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#191 Find Your Missing Piece To Your Pottery
37 Plays2 years ago
What is up Shaping Nation on this episode I'm talking about how you might be missing just one pottery and how to find that missing piece to start making pottery that you can call your own
Get your 53 themes by clicking this link shapingyourpottery.com/53themes
Follow me on Instagram @nictorres_pottery
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Transcript
Introduction & Free Resource
00:00:00
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.
00:00:31
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.
The Search for Unique Style
00:00:44
Speaker
Have you ever felt like there was just something missing with your pottery? Like you may be liking what you're making, but something still feels a little off. Yeah, something is missing with your pottery to make it truly your own voice.
00:01:01
Speaker
What is up, Shaping Nation? This is Nick Torres here, and on this episode of Shaping Your Pottery, I'm going to be talking about how finding your voice may just be about finding that missing piece, that one thing that could make your pottery truly your own. You see, for about the first four and a half years,
00:01:25
Speaker
of my pottery journey. I was making lots of different pottery. I was making mugs. I went through a phase where I just made nothing but mugs because I wanted to be able to sell those mugs. And on those mugs I was trying everything I could to try to find my own style. I was carving on them. I was carving mountains. I was carving roads, mountain roads, some trees, and I was carving on them
00:01:50
Speaker
but that didn't really fit me. I didn't really enjoy that. Something just felt missing.
00:01:56
Speaker
And then I kept on experimenting. I was trying to alter my mugs and alter my mugs by chattering, doing chatter techniques, but something still felt missing. So I eventually moved on from making a bunch of mugs all the time, because at the time I just wanted to be able to sell my pottery. And I knew, I figured that if I could make a lot of mugs, then I could sell my pottery.
00:02:22
Speaker
So I moved on from
Experimentation Journey
00:02:23
Speaker
that stage of my pottery journey, and I went on to the stage of making larger vases, and I started making larger vases. I learned how to make it. I learned how to center right in order to make larger vases, and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed making larger vases and I enjoyed trying to figure out different forms for them, but something still felt a little missing.
00:02:47
Speaker
I enjoyed it, but I also felt like I was going through the motions at the same time. Something felt missing in order to truly make it my own because, you know, you see all these other potters out there who are really great at throwing on the wheel and they have really large bases, but something for me just felt missing. I enjoyed it, but something felt missing. And that's what brought me to my raccoon journey. So I had bought an old electric kiln
00:03:17
Speaker
from one of my high school friends. And I bought it for like $50. And it just kind of sat in my little garage at my house for the longest time. We couldn't set it up because my garage is really, really tiny. It was converted from a garage into a bedroom. So we had nowhere to put this kiln. So I was trying to think of ways and how I could actually use it. So then I was watching some YouTube videos on somebody
00:03:44
Speaker
they turned old electric kilns into gas kilns. I was like, huh, maybe I'll try that. So I tried converting that. It didn't really work. I couldn't get it hot enough in order to melt the glazes in the gas kiln. But then I learned that it was perfect for a raccoon kiln. So I started trying that raccoon kiln out. And I remember I did a naked raccoon, and the first one I did, I had no idea what I was really doing. All I knew was that I just needed to light the torch,
00:04:14
Speaker
get the pot hot, put it in a bucket full of paper, and that's all I knew. And that's what I did. And the results came out really, really good for my first one. I was like, wow, this is amazing. I think I found my thing, Raku. But as I continued making it,
00:04:30
Speaker
I noticed that I didn't really like raccoon that much because I was worried about my lungs because all the smoke was going into my my nose and it was very inconvenient a lot of the times because a lot of times had to be based on the weather and where I live out in California can be very very hot during the summers so I couldn't do it all that often and then
00:04:51
Speaker
So I stepped back from Raku and I probably won't do it Raku any really all that much unless I'm with like somebody else and doing something. So I just kind of stepped back from Raku because I was worried about all the health and just something still felt a little missing with that.
Discovering New Techniques
00:05:07
Speaker
It wasn't until I stopped fighting against myself and I started experimenting with things that I never thought I would experiment with for like sculpting characters and hand building. I never thought I would do those things.
00:05:19
Speaker
And once I stopped fighting it to myself, that's when I knew I found my missing piece. And that missing piece allowed me to find pottery and find my own voice just by finding that missing piece. You know, you may be at a stage in your pottery journey where you feel like something is missing, but I'm here to tell you that all you need
00:05:42
Speaker
in order to make that truly feel like your own is one pot. You're just one pot away from finding
Finding Your Pottery Voice
00:05:52
Speaker
that missing piece. Because if you could find that missing piece, then you're gonna truly find a unique voice for yourself. And then you're gonna not feel like you're missing something with your pottery.
00:06:04
Speaker
And how do you do that is simply by one, you gotta keep on making. You gotta keep on making, you gotta keep on putting those reps, putting that repetition over and over and over and over again, because that's how you build your skills and that's how you find your voice the easy way. That's the easiest way.
00:06:22
Speaker
And the second thing that you can do is lean more into your interest. A lot of the times I bet you right now that you are making pottery to try to sell your pottery, or you're making it for somebody else. You're making it so that somebody else can enjoy it, which is fine, but you need to be making for yourself first. So you have to lean more into your interest.
00:06:45
Speaker
Whether your interest is just specifically pottery, so then you have to find things in party that you truly love to make and that you think looks good and try putting your own spin on it, or you're adding interest outside of pottery. Like, for example, I'm a huge nerd. I love playing dungeon dragons. I love watching anime. I also love to learn and I love to just experiment.
00:07:07
Speaker
I try to add those elements into my pottery. And when you start adding those elements into your pottery, then that's where you're going to start finding that missing piece. And finally, the last thing that you can do is just stop fighting against yourself. I bet you have some ideas right now in your head.
00:07:23
Speaker
where you feel like, oh, if I did this thing, then that could be my thing. And I feel like if I get good at that thing, then it's gonna happen. You gotta get out of your head, right? You gotta stop fighting against yourself and go do those ideas that you have in your head. Because if you start doing those ideas you have in your head, that's where you're gonna find your missing piece. And that's where you're gonna truly feel like your pod reads your own. Go out, go find your missing piece. Because once you find that missing piece,
00:07:52
Speaker
then that's where you truly find your own unique voice.
Conclusion & Reminder
00:07:55
Speaker
Thanks for listening to this episode of Shaping Your Pottery. If you are struggling with finding your own theme for your pottery so that, you know, you are known for something, I put together 53 themes that you can use and you can take. All you have to do is go to shapingyourpottery.com or slash 53 themes. That's five, three themes to get these 53 themes.
00:08:22
Speaker
It's really important for you to find a theme for your pottery so that you're not going to get burnt out. You can have multiple styles with your pottery and you can be known for something. So again, go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash 53 themes. That's five three themes to get these 53 themes. Thanks guys. I'll see you guys next time.