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#234 Part 2 Crafting Narratives Through Pottery w/ Tim See
36 Plays2 years ago
Part 2: In this podcast episode, renowned potter Tim See discusses his journey into the world of pottery, which began with a surprising graduate assignment that led to a shift in his style from feminine to industrial pots. Tim's unique storytelling approach to pottery is highlighted as he shares how a dismantled typewriter sparked a narrative about robots on his pottery pieces. He discusses how he draws inspiration from daily encounters and uses these to create his unique art. The episode concludes with Tim detailing the intricate process behind his pottery, from throwing on a wheel to managing drying times and final assembly. He balances his time between the studio and family, demonstrating that his process is as much about organization and focus as it is about creativity. Learn more about Tim by checking out his instagram @timseeclay
Top 3 value bombs:
1. Creativity and Storytelling through Pottery: Renowned potter Tim See. reveals how he uses his pottery to tell unique narratives, demonstrating how personal experiences and daily encounters can influence art. From incorporating elements of a dismantled typewriter to drawing inspiration from nature, Tim See. exemplifies how pottery can serve as a medium for storytelling and reflecting personal worldview.
2. Balancing Art and Practicality: Tim See. shares the meticulous attention to detail required in his pottery process, from throwing on a wheel, managing drying times, to final assembly. He stresses the importance of balancing creativity with organization and focus, and how he divides his time between the studio and his family.
3. Importance of Adapting and Experimenting: Tim See. discusses how he began creating grungy industrial pots after initially producing more feminine pots, showcasing the importance of adapting and experimenting in art. He also touches upon the significant shift he experienced when he decided to separate the roles of maker and seller, leading to increased productivity and satisfaction in his craft.
and so much more
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Transcript
Increasing Pottery Productivity
00:00:00
Speaker
I would take all the stuff that came out of the kiln and then be like, okay, now I've got to sell that. And that division was really big for me to not have to think about selling anymore and just letting Maker Tim make. And that made me more productive.
00:00:18
Speaker
Hey, real quick before we get started, if you would like to find your own theme for your pottery so your voice really stands out and you're not getting bored with making the same thing over and over again, I put together 53 themes for you guys and it's completely free. All you have to do to get it is just go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash 53 themes. That's shapingyourpottery.com forward slash 53 themes. I'll see you guys in there.
Tim's Unique Pottery Style
00:00:50
Speaker
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.
00:01:02
Speaker
What is up, Shaping Nation? This is Nick Torres here. And on this episode, this is the second part of my interview with Tim C. And we are talking all about how Tim makes his pottery and his process and his thought process and how he breaks things down to make things easy for himself. I hope you guys enjoy this part and I'll see you guys in there. So let's talk about your pottery. In one sentence, can you tell me what you make? I make grungy industrial pots.
00:01:33
Speaker
I love it. That was a perfect answer for that. I could do like, I could probably have like 10 different tag lines, like grunge industrial pots, like wood brown, just one word, brown. That would be just brown. Unlikely domestic ware. These are all great like sentences, like so right to the point. I love that. So tell me the story, how you started making these pots that you make today. Again, there's a short long version or long short version. I was doing, I guess what,
00:02:03
Speaker
Some would consider, or at least what I'd been told, were very feminine pots. You know, they were frilly, they were light, pastel colors. And early Tim had thought that's what people wanted to buy. And then, well, we're going to time out. There are different Tims that live in Mr. Tim's brain. There's maker Tim, there's seller Tim, there's marketing Tim, there's teacher Tim. There's lots of different Tims. And I didn't know I had those Tims in me.
00:02:28
Speaker
early on, it was all just glumped in one. So Maker Tim and Seller Tim and all, all that were working together. They didn't have any separation or compartmentalization. It was all just crammed into one thing. So Seller Tim had thought that, Oh, Seller Tim needs to make things that people are going to buy. And doing shows in the early on, there were more women at shows. You know, if I, if I had to take like a counter of how many women were at a show versus men, it was probably 80 20.
