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What does it mean to be an artist? w/ Meaghan Gates
216 Plays2 months ago
In this episode of 'Shaping Your Pottery,' host Nic Torres interviews artist Meaghan Gates, who shares her journey of becoming an artist and her insights on what it means to embrace failure in the world of pottery. Meaghan discusses her widespread experiences from her early exposure to pottery as a child to her academic and professional growth. She highlights the significant influence of professors, the necessity of stepping out of comfort zones, and how her international travels have shaped her artistic voice. Throughout the conversation, they explore Meaghan's process of creating her unique sculptures, her approach to experimenting with glazes, and the importance of continual learning and adaptation. Meaghan emphasizes perseverance and staying open to constructive feedback as keys to developing one's unique style in pottery. You can learn more about Meaghan by checking out her instagram https://www.instagram.com/meaghanmgates/
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00:00 Introduction to Meghan Gates 00:35 Overcoming Failures in Pottery 02:09 Meaghan's Journey into Pottery 03:38 Creating Sculptural Pieces 04:48 The Role of Professors and Feedback 08:56 Pushing Artistic Boundaries 24:03 The Importance of Travel and Residencies 28:17 Finding Your Unique Voice 32:05 Final Thoughts and Advice
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Transcript
Introduction to Megan Gates and Artistic Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
What does it mean to be an artist? In this episode, I got to interview Megan Gates and she talks all about what it means to be an artist. She also talks about ways to grow your own sculptures and to grow your own pottery. And finally, she finishes off the episode by talking about the importance of travel and getting around other potters and other people. I hope you guys enjoy this episode and I'll see you guys in there.
00:00:24
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. Megan, welcome, shape your pottery and share with me what is a failure you have experienced in your pottery journey that you believe many are heading.
00:00:43
Speaker
Oh, failures. There's been definitely plenty of failures with glazing for sure. Maybe glazes that are a little too runny that ran a little too much than I would have liked, or maybe at some point my professors would have liked. I've had to learn from those mistakes. Definitely make sure to put diapers underneath things while I'm firing them.
00:01:02
Speaker
So those are, those are ones that really stand out otherwise. Yeah. Just pushing work, just trying to push work as far as I can and see if it can handle the, the physics of the shape that I'm creating. So I've definitely had situations where I've made batches of clay that I thought could withstand my building style. And next thing I know when I pop it in the kiln, it turns into a big cow patty, basically.
00:01:27
Speaker
which are definitely interesting learning experiences. I learned that those clays didn't work for what I was trying to do. and But at the same time, I could get some really interesting, I guess, what would you consider glaze flaws that I could maybe use in the future that's happened to you. So just learning from those mistakes has been been fun. It's painful at first, but if I just try to to look at the, I guess, the bright side of things, sometimes it and actually works out in the end to make cooler things. so Absolutely love that. Shaping nation, failures are going to happen. It's only natural in pottery, but you got to learn from those mistakes to maybe make your potter look even better or maybe even turn those flaws into something great as well. I absolutely love
Early Inspirations and Educational Influences
00:02:08
Speaker
that. So tell me the story how you got started making pottery.
00:02:12
Speaker
So I was exposed to clay when I was younger than 10, maybe about eight or nine. There was a ceramic studio in Berkeley, California called Kids and Clay. And my parents would drop me off at on the weekends on Saturdays to get a break from me. There I used the potter's wheel and I did some hand building, but I was always drawn to the potter's wheel. It was my favorite tool. So that's.
00:02:33
Speaker
That's where I spent most of my time on Saturdays, which is in front of a potter pottery wheel. Then after a while, they just couldn't keep driving me into Berkeley. We lived about 45 minutes away from there. So I didn't actually pick up clay again until I was in college. I was in community college at Diablo Valley Junior College, where I worked with Mark Messinger. And then Forest slash Middleton was there for a little while too. I worked with him there.
