Transcript
Speaker: Here are the top three skills that I believe every potter should be trying to practice and master in order to start getting good at making pottery. 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.
Speaker: What is up? In this episode, I'm going to run through the top three skills that I believe every product should have in their repertoire so that they can start making the part that they truly want to be able to make. So that skill number one is patience. Patience is the biggest one that you could probably learn. Maybe besides for number three. Patience, patience, patience, patience, patience.
Speaker: Nothing great ever comes right away, right? Nothing great ever comes right away. You need to have the patience to start getting good at pottery. If you are just starting out with making pottery and you're not seeing the results that you want, you need to be patient with yourself. You need to be patient with yourself because
Speaker: It could take you a while to start getting good. It took me years to start mastering how to throw on the wheel. It took me like three, four years just to start mastering and start throwing larger pots. It took me that long. You need to be patient with yourself because if you can't be patient with yourself, then you're not going to be able to make the progress that you want because then you're going to end up quitting.
Speaker: you're gonna stop making pottery, you stop playing with the clay, and who knows, maybe in the future you'll get back into it, but you're gonna be that much further behind everybody else who started already at the same time as you were.
Speaker: but only because you quit because you weren't patient enough. You have to be patient. Patience is the name of this game. Because especially in the Kiln, right? We all have witnessed it where we have put something in a Kiln and we want to take it out so bad. Oh, I can't wait for this thing to come out.
Speaker: But we have to have that patience because we take it out too early, then it's going to break or it's not going to be fired all the way or the glaze isn't going to turn out how you want. And something wrong is going to completely go wrong because you weren't patient enough. You took it out of the kiln early. So you have to be patient. Have patience. So the second skill that you need to learn is you need to learn how to throw away your pottery.
Speaker: You're probably asking yourself, Nick, why should I be throwing away my pottery? I spent 30 days making this thing. Why should I throw it away? I'm not saying to throw away every single piece of pottery that you make. I'm saying throw away the pieces of pottery that don't resonate with you. They don't have your standard that you want to make for your pottery. If you don't like something that you made,
Speaker: You know, maybe something is off, like there's like a crack in it, or maybe there's something that's just wrong that just, you know, in your mind, you know that it doesn't really feel right. Throw those away. You don't have to keep every single pot. The more pots you throw away, the more you're going to learn.
Speaker: And the more you learn, the more your skills are going to grow and it's going to be a repeating cycle. And the more skills are going to learn, the more you're going to be able to make, the more you're going to be able to make, the more you can be able to sell your pottery as well. So you have to learn to throw away your pottery. This is a really big skill and beginners often get stuck in that phase where they want to keep everything. And trust me.
Speaker: I've been through that myself and so has every other potter I have known. They have all been through that phase where they want to keep everything and I know it's tempting to keep everything, but you have to learn to let go of the things that you don't like so you can make room to start growing and seeing future progress with your pottery and start making the potter that you know you're meant to be making.
Speaker: So learn how to throw away your pottery. That is a second skill. It's a very important skill. So here are the two skills so far. So number one is you have to have patience. Patience is the name of the game. If you can't have patience and you're never going to be able to see the results they want. Number two is you have to learn to throw away your pottery. Throw away the pots that you don't like. Throw away the pots that have flaws. Throw them away and start setting a standard for yourself so you can hit that pottery goal.
Speaker: Number three is you have to be consistent. Consistency is probably even more important than patience.
Speaker: If you can't be consistent, then you're not gonna be able to have the patience. If you can't be consistent, you're not gonna be able to throw away your pottery. If you can't be consistent, you're not gonna be able to make the pottery that you want. You have to be consistent. You have to make time to practice making pottery. Practice making your voice come to life. You have to be consistent. Consistency is the name this game, as well as patience. With consistency comes patience. You have to be consistent.
Speaker: It doesn't have to be you don't have to make this overly complicated. Right. So if you let's say you are someone that goes to a community studio to maybe throw on the wheel and that's how you are making your pottery. OK, great. Try this out. Buy a bag of clay. They probably sell it there at your community studio. Buy a bag of clay. Take it home with you.
Speaker: And just start making something, right? Make anything. You don't have to throw in the wheel to make your vision come to life. The point is just to be consistent and just to practice and practice and practice. You have to make time to practice. And that is a super simple thing that you can do in order to be consistent. Here's another thing that you can do to help you be consistent. So if you are able to have all your pottery stuff at your home, try just starting something.
Speaker: Start something. That's it. You don't have to finish it. Just start it. You know, it could literally just be as simple as centering a ball of clay on the wheel or even taking out a ball of clay. That's it. That's it. It's going to make you more inclined to start practicing and start going and start going. The hardest part about being consistent is the actual starting part.
Speaker: So we have to make it as easy as possible to be consistent with that. So maybe if your wheel is all the way in your garage and all the way across your house, try moving your wheel closer to you so that the threshold from entry is easier.
Speaker: You don't want it to be super far away where you're like, if you're in your room, you know, you're relaxing or your living room. You don't want it to be super far away where you have to get up and do all these different things just to go and start making pottery. Make the threshold easy. If you are making pottery and you finish making pottery, keep some water out or maybe wedge up some balls of clay so the next day you can just get started right away. Make it easy for yourself to be consistent.
Speaker: and you don't need to be practicing for five, 10 hours, no. 10 minutes is all you need. 10 minutes a day is all you need. And you're gonna start growing by leaps and bounds. I promise you that if you just make time to be consistent and practice, you are going to be that much better. So those are the three skills. Number one was being patient. Number two is you have to learn how to throw away your pottery. And number three, the most important one in my opinion, is that you have to be consistent.
Speaker: I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and I'll see you guys in the next one.