00:02:54
Speaker
So marketing and seller Tim said, Oh, well we need to market to women. And it was a mistake. That was, that wasn't what I should have done. But that's what, that's what marketing and seller Tim had thought. So I was making feminine sort of work and people would come in to go, Oh, that looks like an oil can and stuff. And that all came from a graduate, a graduate student's assignment that I had in a class. But I don't know how far back you want to go. You want to go back that far?
Innovative Pottery Forms
00:03:19
Speaker
Yeah, let's go.
00:03:20
Speaker
Well, let's go. So we're going to name Jeff Schwartz. He's a great guy. He was a grad student at Syracuse University. And in the summer program, he said get an assignment and it was make a cream and sugar set.
00:03:32
Speaker
And I said, okay, I'm going to make bottles and vases. That's what I made. I made, I would make 200 a week. That was just my jam. I liked making them. And he'd go, Tim, you know, you're going to fail if you don't make a cream and sugar set right on. I'm going to make that. And I made more bottles and stuff. And I got to like the end of, end of the semester. He's like, Tim, you know, I can't pass you if you don't have a cream and sugar set.
00:03:54
Speaker
And I'm like, okay. So I went home and I threw more bottles. And it was like, it was like two days before I had to hand them in and pause and I will get a piece. So they were bottles. So they, stop right there. Okay. They were bottles like this where, you know, we had curve spout. Some of them had shorter max and some of them had, you know, were jars, but they were all pretty much bottle type forms.
00:04:19
Speaker
And I was sitting in a basement of a rental property that we were in, and I'm like, okay, how am I gonna make a cream and sugar set out of all these bottles? Because I don't have time to throw them now. So I just started, I had a lot. So I just started cutting them apart. I was cutting them off at the side here. I was cutting the necks off. I was cutting jars apart. And eventually, and do you have the ability to input a picture? Is that like a thing? Yeah, I can do that.
00:04:44
Speaker
Yeah, so maybe ask me later to put the picture in here. It was a cream and sugar set that was made of all the parts of these little vases that I was making. The top part, like the body of the piece was the upper section. The spout was a neck. The fifth part that you would fill it was the top of a vase. The sugar bowl was pretty much one of these cut.
00:05:07
Speaker
And then the top of a jar was attached sideways, you know, so you could, you know, the lid and everything was assembly on to it. And he really liked that. He was jazzed about it. And somebody at college was actually excited about something that I did. Nobody really liked me there. And so having somebody like excited about my work was like, whoa, I'm going to do that all the time. So I made a bunch of those and I got into the Seeker student show.
00:05:35
Speaker
for one of my cream and sugar sets. And after that, it was like, okay, people enjoy that. It's something I can market, you know, if, if, and Sika people like it, then other people are going to like it. And I continued that when I started doing shows and people did like it. They, they, they sold well, people had joined them. I made enough money on them.
00:05:56
Speaker
And, but people would say, Oh, those look like tin cans or not to cancel. They looked like oil cans. And then, you know, some of the stoners in Albany would go, is this like a pipe or a bong, you know, or there would be things like that. And eventually after hearing that enough, I was at a, a tea show and I have it here. I had a, I saw a set of oil can kind of things and I bought them. There were, I think there were five and I said, I'm going to make them. And I tried and it was like, maybe.
00:06:26
Speaker
probably about six years of trying to replicate oil cans before I really got one done enough that I felt. And sometimes it's up on that shelf. It's not up there now. You know, it felt like an oil can. And it took a lot of technological changes into my process to make that happen, to get the spouts the way I wanted and everything. But when that happened,
00:06:48
Speaker
I was really excited about it, again, because it's the opposite of all the stuff I was doing, right? I was making very feminine kind of stuff, and this was all grungy, dirty, you know, horrible, crunchy, ugly stuff. And at the same time, we also built a wood kiln, and I was invited to do my first solo show. At the time it was... Oh shoot, what was it?
