37
Speaker
I loved glaze and I learnt to develop that in a more advanced way and colour and surface and really working with the form and the surface. I always think a good piece is you can always tell a good piece by its form and its surface and whether those are working together well. I'm not saying they always have to be in harmony with each other, there can be a kind of slight discord sometimes but you know that the glaze and the form have to feel
00:24:02
Speaker
like a unit and like they're working, like they're suiting each other, there's a kind of relationship with that. So yeah, so it was during my postgrad that I was not allowed to hand build, I was not allowed to use colour and those restrictions, yeah, they were good for me at the time but they were a challenge and then we had a project, we were allowed to just do what we wanted to in a bit more of a free way and I went back to the hand building and working with coloured glaze and oh, I just felt so
00:24:31
Speaker
happy again. I felt so like I was back to what my reason for living had been given back to me and I was allowed to do what I loved doing and so I made this kind of organic kind of cloud-like shape. It was a kind of like voluminous undulating abstract amorphous
00:24:49
Speaker
kind of circular but kind of going off in tangent shape and yeah that sort of that got me really excited and that's when I sort of knew that yeah that hand building and sculpture and colour and surface were my things really so yeah so I think one has to keep
00:25:10
Speaker
Keep working shake things up a bit try different things But you just know when when you love something and when it feels right and when it's kind of what you want to be doing and working on You just know your whole body starts singing and yeah, you just start to feel you know feel good in yourself So yeah, that's when I think I knew I
00:25:29
Speaker
This is what I'm about. This is what my work's about. I'm a hand builder. I'm interested in form and surface and there's so much to explore within that area that I felt I could never get bored by it. I absolutely love that. Shaping Nation, if you decided to try a different technique and maybe you don't like it, you could always go back to the technique that you do like. Nothing is set in stone. I love that. What would you say are some of the new opportunities that started coming your way once you found your own voice?
00:25:59
Speaker
you've ended off just oh yeah so yeah I mean I've always sort of come my way and kind of spurts sometimes you have a quiet period where there isn't much going on and then that gives you the time to explore and experiment with your work and
00:26:13
Speaker
not have to make for an exhibition for pieces to be seen. Sometimes it's nice just to make, you know, knowing that the pieces aren't necessarily going to be shown and that they're just experiments and tests. And then other times it's nice to make work that is for an audience. It's going to be a kind of cohesive body of work. It's going to be like a unit. They're going to be shown together.
00:26:32
Speaker
there's got to be a kind of relationship between the pieces for them to work as a grouping, the glazes need to work together. So yeah, I think things started to really evolve after my postgraduate book. But I've always had little things like, for example, there's a gallery called CAA, Contemporary Applied Arts, and they're a membership gallery, but they do often put on shows that are very much about craft in the UK, and I got accepted to show.
00:27:01
Speaker
Then with some of my older work which was about Harrow ceramics where I studied which was quite a significant course in the UK and had a big pottery tradition.
00:27:10
Speaker
doesn't exist anymore but I got offered to show at that show after the course had closed down and yeah that was you know I showed my kind of earlier work there in a grouping and some a guy from Texas bought a few pieces and you know those were kind of my early days of just having a few but there's always been like you know you always think oh there's not going to be another opportunity for ages and things do
00:27:33
Speaker
happen things do happen and if they don't you group together with your friends and you say right we're going to put on this exhibition together and we're all going to make a body of work around this and you know you can even get funding put on shows together i have lots of friends who group together and you know they thought that maybe their work is of a similar style and they put on shows together so i think you can also create your own opportunities and
00:27:54
Speaker
I definitely think you have to create your own opportunities. I don't think you can just sit back and expect things to come your way. I think you do have to keep working, keep making, keep applying for things, keep speaking with your friends about your work and visiting shows that are interesting. I think just keep busy and things come through that. But yeah, I'm trying to think of something that was really important early on. I mean, there's just been lots of little things like
00:28:19
Speaker
you know, getting your work featured in a magazine. Yeah, there's a big magazine in the UK and I had a big feature in that magazine as a result of a show in the US. So I feel like, you know, that was, yeah, to get a big feature like that was really good because often you'll only get a little picture in a page of something. And, you know, for someone to write in depth about your work, that's a real honor and a privilege. And that came as a result of a show. So just these little things, I feel like if you just keep going, little things happen and
00:28:46
Speaker
You know, you have to be proactive yourself and initiate things as well. But yeah. Absolutely love and definitely agree. So now, what advice would you give to someone looking to discover their own unique voice with their pottery or sculptures? What advice would I give? I would give, yeah, again, just...
00:29:04
Speaker
make your work a real dedicated practice, go and see shows, go and visit shows that interest you, and yeah, look at things in detail, like really learn, like yeah, go and look at stuff, and it doesn't always have to be actually ceramic, just go and look at like a
00:29:19
Speaker
you know, an exhibition by an artist in another material that can be really inspiring. But yeah, definitely just get yourself out there and visit things and, you know, listen to podcasts. Listen to podcasts like you're doing, Nick. And I love listening to podcasts when I'm working. Some excellent advice
The Value of Live Workshops and Networking
00:29:37
Speaker
right there. Tessa, it's been great today. And as we come to a close here, what is one thing you want to hammer home with my listeners today?
00:29:43
Speaker
One thing to hammer home, workshops, like live workshops by makers you admire. I think there are so many demos and stuff like Nseka has loads of demos by master makers. So I think just attending workshops by makers and seeing the way they create and they produce things and asking questions. I think there's great, because there's a lot of people now looking at things on YouTube, which is really amazing. But I think there's something about
00:30:09
Speaker
attending the workshop live and being with a maker and in their presence and seeing and hearing how they speak and what they do. I think there's something about being in the presence of another maker and watching their techniques and even having a chance to take part in the workshop and have them watch over you at your technique. I definitely think that's a really valuable thing. So to attend workshops by makers that you admire. Absolutely agree. Tessa, that was some excellent parting words of advice. And as we get to my close here,
00:30:39
Speaker
Where do you want my listeners to go learn more about you? Oh, you could learn more at my website, www.tesseeastman.com. My Instagram is Tessa underscore Eastman. Those are the main places. Yeah.
00:30:58
Speaker
Join me and Mike Serve on May 31st where Mike Serve is going to be talking about and teaching how to hand build a goblet cup. If you want to participate in this workshop, click the link in the description so you can sign up to this workshop. There are only 8 more spots available so you have to go quickly before spots are all taken. Hope to see you guys there and click the link in the description to save your spot.