Transcript
Speaker: You know, if you're a beginner, I bet you pottery is pretty frickin' hard for you. What if pottery didn't have to be so hard? What if it could be easy for yourself and what if it could be more fun and exciting because it's easy and you're able to make things? In this episode, I'm gonna be explaining how you can make pottery easy for yourself so that you can start making the things that you wanna make.
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. It is I, Nick Torres, and welcome to Shaping Your Pottery. Have you ever felt like pottery can be incredibly difficult, especially if you are a beginner?
Speaker: Pottery is one of those things that can be very humbling and it can be, it's very, very hard to really grasp if you are, especially a beginner, even if you are more experienced. It's just one of those things that is just super hard to do. When I was in my second year of pottery, I bought my wheel that I still use today.
Speaker: I was struggling so much and I just really didn't know why. I remember I was probably on a slump for two weeks, three weeks maybe. It was a really long slump and I just couldn't make anything. Everything I was making was literally flopping and I just didn't know why. And I remember I was making my pottery. I was trying to, I had a goal. I had a goal to make.
Speaker: six inch pot in about three pools or so and I wanted to get that goal so bad and I never could get it I would always fail it always flop and I could never make things come out how I wanted it was just so hard I didn't understand why and I remember one of the last times before I got my six inches I flopped
Speaker: I remember getting so angry. I got so angry. I Punched the clay. I punched my wheel. I took the clay off I ripped it off the wheel and I threw it against the wall and it was everywhere Clay was everywhere. It was all over like it was all my face. It was on my clothes It was everywhere and I just didn't understand that
Speaker: why it was so hard and it frustrated me so much because of how long I was in a slump for and it just didn't make sense at all but that's when I discovered why I was really kind of failing a lot and because I sat there and I pondered I was like why why can't I get this and I finally said
Speaker: You know what? Fuck it. I'm not going to focus on those six inches in three pools. I'm just going to make, and I'm going to take my time. I'm just going to make what I want to make. I'm going to make something beautiful. And when I slowed down, everything kind of came together. I was actually able to get my six inches and everything came together and it just kind of started flowing a lot better. And that's when I started thinking, how can I make this easier for myself? And how can I make this easier for others?
Speaker: because there are certain things that we can do in order to make pottery easier for us because it can be very difficult. I know I've been there. So if you are struggling right now, some things that you could do in order to really make pottery easier for yourself is the first thing that you could do is change your throwing style up, change something up. If you're a hand builder, change how you make your
Speaker: maybe your squares or your coil, change something up. The easiest way to make pottery easier is to change something up. It doesn't have to be something big, but when I, one of the reasons I couldn't really throw or I couldn't, I was failing a lot was one because I was going too fast, but two was because I didn't have a throwing style that fit me, that worked for me.
Speaker: because we're all different and we need to be able to find something that works for ourselves. And when you find that something that works for yourself, it's going to be a lot easier for yourself. Because I was using the technique that I learned from high school, from when I was a junior, from my teacher. And while I had a little success, I didn't have the success I wanted. So I literally changed my style almost completely. And when I changed that style, I started
Speaker: seeing more and more success because I was able to control the clay better for myself, but it didn't work for my friend. So you have to change something up in order to really find what makes it easier for yourself. Another thing that is going to help you with making pottery easy for yourself is if you think in terms of
Speaker: Literally, how can I make this easier? How can I make this easier? What is a step that I can take out? What is a step I could put in in order to make this easier for myself? Maybe if you are throwing on the wheel, you usually are pretty close and you are pretty centered with the wheel.
Speaker: Maybe if you turn sideways a little bit, like you angle yourself just a little bit, maybe that will help you. You have to think in those terms. It's these little things that are gonna help you really make pottery easier for yourself. And do a lot of research as well. If you're doing more research, you're gonna find different things that you can test and try. So right now,
Speaker: What I want you to do in order to start trying to make pottery easier is I want you to change one thing up that you have been doing. Maybe it's how you throw or maybe it's how you shape or maybe it's adding in something that is going to help you change things up because when you change things up you're going to be able to see things in a different way.
Speaker: The next thing I want you to do is I want you to do research, do more research. The more research you do, the more you're gonna be able to implement new things.
Speaker: So do research on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are trying to make a mug, what is an easier way to make a handle? That was one thing that I struggled with as well. So I had to find out an easier way for myself to make handles. So do research and these two things will help you significantly because we have to find our own style of making pottery. It's not just about the design, it's about how we make the pottery as well.
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.