00:07:09
Speaker
It's Flower City in Rochester now, but it was something else. And I don't remember, but it was my first solo show. So I was like, I'm going to make all this special work for it. And I made these oil cans and I made my porcelain stuff and I made raccoon work and I made wood firework. It was like four different things. The show was evolution and division. And from that, I made a series of oil cans that I was really jazzed about. So much so that.
00:07:33
Speaker
The money that I took that I made at that solo show, I put in towards investment. I invested it into future endeavors.
Smithsonian Journey and Creative Liberation
00:07:40
Speaker
And I applied to the Smithsonian craft show and I accidentally got in. After I applied, I'd forgot all about it. You know, it was an expensive, it might've been like a $60 application fee at the time when most of them were like 10 or 20. And I was, I was at, I was at a shift in a wood firing and I'm like, you know, I got an email and picked it up on the phone. I'm like,
00:08:01
Speaker
What the hell is the Smithsonian craft show? And I kind of forgot about it. And it was maybe a couple of weeks later, they're like, we need confirmation on whether or not you're going to be planning on attending. I'm like, I guess I need to look this up. And it's like, oh crap, this is, I'm way over my head. But it was like eight months away. So I was, I had time to make work for it. And I got in for oil cans. So I had eight months solid of banging out.
00:08:30
Speaker
Worthy pots something that I thought because you know I'm looking at the people that are that did it the year before and have done it And you know like these are people that are mid to end career pottery people ceramic people And they're they're awesome. I did not fit in postured imposter syndrome before it was a thing was heavy So I spent the eight months You know trying to bring my work up to a level that I thought would be worthy of you know a show like that and
00:08:57
Speaker
After eight months of doing oil cans and oil can type projects, the show was okay. It wasn't any better than, you know, if I had done the same amount of time and energy show wise as a local show. But I got to say, I went, I did the Smithsonian show. Oh, look at me. Super fancy. That was financially. It wasn't, it wasn't worth it. In the end, it was the same as any other show, but it gave me
00:09:24
Speaker
a timeframe to work on something solely as one thing. Typically I was working on 10 different kinds of things at the same time. So focusing everything on one aspect of the stuff that I was doing was both transformative in that I got to grow a lot because crap.
00:09:45
Speaker
sorry it was transformative in that i got to do a bunch of stuff in one genre of my work for an extended period of time but it was also really limiting in that i didn't get to do anything else that i was excited about doing so as soon as that show was over i was done with oil cans i'm like no oil cans i want to just make pots again and i just sat down in the studio and threw pots just like
00:10:11
Speaker
I kind of say it's like I'm shitting them out of my hands, just like, just like a laser beam of pots coming out of my hands. And you know, I'd have, I had a cabinet that I could fit probably a hundred pots in and I filled it and I'm like, they're boring. And that's where like Maker Tim and Seller Tim kind of divided. And Maker Tim was like, you know, I want to be able to just make whatever I want, however I want to make it, as many as I want to make. And I don't want to have to be beholden to Seller Tim.
00:10:41
Speaker
Because it doesn't matter what you do. I spent eight months on this, this work. I put everything I could into it and I didn't do any better than if I had done something else during that same time. I could have done any other kinds of pots and done the same business. You know, if I just want to think of it like as a business thing, I would have done the same.
