Transcript
Speaker: What is up everybody? In this episode, I'm going to be talking about keeping your pottery simple and how that is a really good way to help you develop your style. A while back, I was watching a movie, I don't remember what it's called, but the start of the movie starts out with a girl not really
Speaker: falling in love with being in love with her boyfriend. So she gets on a plane for a business trip, I believe. And on that plane, there is some really bad turbulence. So she starts freaking out. And she's sitting next to a guy. She starts spilling everything out because she thinks she's going to die. And she starts spilling everything out. And she said, I'm not in love with my boyfriend. And yada, yada, yada. And she just keeps on talking to this guy while she's freaking out because the plane has such bad turbulence.
Speaker: Once the plane gets off, they part ways, and the next day, she goes to her new job that she's just recently started, and she finds out that at her new job, the person sitting next to her is actually her boss. And so they end up going on meetings for that business,
Speaker: and everybody is just trying to come up with ideas for products and they're like all saying really complicated things and they're all just spouting out just pretty much whatever is coming to their mind because that's what they think is kind of going to be useful for the product and finally the owner he goes maybe we should just kiss and everybody stops and stares and they're like what and he says maybe we should just kiss keep it simple stupid
Speaker: And when he said that, I literally paused the movie, and I wrote it down. I ran downstairs, and I grabbed a piece of paper. I wrote it down. I wrote the acronym KISS, keep it simple, stupid, and I posted it on my wall, and it's still there right now. And that really helped a lot, because in pottery, we tend to make things that are really, really complicated, which we make it more complicated than it really has to be.
Speaker: And sometimes we're adding a lot of different stuff, but we never think to take away things. Simplicity is about taking away things to make it easier for yourself so that it is more effective and more efficient for you. And that's where a lot of us kind of get it wrong a little bit with our pottery. We start adding too much stuff. And when that happens, we over -complicate things. And our pottery is very complicated.
Speaker: a lot longer to make and it's a lot harder to make as well because we're adding too many things at once. But sometimes the best solution to developing your voice and uncovering it is keeping it simple. Keep it, remember Akron, keep it simple, stupid. And the more we can keep it simple, the more we're gonna have a lot more freedom. Your pottery doesn't have to be super, super intricate. There are plenty of potters
Speaker: that make really, really good pottery that is simple, and they are very successful, like Florian Gadsby, Sofia McEvoy, I don't know if I said that right, and then Fiona Valenti, I don't know if I said that one right either, but those are just three off the top of my head. You can search them up on Instagram, and you can really see their pottery. It's very, very simple, but it works for them. And because it works for them, they keep on rolling with it, and it's very simple.
Speaker: and they're able to produce more and more pottery because it's simple. So that's why you should be keeping your pottery simple. Anyway, at the end of that movie, you know, it's a rom -com, so the boss and that girl end up getting together. But in that movie, the best thing he said was, keep it simple, stupid.
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.
