Jack-Pot Pottery

2017-2018 Newsletter

Experiment

Round round I spin around,

Get around round, round I spin around!

Get around round, round I spin around

From pot to pot

I Get around round, round I spin around

I'm a real cool head

Get around round, round I spin around

I'm making real good pots

And really horrible lyrics....

I apologies to those of you who know the Beach Boys and know I just probably butchered the heck out of that, but it sounds good in the moment. If it even made a couple of you giggle or even face palm, I feel like I’ve done my duty for this year.

The concept of trying something new and seeing what sticks kind of the same philosophy I have with doing pottery. You never know what you’re going to get. You may think something looks stupid, ugly, or just plain God awful but someone else might think differently.

Everyone’s heard of Michelangelo. His constant experimentation and perfectionism both killed and propelled his work at the same time. He never considered himself much of a painter. Which I’m sure the rest of the world would argue with.

Even still, his sculptures were what he thought he was good at and he still nearly destroyed the Florentine Pieta (also known as The Deposition) which he was making as a grave marker and became a piece he was known for.

My experience with this love-hate relationship, for example, is my reflections on my “angry” series. Frankly, most of those pieces that are scratched, remolded, and beat on, are because the pieces themselves pissed me the heck off! Everyone sees a work of art but as the creator I see what I intended flopping into a giant ball of fail that somehow I still managed to sell. (Wahoo, go lunch money!)

Anyways, we all see our own flaws. We all see what we think is horrid. Like Monet who was half blind and depressed while painting his water landscapes, we often don’t see the beauty in our own work and thus destroy it. However for him it was more physically blind then metaphorical.

This is my challenge to everyone this year. I give you permission to hate your work. If you didn’t hate your work at some point, you’re an art God and I’d be scared to know you.

But I challenge you to ask someone else what they see in your work. You don’t have to except what their answer is, but give it some honest thought. Break out, and experiment with the world and your work. I think we’ll all be surprised by what a new vision that can bring.

With that, I sincerely thank you for another year. I thank you for giving me the chance to be in your lives and helping you create. There are moments where I feel like I fumble as a teacher and a human being but what matters is that we try again and we see the world instead of as a failure but as a piece of art.

Until 2018, stay muddy my friends.