00:02:57
Speaker
again, just focus on the wheel. I was really really determined to stick to my tool of choice. It wasn't until I went off to California State University Chico and worked with Cameron Crawford and Sue Whitmore, and they challenged me in a good way to maybe think outside of just my functional form. So that's where I started making more sculptural pieces. So all of my work predominantly is made initially on the potter's wheel. And then I put it together, I assemble it into my weird sculptures. A little bit of coil building there too. And then on occasion glass glass elements, but I haven't done that in a little bit. I haven't done that in a little while, but I might come back in in the near future. What were you feeling when you started making your your first few sculptures?
00:03:43
Speaker
i I was kind of drawn to what I could create with the pottery wheel. like ah I don't mean to be redundant, but this like the organic undulating quality that I could achieve really easily with thrown elements, that were it wasn't quite as easy when you're just building and manipulating it by hand because it can crack and it doesn't necessarily give the same way as compressed clay from the wheel can. So I think my initial inspiration for my organic shapes was the piles of refuse on the side of my pottery wheel. So like anything I maybe would cut off my pots, extra extra long walls I didn't need. When I was set down on the side of the wheel, I thought that was really beautiful. And I could really liken that to shapes that I would see out in nature, like whether it be fungus or things you'd see in tide pools by the ocean. And so I decided to take this this kind of these word organic
00:04:37
Speaker
undulating shapes that I would see on the side of my potter's wheel and then turn them into sculptural forms initially. Absolutely love that and we'll talk more about your sculptures in just a little bit but for now you contribute growth as an artist to the conversations you had with your professors. Tell me more about this.
00:04:55
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think it also stems from being a child raised by teachers. I always have to say that everyone doesn't value their teachers, but people have different relationships with their teachers. I always wanted to actively get feedback from them. So anytime I'd have a question, i I'd go to them and ask them to see what they had to say. And let's see, like when I remember when I was deciding to make this my career,
00:05:24
Speaker
I went to my professor Mark messenger when I was in community college and I said hey I want to be, I want to be a ceramic teacher. And he said well first you need to be an artist. And at first it's like okay well sure I'll be an artist but I mean it what he was saying might have some people come off kind of snarky, it was so true. I needed to focus on my work and make myself ah good at this skill so that I could then teach it, right? So that was maybe my first most important feedback to direct me into where I am now. From there, my professors and at at Chico, I would ask them for feedback on my work. Also,
00:06:00
Speaker
anytime they would suggest like to apply to a scholarship or a fellowship or maybe check out this residency or that residency or that workshop, I was always jumping on it. I was just trying to check that out and see if it would be feasible for me to to to get or to go to and it made a huge difference in my life just listening to them and just even like genuinely considering what they had to say about things I should check out, things that would maybe fit what I was trying to do and actually It was back one summer in undergrad. I had the opportunity to go to a couple workshops. One was at Penland and then one was up at Pill Check for Glasswork too. And that work was that summer because I
00:06:44
Speaker
My professors told me to go and so I went for it. I had these really big aha moments with my work that I wouldn't have had otherwise. And it wasn't necessarily that I was seeing people make exactly what I wanted to make. And so I was getting inspired and try and replicate exactly what they were doing, but just the, the forms, the silhouettes and the ideas behind their work really influenced me to make more three-dimensional organic forms in the round that I hadn't quite made up to that point.
Transformative Experiences and Artistic Growth
00:07:12
Speaker
Tell me more about these aha moments from these residencies that you did. Yeah, yeah, so that summer in particular, I worked with, let's see, Jason Briggs in particular, always stood out for me because he was working with these like really odd, grotesque, really beautiful shapes with this covered in detail and his use of the potter's wheel a little bit at the time, as well as the details he incorporated it and and making elements that would imply interior shapes, kind of orifices basically.
00:07:44
Speaker
to to imply inner workings of his volumptuous shapes was really intriguing to me. There was also a glass artist, Talvadori. He was making these instrument shapes out of glass, and so it wasn't necessarily the instrument instrument itself.
