IAMT #6: Pottery Recap for 2024

brb

I had my last pottery class of the year earlier this week, which feels like a strange thing to say given it’s been one of my recent obsessions and, well, it’s September. I made the executive decision to take a brief pause for the remainder of the year for a few different reasons.

Pottery is time-consuming. There’s a built-in waiting game to it, as pieces need time to slowly change. