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#374 Charting Your Path with a Journal
54 Plays2 years ago
Nic Torres discusses the impact of keeping a journal or sketchbook for pottery, detailing his personal experience with journaling and how it has facilitated his creative process. Initially resistant due to the time commitment, Nic found that replacing idle time with journaling helped him organize his tasks, set monthly goals, and brainstorm ideas to improve his pottery. He shares a specific breakthrough in his mug designs achieved through journaling, which led to the development of a more efficient method for creating mugs with sculptural elements. Torres concludes that while journaling may not be for everyone, it has significantly benefited his pottery practice and creativity. Additionally, he offers listeners access to 53 pottery themes to help find their unique voice in pottery.
Get your 53 themes by clicking this link shapingyourpottery.com/53themes
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Transcript
Does journaling aid in pottery?
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Will a journal help you with your own pottery? Let's find out.
Nick's mission to help potters
00:00:05
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What is up, shaping nation? This is Nick Torres here, and for those that don't know, I'm into my mission to help potters like yourself to discover your own unique voice with your pottery. And in this episode, I'm going to be talking about whether or not you should be keeping a journal for your pottery, or maybe even a sketchbook for your pottery.
Methods for idea generation
00:00:20
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You see, I've interviewed a lot of different potters.
00:00:23
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And they all have different ways in life to kind of keep ideas or to make ideas come to life. Some use sketchbooks, some just go with the flow, some use journals, some do everything in between. But I'm going to talk about whether or not you need a journal or will a journal help you with your own pottery?
Nick's journaling journey begins
00:00:45
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And the answer can be yes, but it can also be no. So let me go a little bit deeper.
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So very recently I started doing a little bit of journal work. I tend to not like doing journal work because you have to make time for it and you just don't want to do it.
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But I find that when I go outside, so I have a little dog and I have to go outside with him to for him to go to the bathroom. And so when I'm normally when I go outside and I'm waiting for him to go take from to pick a poo, go pee, do all that stuff, I'm normally kind of scrolling through Instagram because I'm bored.
Benefits of journaling in pottery
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But what I've started doing lately is instead of using Instagram, I've I've instead replaced that with a journal. And what I'll do is I'll just kind of write my thought. I'll write my my tax that I want to achieve. I write my thoughts and I write ideas that I think will help improve my pottery.
00:01:49
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And sometimes I don't always journal as well. Sometimes I would just kind of sit there and just kind of enjoy the outside scenery a little bit. But here's what I have noticed since I have started doing that. Number one, my tasks are getting a little bit more completed because I'm doing like a month out. I got my my goal for the month or whatever.
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And then I will write down the goal and then I'll write down the steps I have to take. And then I come up with ideas I have to get me closer to that goal. And that's been a big help with it by simply doing that outside. I find doing it outside really helps me get the ideas flowing rather than inside, maybe in the normal environment.
00:02:33
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But number two, also, like if I have an idea, I could write that down into my journal.
Journaling's role in pottery innovation
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But is a journal right for you? A journal is only right for you if you actually kind of apply the journal. We're not all going to want to journal. We're not all going to want to keep a sketchbook. And that is completely fine. If you're more of the go with the flow type of person,
00:02:58
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Great, you don't have to keep a journal. Just be on your merry way. I'm just saying this is what kind of helped me a little bit and it's helping me come up with new ideas for my pottery. Because for for a while now, I make these these mugs where they have a sculpture below them and I combine two cups together. So while that's very cool and it looks cool to do,
00:03:25
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It could take a while to do, so I was trying to come up with new ways to to do something with that. So the idea I came up with when I was journaling was to make the cup that I normally make the top cup. And instead of making another cup with it, just add a coil or a slab built to the bottom of it instead of having to wait and trim two things more just so I can have to put that sculpture below. And that's the idea I came up with.
00:03:54
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And then that idea led to me coming up with another idea, because the original idea I had for my cups were to be a double walled cup and have the sculpture below it or even in it in the double walled stuff. But that's very hard to do. And with double walled cups, you don't you don't tend to have a lot of room at the bottom. So that wasn't feasible. But now I came up with a new idea from that previous idea that I had.
00:04:25
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And that is to simply make the cup and then coil build around the rest of the cup. So that I get that double walled effect. I haven't tested it out yet, but I think it could definitely work.
Future of journaling and concluding thoughts
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And that all came because I started journaling and I started coming up with these ideas and any idea that came to mind, I would write it down. So those are just some of the benefits I saw.
00:04:48
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since I started doing this and I'm still probably going to continue doing it. I find that going outside and doing it has helped me a lot to be able to come up with ideas. Hope you guys enjoy this episode and I'll see you guys in the next one. 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
00:05:19
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All you have to do is go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash 53 themes. That's five, three themes to get these 53 themes. 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.
00:05:47
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Thanks guys, I'll see you guys next time.