00:08:02
Speaker
It was the this general shape of some of these instruments that he was making that stuck in my head. So when I came back to my studio, I started working with like some beautiful dark clay to make these shapes that really kind of stretched the physics of of what I had done before. Some really dramatic curves on my forms that I hadn't thought of, or I hadn't been comfortable enough. I think that's the bigger, the key, the key or beam. I had to push myself out of my comfort zone to make these shapes that kind of defied gravity a little bit more than I had in the past. And also make shapes too, again, that were in the round. So I was considering every side of the sculptural forms, as opposed to say wall pieces, which I was making for a while too, while I was an undergrad.
00:08:49
Speaker
So I want to go back to the conversation I had with one of your professors when he said, you have to be an artist first. What does it mean to you to be an artist? For me, it's always just seeking and being open to failure too. We already talked about failure, but just always trying to question what it is I want to do, who I am as an artist, what I want to share with the world.
00:09:15
Speaker
conceptually, but in terms of actually creating the work too, how how far can I go? how How much of an impact can I make with my pieces that will satisfy me and satisfy me with the interactions that they're receiving from the their viewers or from the audience that they're given? I just think it's always important to continue to to to learn, to search for for let's say greater greater potential in the work that you're creating.
00:09:45
Speaker
And so I don't think it's good to be sanitary in the work you make. I know it can be really nice and easy to get into like this comfort zone with your work and it's fine to stay there for a while, but eventually it's gonna get boring and monotonous. So you always have to kind of keep seeking, seeking new potential on what you can create. So I just think, I think artists are always trying to to seek, seek more and push more with their work and their and their concepts and their thoughts.
00:10:14
Speaker
how can somebody begin to get out of their own comfort zone with their own work?
Exploring Creativity and Personal Style
00:10:19
Speaker
What would you do to get out of your own comfort zone? Honestly, I make shapes that make me uncomfortable. Literally, maybe the gesture is leaning so much that I'll have nightmares about it falling over at night. And sometimes that happens, but when it can support itself, it's so satisfying. So that's where I really push my work is the gesture.
00:10:44
Speaker
But actually more and more I've been experimenting with even more glaze combinations that make me a little like nervous how they're going to come out in the kiln, some textural glazes or the combination of low fire glazes and high fire glazes and melting them together and seeing what neat layers and combinations I can achieve.
00:11:03
Speaker
That's always a a mixed bag of success and and not quite successful surfaces. So just not staying in the safe zone. And I know for my sculptural work, that's one thing. So I'm not necessarily eating off of those pieces, right? You want to make sure your stuff is still food safe when you're making functional wear. So if I am making functional pieces, of course, I'm going to keep that in mind. But I also want to make really interesting dynamic surfaces too that make you look twice as well. so Absolutely love that. Shaping Nation, it's so important to keep learning and embrace your failures, but it's also important to get out of your comfort zone so you can grow as an artist, to grow as a potter, and to push your potter even further. Absolutely love that. So let's talk about your sculptures. Can you tell me the story, how you started making the sculptures that you make today?
00:11:52
Speaker
So before I love the potter's wheel. I always started with the potter's wheel and that was my primary tool I wanted to work with. So I just tried to find ways that I can incorporate that into these organic shapes that I was becoming drawn to. So it started off with really simple shapes. Maybe I was making these undulating cur curvy elements that I could then attach to the base of say some bowls.
00:12:17
Speaker
And then it moved to wall pieces. So I started making weird undulating creature-like wall pieces that it's almost like a three-dimensional sketch for me. So my wall pieces often there are more of a three-dimensional sketch for me than anything else. Then I eventually moved into three-dimensional pieces in the round so you could see every side of the piece. And that really allowed me to to stretch and play with the gestures and play with interacting elements. Sometimes my pieces can look like it's it's one singular form trying to interact with its space. Sometimes it can look like multiple organisms in a weird play with one another, so it just kind of depends. But my work
00:13:00
Speaker
has stemmed between my my love of the potter's wheel and my interest in the natural world. So just as a, even as a kid, I always was out in nature and just observing things.
00:13:11
Speaker
quietly by myself, watching how insects or other plants plant life would interact with each other and anthropomorphizing it, i think I think I've done a lot of anthropomorphizing in my life. And so I drew ah drew that those elements that inspiration into my work. I've also thought about how humanity kind of interacts with nature as well to how we will manipulate an environment and nature has to find a way to thrive or it finds its demise within our interactions with nature. And so I think about that one when I'm creating these weird biomorphic forms that look familiar but not quite like anything in nature, I think about how
00:13:54
Speaker
Things can mutate and change and how things can can positively interact with each other or or negatively interact with each other. And I'm not necessarily saying there's a right or a wrong to anything. It's just more of an open-ended question with my work. Like what what's happening and where can it lead to? How does this impact the way you make your own sculptures?
00:14:16
Speaker
So yeah, how I can make my own sculptures. i I guess every part of the process, when I'm building like hundreds and hundreds of elements to a piece and I'm putting it together, I'm thinking about the way those pieces are going to evolve into something new. And then once I put those forms together and step back and look at the the surface of it, then I decide how much texture and other information I'm going to apply to it and how that's going to affect the the overall form and if infect the affect the interpretation of that form too. And then the next layer, when I started applying stains and underglazes and
00:14:58
Speaker
layers of glazes at different firing temperatures. Each step is just another way to mutate or change the surface and then change the way that that piece could read. So it's just ever evolving. And so I keep a pretty open mind. So I have maybe a sketch or an idea initially, but it always evolves and usually it does turn into something new. um I don't want to stick to something if I see the potential of something growing.
00:15:26
Speaker
been better than my initial idea.
Integration of Pottery into Identity and Life
00:15:29
Speaker
So you've been making pottery and sculptures for over 15 years. What keeps you motivated to keep continuing making? I think it's just become so much a part of who I am in such a big part of my life that it is literally just kind of a part of me now. The material, the clay is just kind of a part of ah the workings of me so I can't necessarily see. I could never see a moment at this point in my life where were clay and ceramics wasn't somehow a part of part of my daily life. It's just very much a part of my d identity and I think it's just because it's been such a big part of my life for so long. I think just because it is such a big part of my life now that
00:16:16
Speaker
s i if I were to take it out of my life, I feel like a part of me would be missing. So I think that's the motivator. ah just it's I don't want to be dramatic and say it's like breathing, but it's just, is it is like, yeah, it's like eating or it's like anything else that you have to do every day. I just feel like I have to do it every day. So if I, or have to, it has to be in my life on a regular basis. So if it wasn't, I just feel like something would be missing at this point in my life.
00:16:43
Speaker
Absolutely love that. I definitely agree as well. So can you walk me through the the steps you take when making one of your sculptures? Were you able to hear that? No, sorry. Say that again. Okay, so can you walk me through the steps you take when making one of your sculptures? Yeah, so I'll start with a sketch or I'll have an idea that I'll obsessively be thinking about for way too many days that I may sketch or I may just start at, then I'll get to my wheel and I'll just start making parts. And I'll think about the general shapes I wanna make, but I also wanna think about scale because a lot of my work incorporates these ideas, these notions of growth, things going from bigger to smaller in each piece. So just like ah somebody who's making functional pieces, I will i will make multiples of shapes.
00:17:38
Speaker
many, many shapes, maybe hundreds of shapes if I need them for a piece. From there, i as soon as they firm up enough, I will start assembling them, slipping and scoring, cor coiling things together to make these organic shapes that I'll then manipulate some more. Hopefully, as long as they're in a soft stage, I can really change the gesture of each individual piece.