00:11:03
Speaker
So I tried to separate Make Tim and Seller Tim. So every time Maker Tim went into the studio, he did whatever he wanted. Doesn't matter. Tim wants to make mugs? Sure. Tim makes mugs. Tim wants to make more mugs? Tim makes more mugs. Tim wants to spend two months making mugs? He's gonna make the mugs. Seller Tim, then when it, you know, would have to take all the shit that came out of the kiln. Oh no, see, started the shit train. I would take all the stuff that came out of the kiln and then be like, okay,
00:11:29
Speaker
Now I've got to sell that. And that division was really big for me to not have to think about selling anymore and just letting Maker Tim make. And that made me more productive. It made me a heck of a lot happier. And because of that, I was able to make
00:11:48
Speaker
bigger, bigger steps. You know, I can say like, if we have like a step and you're making work, you know, you've got normal four inch rise. You're going up four inches at a time. But when you're really excited about something, you can skip steps. You're just like, you're just running up. You're like, I'm not drinking water. I'm just going to run up these stairs. And you're going like eight steps at a time. And you're just, just running up these steps and you get to the top and you're happy. And that was a big change for me in the studio and stuff. And that gets us to the decorating.
00:12:17
Speaker
So when I started doing just the simple pots again, and just being excited to throw, rather than, you know, doing all this planning because I had this end goal that I wanted, and just sitting down and throwing, I had a lot of pots to decorate without impunity. If I messed up a decoration, or I didn't like it, I had a hundred other pots I could decorate.
Pottery as Storytelling
00:12:35
Speaker
So it didn't matter. If I screw one up, I could toss it, I could fire, it doesn't matter. I could make another one, it's no big deal.
00:12:42
Speaker
So I started just painting. I took apart a typewriter and I started illustrating the parts of the typewriter. Have you ever taken apart a typewriter? I have not. A lot of parts. So many parts. And they were all really cool parts. So you take apart, you know, you illustrate it on a mug. And then, like I said, somebody comes in the studio and goes, why do you have, you know, what is that? And I go, it's this typewriter part. And you wiggle it around and look at it, look at it. And it's like, this is awesome. I'm like, but why is it on a pot? And I'm like, I don't know.
00:13:12
Speaker
And then you go, okay, now I got to think about why these are on the pots. And I'm just sitting down there in the studio at Clayscapes. I had my own little room. It was small. It was like a 10 by 12 kind of space. And I was looking at my stuff. I'm like, okay, you know, what's in the studio? And there were paint cans and there were buckets. Outside of the door, there was like a big drum for sweeping compound. And I got a, at a wrench that.
00:13:34
Speaker
The family's story was a grandfather stole it from Carrier. It's like this big crescent wrench. And they had all these things. And I'm like, oh, you know, let's just make something with them. And I just sat and I painted a robot. And as soon as I had put the last, like, of the robot, somebody goes, why are you painting robots? And I'm like, I don't know. There's all these stuff. I just made a robot with it. But why a robot? And I said, well, this robot is killing the last bug on Earth.
00:14:00
Speaker
And they're like, well, why? They're like, why are you killing the last bug on Earth? And I'm like, because all the living things on Earth destroyed it, right? Humans destroyed it. They can't make that change. They think all living things are bad and are going to ruin the Earth. So, you know, it's killing the last living thing. And then I go, why? And that's where it all started. So from that point, that little conversation, I've created a whole, I don't know, illustrative story that's now
00:14:29
Speaker
probably 14, 13 years of every piece that I illustrate being a part of that story. And it's been a great way to, I don't know, visually discuss things that I think are usually hard to, like if I drew people and I, you know, it was about environmentalism and people, it's, I think it's a lot harder for people to like,
00:14:52
Speaker
get into that and empathize with the characters because it's us. It's us that are destroying the world, or it's us that are causing war, and it's us that are greedy and everything. But if we do it as robots, like, oh, that robot's shitty. Look at him. He's taking all the money, he's got all the power, and he's just being mean to all the little robots. But in the end, that's us. So hopefully internalizing it through, like,
00:15:16
Speaker
a surrogate sort of you know that we can we could see ourselves as robots but really you know it's just robots as a little drawing and it's been a way for me to deal with my world locally in the studio in my yard in my community as a way to kind of reflect and deal with complex subjects that are harder to like write about or discuss with i just do it all through little drawings of robots
00:15:41
Speaker
So that does bring me actually into my next question. So you are, you are inspired by your part of the world. Can you explain to me how this impacts your pottery? Yeah, everything. So I think some of my favorite things I've drawn have been directly from my yard. One of the things like my, my wife had a brain injury and when she.
