Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Breaking Free From Artistic Stagnation
181 Plays4 months ago
In this episode of Shaping Your Pottery, host Nic Torres discusses how to overcome artistic stagnation by experimenting with new techniques and ideas. He shares his personal journey of evolving his pottery from traditional wheel techniques to incorporating sculptures. Nic emphasizes the importance of making art that brings joy to oneself first and offers practical advice on integrating new methods and inspirations from other art forms to keep creativity alive. He encourages artists to balance personal satisfaction with maintaining recognizable elements in their work, ultimately to stay motivated and innovate continuously.
Take this Free Quiz to see how close you are to finding your pottery voice click here to take the quiz shapingyourpottery.com/quiz
Recommended
Transcript
Discovering Your Unique Voice in Pottery
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, real quick before we get started and get into the episode, if you want to figure out how close you are to discovering your own unique voice, I put together a free little quiz for you to see how close you are to finding your own unique voice. If you would like to take this quiz, go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash quiz, or you could just go to shapingyourpottery.com and it'll be right there. I'll see you guys in there.
Evolution of Pottery Style: From Wheel to Sculpture
00:00:24
Speaker
How do you break free from the art that people know you for? What is up, shape nation? This is Nick Torres here and in this episode I'm going to be talking about getting unstuck when you are getting a little bored with your pottery or you are you want to start doing other things with your art or your pottery. And how exactly do you do that?
00:00:44
Speaker
So you see, my pottery has evolved a lot, and it has evolved, and I mean a lot. So when I originally started pottery, I was really focusing on the wheel, and then as I went on, I went on to learning sculpture, and then I combined the two, and then I started making sculptures where I had the sculpture below a mug, and now I'm putting the sculptures on the side of the mug.
Challenges with Sculptural Integration
00:01:06
Speaker
But for a while, I was stuck thinking that I had to keep doing the sculptures below the mug because I thought my thought process was I didn't want the sculpture on the side of the mug because I didn't want it to be super bulky. I didn't want the the mug to be any disruption in it. right It's hard to hold it when there's a big i like a human sculpture on the side of it.
00:01:31
Speaker
And so that's why I was putting my sculptures at the bottom of it. But the only problem with that was, one, it was really hard to make. Two, it's hard. It was harder to see what wasn't below the mug, right? Because it's below the mug. It's not on the side of it. It's on yous saw on the surface of it. And so and plus I had to make the mugs really, really big and they were all very, very heavy. And so those were three very big problems, but I still wanted to add a sculpture to it. I still wanted to do that thing because I thought it was unique. I thought it looked unique, but just because it's unique doesn't mean it's going to work out, right? It doesn't mean it's going to actually be visible and people couldn't see the sculptures below. They couldn't tell what it was.
Overcoming Creative Blocks with New Techniques
00:02:16
Speaker
And so I started expanding a little bit and I started adding sculptures to the side of it. But I and I started practicing on making them flatter instead of so bulky and so out of outside of the like um like an actual sculpture, the actual 3D sculpture. And then I began practicing more. And so what I did to get unstuck was I simply just tried new things. I just tried new ideas that I had in my head. That's one of the very easiest things you can do to get unstuck if you feel like you want to expand your pottery or your art even further. Let's just try new things and not only just try new things but try new things in other techniques. Let's say if you are a painter or if you are
00:03:04
Speaker
Anything else, right? Try different techniques from other art forms, other ways of doing things. Maybe if you are a painter and you usually use a crook plan acrylic paint, try doing watercolor. Or maybe instead of painting, try drawing it out instead. But trying these different things allow you to get new ideas so that you can break free from that mold. Because we all get bored with what we're making, but people will we look at our art and they say, but I know you for that and I can't do anything else about it. Well, there is things that you could do about it.
Prioritizing Personal Enjoyment in Art Creation
00:03:41
Speaker
Right, so the first thing is to try new things, like I mentioned earlier. Try new things, try new different art forms, try different, bunch of different things. The second thing is just make what you enjoy first. Because if you can't make what you enjoy first and you're not really making art, you're making for somebody else. You're making, you're not doing the thing that you wanted to make. We all got to art, we all got to pottery because we enjoy it. So you gotta make what you wanna make first. But if you still want to be known for something, and people are still want to you still want people to know that you're known for something, write down what you're known for. Maybe you are known for smiley faces onto your your pots or to your art. Or maybe you're known for the way you make mountains.
00:04:24
Speaker
and You can still incorporate those things into your your new art by simply just doing that and then now adding on to what you've already been doing. Or you only do it every once in a while. You don't have to do it every single time. And especially if you're doing it every once in a while, more people are going to be like, oh, wow, this is more valuable now because
Technique Refinement and Successful Outcomes
00:04:45
Speaker
you're doing doing it. Every once in a while right so add on to what you're already doing so that you continue Getting unstuck like for me example when I said earlier that I was doing sculptures onto Mugs now I am actually starting to get into more detail of my sculpture very recently I made a wolverine mug from you know x-men comics and stuff I made wolverine cuz I loved the Deadpool and wolverine movie so I started making a wolverine mug and I
00:05:15
Speaker
I thought it just came out really good and it's not super bulky where I don't have to like worry about it being super fragile. I don't have to worry about it breaking and it's bringing me so much joy simply by doing that and I adjusted it just barely. It's it's it's looking a lot better compared to what it was. And because I simply just added on to what I was already doing, the skills I had from before allowed me to pursue this even further. And my pottery is looking much better in my opinion. And it's gonna continue growing simply by practicing, simply by adding, trying new things, simply by doing practicing again and just adding things that you excite you, doing things that excite you. I in love making
00:06:03
Speaker
Characters from things that I like, you know like animes for comics or like movies. I like doing that So I'm gonna continue doing that even if people don't like it. I'm gonna continue doing that So if you feel stuck right now that you feel like you get to continue making what you want to make you can continue making that Maybe make one or two things that just people will like over and over again, right? And then have the rest of time for yourself.
Passion-Driven Art to Prevent Burnout
00:06:29
Speaker
Remember, make sure to make for yourself first, because if you don't make for yourself first, then you're never going to get unstuck. You're never going to be able to break free from that mold. And you're going to lose that spark for pottery, for art, because
00:06:45
Speaker
the most important thing is to make what you want to enjoy make what you want to make be happy what you want to make with it as well don't make for somebody else make for yourself that's how you get unstuck and try new things 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 want to discover how close you are to actually discovering your own unique voice with your pottery i put together a free four question quiz it's very short
00:07:15
Speaker
it take thirty seconds for you to take if you will want to know how close you are to finding your own unique voice go to shapingourpottery dot com forward slash quiz
00:07:26
Speaker
I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and I'll see you guys next time.