00:18:01
Speaker
Once I put that all together, usually not always, but i I often incorporate coil bit elements into my forms too. That initially actually stemmed from not having access to glass anymore. When I was at Chico, I used to make these glass elements for my forms that I could, I like the the translucency of them, but once I lost access to that, I started doing coil forms when I had these opportunities for shapes that you could peer into.
00:18:28
Speaker
So, so now once I build these wheel thrown forms, I started, I will add a coil build elements that I can then manipulate around the shape to again, like ah accentuate the gesture of the overall form. And it gives me something more airy and something that I can peer into. I see it referencing like skeletal structures, but I also see it referencing fungus or viscera as well.
00:18:53
Speaker
I kind of like, I like the open-endedness so that you can interpret it how you personally want to interpret it. Also, all of my big elements, I often can detach from one another, which makes it a lot easier for me to glaze each separate element individually. So they're nice and clean and the glazes don't muddy between the the different elements. And then I put them back together, whether it be through using epoxy or literally glaze the elements together, which has been pretty successful up to this point.
00:19:23
Speaker
Where do you get these glaze blooming elements? where where Oh, the, I mean, it's literally the glaze, like we'll help fuse the forms together. So they walk into place and then and they stay permanently together. As opposed to if it made sense, sometimes I will intentionally keep them so that they can, they can detach.
00:19:42
Speaker
but whether it be for like shipping purposes or that'd be the predominant thing just for safety shipping purposes. If I could detach some things that sometimes it's better. But most of the time I do try to keep things fused and together so that nothing kind of falls off of the overall shape. So. Love that. That was a great explanation of that. So let's talk about discovering your voice. Can you tell me about the moment when you knew you were heading in the right direction with your sculptures?
00:20:10
Speaker
Yeah, so I kind of lucked out when I had that those initial aha moments in undergrad. they just These pieces started feeling really right and then it just kind of evolved from there. But there have been other moments throughout my making career where I've had these really enlightening aha moments again. Like say when I was in grad school,
00:20:30
Speaker
Like i when I started incorporating quail bit elements into into my shapes, it was this moment where I could incorporate something new that I felt like I kind of lost from my previous sculptures. When I was no longer in school and I had access to But Glaze Labs, again, I was able to really play with glaze and have fun with it. Sometimes you get so bogged down with trying to make things perfect with glazes or your surfaces that then you hold yourself back from um just playing, playing with even the glaze itself.
00:21:07
Speaker
so When I was out of school, I had these moments where I was able to to play with color and play with texture with the glazes and play with my firing ranges and my firing schedules to achieve some really exciting, just fun, happy surfaces that made me made me kind of re-excited my work again. Because there's always moments and you're in your creative process, too, where you do start getting maybe overwhelmed or bogged down by your content.
00:21:38
Speaker
And maybe you just kind of want to give it a break. And that's okay. Cause that happens to everybody. But then if you keep added eventually, you find, you find the new bits of excitement again that keep you going. So every so often that that'll happen. And I think a few years ago when I had these really fun, successful experiments with glazes that kind of took off kind of where I am right now with my surfaces. What were you feeling when this moment came to be?
00:22:06
Speaker
What, like the, my glaze, my glaze successes set. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, initially I just kind of felt like some of my work was becoming redundant. Some of the surface was becoming less exciting for me, but as soon as I had these, these chances to. To create these new, these new comic glaze combinations and have this chance to kind of experiment with a wider range of recipes. And I saw the results. I saw them come out of the kilns and they came out well.
00:22:36
Speaker
and they made me they seemed me excited again. It made me it made me reinvigorated my my my artistic path, I guess. Absolutely loved that. What would you say was your biggest obstacle when it came to finding your own voice?
Evolving Artistic Voice and Cultural Influences
00:22:50
Speaker
I think you get excited about other people's work or things you see out in the world. And it's not necessarily like you want to copy them, right? But you want to find your own voice within that style of work. There are definitely moments where, yeah, I just got you sometimes you get so excited by some something that you see you're like, how could I even compete with that?
00:23:11
Speaker
But again, it's just sticking to it. If you just kind of stick to your work and and experiment and see what you can create, you eventually you'll notice that you'll develop your own vocabulary of state, texture, and color that will be authentically yours.
00:23:30
Speaker
So while I'll consider myself someone who's under the umbrella of biomorphic abstract and sculptures, and there's many people that make work that is similar to my own, there's definitely a certain style to my work that I know at this point someone could come to my pieces and go, oh, that looks like a Megan Gates piece. And that just comes with time and practice.
00:23:51
Speaker
Definitely agree shape a nation people the more you make the more and the more we put out your work No more people are gonna start to recognize it but not gonna happen right away Just as long as you keep making absolutely love that So outside of conversations with your professors you also contribute growth as an artist to opportunities while traveling with your art Tell me more about this Yeah, so it was kind of a side quest that ended up being able to become a part of my my ceramic career. I always wanted to travel. I had the worst wonderlust. While I grew up in a perfectly great place, I just wanted to get out and see the world and experience cultures beyond my own. and
00:24:35
Speaker
to try the food of the cultures beyond my own and just a dan gain more perspective in my little my little bubble on the earth. So when I found out that I could combine that with my ceramics through residency workshops, things like that, I thought it it was perfect. I could do both things and satisfy my urge to create and my urge to see the world.
00:25:02
Speaker
So when I initially started doing these residencies, i I was able to not just kind of visit a culture or a place, but actually live in it and experience the culture and experience the people as well as meet other people from around the world who wanted to do the same thing that I was doing.
00:25:23
Speaker
I think I wish, I wish that people would be able to have those opportunities more regularly. I was fortunate enough that I was able to do all of my traveling or most of my traveling through scholarships, fellowship, through funding that I was able to apply for because I understand that, especially growing up in a family of teachers,
00:25:45
Speaker
Like it's hard to to to travel like that if you don't have like a bunch of money at your fingertips. So yeah, there was opportunities where I was able to apply to and I was able to get funding or I was able to be an assistant. Like when I was in Denmark, I was an assistant at the residency there, Guleagor. I probably don't pronounce it quite right, but that's a fantastic residency over in Denmark.
00:26:11
Speaker
But I think it affects my art because I get to see what's happening internationally. And I also get to experiment with materials internationally and firing styles internationally. But I also feel that it makes me a more empathetic, compassionate person, which I think ties back into my teaching too. Just seeing how everybody lives and seeing the similarities and how we live and think and seeing the differences and how we live and think.
00:26:36
Speaker
but still just getting along well enough that we can make side by side and and and share our work with one another. I think it's and think it's great. How did but traveling, especially to all these different residencies, how did this help you with developing your own voice?
00:26:52
Speaker
I think just being exposed, just being exposed to what other people were doing, being exposed again to different clay practices, whether it be firing, blazing, the different clay bodies I had access to. also Because my work is very much inspired by nature, my observations of the natural world, seeing how the environment's changed so greatly from from place to place. I've been exposed to really tropical climates. I currently live in a very dry arid climate. Just seeing the variations of the natural world between the places that I've hopped around really have influenced the way i I create my shapes, I texture them, I glaze them. Even the way I might
00:27:36
Speaker
embody my own anthropomorphized perspectives into my my work too. Yeah, having the opportunity to kind of get out of my my own little bubble and the sea see these other places and and see, yeah, just the wealth of visual information, whether it be cultural or or just the the environment itself has is very much influenced the way I create and the way my work looks.
00:28:04
Speaker
Absolutely love that. Shaping Nation, the more you get out, the more you get out and explore other cultures, the better your pottery can become because you're experiencing new things that can greatly inspire you. Absolutely love that. So now what advice would you give to someone looking to discover their own unique voice with their pottery?