00:16:01
Speaker
The second one that she had, she wasn't able to drive and her car had sat undriven for a couple months and it needed to get driven. So I was, went out to like move it so that, you know, the brakes didn't get froze up or anything. And on it had been a spider that had been there for a few, about a month. It was an orb weaver and it had gotten pretty big and I'd watched it cause, you know, it made a web from the mirror to the, to the window.
00:16:25
Speaker
And I said, eventually I was like, I'm going to hit the movie. So I waited for it was out and I got a stick and all the sticks that I draw in my pottery world now, like anytime I draw a stick, it's that stick. And I took the stick and I got them on, on the stick and I brought them to the garden where I grow pickles, cucumbers, I guess some people call it. And I put it in the pickle garden. And I watched that for the rest of the fall until, you know,
00:16:47
Speaker
It died and I found its little dead body. But all those kind of things led up to all the spider drawings and it being part of the story of the robots and the stick and all those kind of things. It's a direct representation of my world onto my pots. And I try to do that with all the things.
00:17:07
Speaker
I don't pick a motif necessarily because I think it's going to be marketable or that, I don't know, why do people pick things? Like I think most of the time people pick things because they think it's going to sell or they might have an interest in it. I try to pick things that I directly have contact with. So if I'm doing a flower on one of my pots, I'm going out to my garden and I'm
00:17:27
Speaker
Picking or cutting that flower or leaving in place taking a picture of it But I'm using that exact thing that's in my yard and a lot of times it'll be you know a direct photo that I took of One of the flowers that I put on my pot like if they're like, oh, well, where'd you get that picture of that flower? Did you buy it as a stencil or something? Oh, no, like here's the photo of it in my garden like that is that is what happened right there I grew it I put the little seeds in they made the flower that I
00:17:53
Speaker
You know, I made the garden bed that grew the flower that, you know, I did all of it. So it's like part of my world. And I think, I guess that connection for me is just as, just as important as anything else. Otherwise I'm just.
00:18:08
Speaker
I'm utilizing somebody else's or like a different story than my own. So drawing right from the things that I've direct contact with that are part of my part of my world are, you know, it's, it means more like Hawks. Like right now I've got the family Hawks that are murdering all my bird friends. And you know, I've watched this family Hawks and it's been a part of my storyline for about three years now. But now they become murderous little bastards to killing all of my little bird friends.
00:18:37
Speaker
The other morning, John Cusack is one of the Rob Mull. It's probably not John Cusack anymore, but John Cusack was a female robin that was just really dumb. Like it just did dumb things all the time. Wherever it made a nest, it was like the worst place you could put a nest. So anytime I see a robin doing dumb stuff, it's John Cusack. So John Cusack was up in a tree and I could hear it making, you know, hollers about, you know, predator stuff. And I went out to see what was going on, thinking there was a kitty cat or something.
00:19:05
Speaker
and nothing I didn't see anything and I got closer to the tree and then a hawk came out and the noises stopped and I thought oh man the Hawks took John Cusack and later on like I was a little disappointed in my in my hawk friends
00:19:18
Speaker
But the next morning I came out and John Cusack was out there doing dumb stuff again. I was like, oh, well, they can get John Cusack, but I got somebody. But it's so like that I'm going to be illustrating, you know, towards the end of summer, beginning of fall. Like that's going to be part of my storyline. Like that's going to be in the robot story. And it's going to reflect all the normal robot rules and all this stuff, but it's going to be incorporated.
00:19:39
Speaker
I love that. I love that. Shaping Nation, if you could take experiences from your life, then you could apply that into your own pottery and you can literally have your own story. And it could be your own story. I love that so much. And everybody has stuff. You know, I just happen to have a pickle garden and birds that I, you know, kind of...
