Transcript
Speaker: Let me ask you a question. Do you ever feel like an imposter and you are just copying someone's pottery? If you feel like this, then stick around for this episode because I'm going to tell you how to get out of imposter syndrome. If you love pottery and want to take your skills to the next level, you're in the right place. Find your own pottery style right here on Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres. Let's get started.
Speaker: Hey everyone, it's Nick Torres here and if you are listening to this episode, it's because you feel like a fraud. You feel like your pottery just looks like everybody else's and it doesn't look good to you.
Speaker: During the beginning of my pottery journey, I too felt like a fraud because I felt like all I was doing was just copying everyone else and not really coming up with something unique for myself. And it was pretty taxing on me because I couldn't, it really drained my energy and I didn't almost have the motivation to really make pottery a lot of times because I just always felt like that fraud. And that is not a good place to be.
Speaker: Because when you feel like a fraud, you are going to really halt your progress a lot. And if you keep on staying there, then it's not gonna be good. You're never gonna find your own style of potter. You're never gonna find something that you actually love to make. So the solution is really simple.
Speaker: What you're gonna do is model other potters. It's okay, you need to learn that it's okay to have pottery look alike like other potters. It's okay to have pottery be the same almost. The reason is because you're gonna learn a lot from modeling other potters and if you're not learning, then you're not growing really.
Speaker: So you have to learn what you don't like and what you do like. You don't have to copy everything exactly. Because if you copy everything exactly, that's what really makes you be an imposter. If you are copying everything exactly, literally everything. But you could take points away that you really like. And when you take things away that you really like, instead of focusing in on the stuff that
Speaker: Oh, my pottery looks exactly like theirs, and I'm not original. If you keep on focusing in on that, you're never going to make your pottery become original. You're just never going to find your own style. So here are four actions that you need to take right now so you can start developing your own voice in pottery and so you can get out of imposter syndrome. So step number one is you need to find five potters that you
Speaker: really, really like their pottery. Whether it's how they slip cast, or maybe it's the shape that you like, or maybe it's the glaze that you like. Whatever it is, find five potters and write them down right now. Write down their names, their Instagram, their social media, whatever. Write down everything that you that every potter that you like to make it five potters that you like. Step number two is
Speaker: For each one of those potters that you listed down, describe three things that you love about their pottery. For example, when I was starting out, I liked Hugh Sen -Chuen Lent. I hope I said that right. I don't know if I said that right. But I liked his pottery a lot because I liked the shape of his pottery. I liked how he was able, I liked the way he made a foot ring on every single thing he made.
Speaker: And I just liked the way he did things. So that's what I liked about his pottery. And that's what you need to do as well. You need to write down three things. Just three things. That's it. It doesn't have to be a whole list. Three things that you love. Because there are going to be things that you don't like. There are also going to be things that you really love about those five people that you listed down. So after you have described those three things, the next step is
Speaker: is out of those three things, you're gonna need to pick one thing out of the three that you listed down from each of those potters. So after you have written down three things that you love about those potter shapes, the pottery that they make and the shapes and whatever it is that they like, you're gonna pick one thing from those three and you're gonna model it. You're gonna model what you love about their pottery. Just pick one though.
Speaker: anymore and you're going to get a little bit overwhelmed. So maybe you like the shape of someone's pottery but you love how another person makes a design in their pottery. And that's how you're going to be able to start developing your own voice, your own style because you're taking a combination of everything and you're making it your own. So the fourth and last step is you're going to alter one thing from
Speaker: the last list of five that you should have and you're going to alter one thing. That's it. So maybe let's say if someone likes to carve flowers onto mugs, but you don't really like flowers that much, more of a animal type of person, instead of doing flowers, you're going to do animals or a house or something else that you like instead.
Speaker: Because the great thing about pottery is that it's flexible and we can be flexible with our pottery. We can really make things our own just by switching up one thing. And that is how you get out of imposter syndrome. So do those steps right now before you do anything else. Do those steps right now.
Speaker: We hope you enjoyed this episode of Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres. Do you have questions about pottery that you'd like Nick to answer? Send them to us on Instagram at Nick Torres underscore pottery. We'll see you next time.