Advice for Aspiring Artists
00:28:22
Speaker
I hate to be redundant, but practice. Just keep at it. Just keep at it. Keep your eyes open. Be open to feedback. There's something that I hadn't said before. there i had this really and ah To me now it's funny. I had this one professor in the past while I was in grad school give me this feedback that I wasn't ready for at the time.
00:28:46
Speaker
but it wasn't until a year or so later, all of a sudden that feedback came right into my work and I saw exactly what they were talking about, but it took me a couple years to to really take in that feedback and see what they saw. So sometimes when you are given feedback or you're seeking feedback, sometimes that feedback will not be what you expected or what you wanted or thought you wanted at that moment.
00:29:12
Speaker
But sometimes you'll realize even years later that that that person may have saw something in your work you just weren't ready to see yet. But you might be ready to see months or years down the line. And just to be open to it. You said to be open to everything. And don't don't tell yourself you can't do something. I know plenty of people um who just think, Oh, I can't like, for example, I can't possibly financially do this travel and do this workshop or travel and do this residency. Cause I, like I have bills to pay. I'm not saying that those challenges aren't there because they absolutely are. But sometimes if you just give yourself the chance to even do a little bit of research and see if there's maybe some funding out there you can apply to or.
00:30:03
Speaker
If there's a way you could work out, like in a work trade, there's sometimes there's possibilities there that you don't initially see. So you just have to, don't don't rule things out right away. Give yourself a chance to kind of look into stuff and see what avenues you could take to make something happen, even if you think it's so hard to do right now. Definitely agree. So I want to go back to the what the advice that your professor gave you. What was that advice he gave you that you weren't ready for at the time?
00:30:33
Speaker
So this was my professor Rebecca Hutchinson at UMass Dartmouth. yeah We were sitting in my studio one day and we were looking at my work and she started talking to me about making elements that detach. The whole conversation was about maybe detaching things. I think it was related to maybe glazing work or making more complex shapes that could then be maybe be easier to do them separate so they could be put together. I was not ready for that yet. I was i was overwhelmed with what I was trying to do at that moment, I was trying to create things that were completely contained and slipped and scored and permanently attached together, but I was having these issues with surface and I was unsatisfied by surfaces. And come, I think like a year or so later, that's when I realized, oh, if I just keep these shapes separate,
00:31:26
Speaker
and then glaze them separate, put them together, I can make these really clean transitions from one glaze to the next. I just wasn't ready for it at the time. But through my evolution of building my work, I i came to it, I came to it, but I'm sure her voice was in the back of my head somewhere, deep in there, giving me that suggestion. So you just never know.
00:31:50
Speaker
Go through your Shaping Nation. It's important to be open to feedback because that's how we grow and the more feedback you can actually consume, you're going to get better. any The feedback may not resonate right away and that's okay, but as long as you're still open to it, I absolutely love that. Megan, it's been great chat today and as we're coming to a close here, what is one thing you want to hammer home with my listeners today?
00:32:11
Speaker
Even if you get tired and discouraged of your work, just take a beat, take a breath and then stick to it. Cause it's all about practice. It's all about practice. And eventually you'll have those lights go off and you'll have those aha moments and you'll have the successes. So just stick to it. Agree. Megan, it was so great chat today. Where can my listeners go and learn more about you? So I'm on Instagram at Megan, M-E-A-G-H-A-N-M.
00:32:42
Speaker
Gates, G-A-T-E-S. I'm also, I have a website, MeganGates.com. I'm also an art access member as well, so my work's ah up on art access as well. That's a great database to look at other artists' work, so I recommend that too.
00:32:58
Speaker
Hey thanks for listening to this episode of Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres. If you enjoyed this episode and you would like to learn how to discover your own unique voice with your pottery, I put together a free quiz to help you guys discover your own unique voice.
00:33:15
Speaker
All you have to do to take this quiz, it's very short, it's 30 seconds long, four questions. All you have to do to take this quiz is go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash quiz to go start taking this quiz. Or you could just simply go to shapingyourpottery.com and be right there at the top. I'll see you guys next time.