00:19:58
Speaker
I can look out and I can go, oh, that's that bird and that's that bird. And I understand that because they're in my world and I pay attention to that. If we pay attention to stuff, there's always things happening, whether it's the spider that lives in your basement, you know, or, or your closet. Like I've got two spiders that live in my closet right now. They're both seller spiders that somehow got upstairs. But I know them, like there, there's, you know, I think we call one Mr. Spider and one, I don't know what she calls the other one.
00:20:21
Speaker
but you know those are the two spiders in our world and everybody has those two spiders it's just how much attention are they giving to the things in the world it could be you know that we've had i've had a slug that like would not leave my studio door alone like every night it would make another channel i'd wash it and i'd let the you know the slug would come back it would make it would make a little line and it's just it was
00:20:43
Speaker
what it did and one of my pots I drew, you know, I would just keep replicating the lines that was doing on my window. And it's like, it's, it can be minuscule little things if you're open to seeing those kinds of stuff. So we all have it. It happens all the time. You're constantly exposed to input. It's just how, how much do you want that input to reflect into your work?
00:21:06
Speaker
I love that so much.
Balancing Creativity and Production
00:21:08
Speaker
So now, can you explain to me how you create your pottery starting after you have thrown them on the wheel? I'm going to need another cup of coffee. So in my studio, right? And it changes season to season.
00:21:24
Speaker
It can change week for week, but we'll go with this time right now. It's mid-summer, sometimes the air conditioning is on, things I can stretch out the drying time a lot, and that usually gets me to make more complex forms, whether it's
00:21:41
Speaker
you know, more complex mugs, oil cans, that kind of stuff. So I typically will start throwing on a Monday. Sunday is cards with grandma kind of stuff. So like, you know, I try to get everything done by Sunday. So Monday I come into the studio and I'll throw all morning. I'll throw the parts for the oil cans. I'll throw the bases. I'll bury myself in stuff on Monday morning.
00:22:04
Speaker
And then Monday evening, I'll kind of make an evaluation of what other parts I'm going to need. So like I'll press mold pieces, I'll extrude handle bits. If there's nothing, like if there's no other things I need to make, I'll just throw more. And then Tuesday, I'll try to manage drying so that things are getting finished up.
00:22:23
Speaker
And if I know there's going to be time for me to start more work before they're ready to get the next steps done, I'll throw more. Typically I can get bowls done in a hurry. Like if I throw a bowl on Tuesday, I can usually finish it by Wednesday evening so that Thursday I am ready to start assembling whatever I'm doing, whether it's mugs or oil cans and stuff, so that I'm filling in all the little studio time that I have.
00:22:47
Speaker
with things, concentrating more on the stuff that I started first and filling in what I think I can get done before I need to work on the other stuff. Whereas bowls are a good filler for me. The way they dry in the studio and management of them is really good. Things which I haven't done on.
00:23:04
Speaker
soap dishes and spoon spas. We don't call them rests anymore. We want them to be luxurious for the spoons. Things like that I can fit in before. And then come Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I'm making sure everything gets finished, whether it's the assembly or decorating and all that. So that Sunday morning, if I need to finish the thing up, I can. And then Sunday afternoon evening is family time, you know.
00:23:28
Speaker
Grandma, both my grandmas are still around and I spend my time, you know, playing cards and doing stuff with them. Sometimes I had to take Sundays off of that and make pots because I've buried myself too much. But I try to make sure I spend some, some fun times. Obviously, I say fun times, but I love being in the studio. But if you're just in the studio, nobody remembers you exist. So I do have to like show up to family stuff so they don't think I've been buried in the basement or anything.
00:23:55
Speaker
And then it starts again on Monday. There are some times, you know, that I bite off more than I can chew or something happens where I need to like back up a little bit and actually mow the lawn or, you know, like I have, you know, with wood firing, you know, there's a lot of prep that has to happen.
