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#350 Pottery Process: Embracing Your Creative Calling
40 Plays2 years ago
In this episode of 'Shaping Your Pottery', host Nic Torres shares insights gleaned from his interview with prominent Potter, Casey Stelter. Casey enjoys slip casting because it allows her to focus more on the design and finishing aspects of pottery, which she finds most exciting. Using her experience, Nic suggests that in order to make pottery more enjoyable and find one's unique voice in it, enthusiasts should identify and commit to the processes they love the most, even if it means leaving out or simplifying other parts.
Ask Nic a question by sending a voicemail by clicking here https://www.speakpipe.com/ShapingYourPottery
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Transcript
Enhancing Creativity in Pottery
00:00:00
Speaker
finding that one part of the pottery process that you absolutely love. 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 something I learned from my recent interview that I did with Casey Stelter.
Insights from Casey Stelter
00:00:15
Speaker
So Casey makes some really incredible pottery, and she slip cast most of the pottery that she makes.
00:00:24
Speaker
And during our interview, she was telling me that the reason why she slip cast is simply because the part that she loves and enjoys the most is not the actual making part of the pottery. It's the designing part. It's the coloring.
00:00:41
Speaker
the adding the extra parts that make the finishing part of the pottery. And she says that she spends most of her time focusing on that because it's just more fun to her.
Discovering Your Unique Pottery Style
00:00:51
Speaker
It just makes the whole pottery process that much more fun because she was wheel throwing before and she was doing hand building and stuff. But she realized that she liked the designing part better than the actual making part.
00:01:05
Speaker
And I think this is such great advice for anyone that wants to try to find their own unique voice with their pottery, or make pottery just a little bit more enjoyable. I bet you right now that there are some things in pottery that you just don't want to do. Maybe it's like trimming, or maybe you don't even like the actual throwing part, or you don't like the actual making part as well. Maybe you don't like glazing, because a lot of people don't like glazing as well.
00:01:32
Speaker
But if you can find that one thing that you absolutely love, the thing that just excites you, every single time you go and do it, you just want to keep doing it and doing it. And you come up with new ideas. And if you can find that one thing, the whole pottery process becomes that much more enjoyable.
Trial and Error in Pottery Passion
00:01:51
Speaker
But how exactly do you find that one thing?
00:01:54
Speaker
Well, sometimes it's going to take a little bit of trial and error. You probably already noticed the things that you don't like really for your own pottery. Like, for example, in the past, I used to love wheel throwing. I used to love throwing on the wheel. I used to love doing all of that. And then I got into sculpture. And that's when I found that that was kind of my true passion was the sculpture. But I still like having functional pieces and adding sculptures to them.
00:02:23
Speaker
So what do I do? What did I do in that instance? So well, I mainly just started focusing more on the sculpture process. Like I still made the mugs, forms and stuff. But what I enjoy is the sculpture and seeing my ideas come to life through sculpture. And it can be the same thing for you, or maybe it could be a little bit different as well. Let's say you are someone that just really enjoys the throwing process or the making process.
00:02:53
Speaker
Focus most, like 80% of the time on the making and keep the rest of it either very simple or just eliminate it all completely. Like Casey for example, she didn't like throwing a wheel, she didn't like hand building, she liked the designing part. So she got rid of the throwing and the hand building and she replaced that with slip casting so she could focus more on the designing part.
Community Engagement and Listener Interaction
00:03:17
Speaker
And it's just so important to find that one thing that you like because it's just gonna make everything so much more enjoyable. I hope you guys enjoy this episode and I'll see you guys in the next one. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres. If you would like to send me your own voicemail and have questions about pottery or finding your voice, don't be afraid to send me that. You can go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash voicemail to send me your own voice message and I'll do my best to answer the question.
00:03:46
Speaker
You can also look in the show notes and it'll be there. I hope you guys enjoy this episode and I'll see you guys in the next one.