00:24:12
Speaker
I don't always get to everything done in a week. And then it stretches out. But I try to work it back so that I start on the Monday again, so that I keep that cycle. Because I understand it. I know the timing of it, and it's predictable for me. There have been times where I worked really nearly, and then I end up getting way behind, or I'm having to make bad decisions to keep the pots
00:24:37
Speaker
Did that make sense? Like, like if I make 80 bowls and I can only finish 40 bowls in a week, now I've got 40 bowls that are going to get past their prying of when I should be working on them. And then I'm having to make bad decisions because I'm not hitting them at the right time. So I'm not putting the slip on at the right time. We're not under glazing. We're not stamping them. And then they become less and less what I want out of a pot and more and more meat accommodating them rather than them accommodating me.
00:25:07
Speaker
And I don't like when work ends up happening like that. So I try to keep the things on a cycle that I know I can be the best potter I could be at so that I'm not having to make crappy pots. Right. So can you tell me about, explain to me the actual assembly of the pots, how that process looks like? Like the oil cans? Yeah, we'll go with the oil cans.
00:25:33
Speaker
Well, I use damp boxes. That's my thing. So in a damp box, I have parts. And I will take a base. Actually, I'll take eight or six bases, depending on how big they are, at a time. And I'll put them on the table, and I'll start laying out. I usually start with the best ones.
00:25:54
Speaker
So even though I'm making them all to the best quality that I can, there are some that just are a little better than another. And I usually put them, I'll organize the boards by the best, the okayest and like, okay. Like so that the best ones get the best parts. So the things that I'm like most jazzed about will go on the best pieces. And I'll lay out all the parts that go with each of the pieces.
00:26:19
Speaker
And then I'll assemble them one by one. So I'm making, you know, I'll take all the little parts that are made, and I'll put them on that one, and that'll go on a board, and I'll just keep going down the line until I get all eight or six done, and then go back in the damp box. And then do the next step on the next eight. And then this week I did a board of six, a board of eight, and a board of eight. So I do them all, and then I put them back in the damp box, and then I do the next steps, which would be like handles and spouts.
00:26:46
Speaker
so that I'm differentiating the jobs. So if I just do one at a time, if I just assemble one start to finish at a time, it's really inefficient for me because I'm having to change processes and tools and everything. If I'm doing all my handles and they might be like four different styles or eight different styles of handle, the processes are all the same. I know where I'm going to be scratching things off. I know the tools that I'm going to need. Whereas if I'm trying to like put on the
00:27:13
Speaker
the gauges and the little filler spots and the spot, all those take different tools and then it becomes a table full of a mess that doesn't make any sense and I can't find anything. So differentiating stuff into jobs helps. The damp boxes mean the parts that I have made are exactly the way I put them in there for indefinite amount of time. So if I, you know, something does happen, I could put all my stuff into damp boxes and suspend them at that time. So,
00:27:43
Speaker
Let's say this week, my truck dies and I need to like spend time at the dealership and all that crap, which just happened that I can, I can put them in the dad box and then know that when I can get to them, they will be exactly the way I need them to be. So I'm not like stressing out and again, making bad decisions. They're just the way I need them. So yeah, it's, I go through little cycles, you know, through the week and then through each pot. So in terms, do you want to like the, the nitty gritty on assembly kind of stuff or just that process?
00:28:11
Speaker
I think that process was really good. I love that. Usually by the end of the day, I know what it feels like when I'm starting to make decisions based on my time rather than based on the pot. And if it gets towards the five, six o'clock in the afternoon there, and I'm just making decisions that I feel like because I want to be done before dinner,
00:28:40
Speaker
that I'll just bin it up. Like, okay, I'll just put it away and then come back maybe after dinner or in the morning so that I'm not making decisions based on my time. I'm making decisions based on what's best for the pot. So typically I'll leave all my little fiddly bits, like all these kinds of things that are like just not drudgery, but like are just really fiddly. Like you got to, it takes time to get these little things and they're not functional. They're all more like the decoration or motif of the work. I say them to the very end and I give myself a little bit of a break.
00:29:10
Speaker
right now, a little bit of a break. And then I can go back and be like, okay, let's, let's figure out what is the best thing for the pot. And that's the last little fiddly bits that take a pot from like, you know, that's a good pot to like really good pot. And sometimes it's knowing not to put any fiddly bits on too. So, you know,
00:29:29
Speaker
Now is that time frame where I'm going to take those pots that are still, you know, in the damp closet and stuff and pull them out one by one and go, okay, does this deserve a fiddly bit? Does it need a fiddly bit? Are the fiddly bits the right size and scale for the pots that I have? And I'll go through one by one and make sure I've got my name on it because that's, so it was really frustrating. Make sure my name is on it. Make sure they're, you know, they're sealed and, you know, they're not going to leak or anything.
00:29:57
Speaker
And then I just go through and make sure there's no boogers annoying noise and get all that stuff done. And then it's like, okay, now it's done and it's in the drying stage. And then it just goes back on a board, back into the damp box until it's stiff enough to hold itself together with a sheet. And then it goes under the sheet for a bit. Like if I was able to pan around, you'd see boards covered with little sheets all over the place right now because nothing's drying really well.
00:30:20
Speaker
and then after the the drying i just put them right in the kiln like i don't stay on a shelf or anything because i load it and then after the firing the bisque firing
00:30:30
Speaker
I sort them into bins, big tub type things. And if there's things that need illustration and stuff afterwards, they go in one bin. If there's things that just need to be glazed, they go in another. And then when it comes to the wood firing, I'll pull out bin by bin what needs to happen next and do those. So that I'm not, again, it's differentiation of process. So if I'm trying to, if I illustrate everything at once, I get good cohesive stories that build upon
00:30:59
Speaker
you know, the previous pieces. If I break it up and I, like, illustrate eight when I'm doing them and then another eight later on, it's like, well, why did I do that again? Or like, what? Whereas I'm doing like 60 at a time, it's like that robot is going through these the storyline almost like a comic strip and it's everything is happening and I can always go back and I can fill in or add stuff to it. But getting that base down cohesively and it's through, you know, maybe 40, 50 pieces that it's it's happening over. But it's it helps
00:31:28
Speaker
differentiate enough that it helps separate, it helps to separate those so that it's, I don't know the right word, it just makes it, it makes it work more.
00:31:41
Speaker
having them all ready to go, you know, I'm not inhibited by anything. I'm not waiting for something to dry. They're already best. All I have to do is illustrate. And I usually do that on, you know, live. So people are watching and participating as I do it. And I can just, you know, almost, I don't know, say zone out because I'm like any kind of like
00:32:01
Speaker
I'm not zoning out and kind of not paying attention to what I'm doing. It's that I'm like hyper focused on what I'm doing and I can't get to that point without storing it all up. Like my phone is like a little collection of story ideas. So I have like I hate, you know, take a note.
00:32:17
Speaker
and then I'll put down what happened in my yard, you know, like pile of bird heads I just hit with a lawnmower because the hawks ate a bunch of my bird friends. You know, like that's gonna be in a story because I'm gonna go through my little list, I'm gonna put it on a piece of paper so I don't have to open up my phone every time, and follow the list and that's gonna be part of the story somehow. And if I had to separate that or if I had to do it right when the pots are, you know, ready that first time, it just doesn't work as well.
00:32:42
Speaker
I love that. I love that so much. Shapingation, if you have a lot of things that you need to do, break it up into sections and then and then assemble it later all at once. So that way it keeps everything a little bit easier for yourself and you don't get a little bit mixed up. I love that so much.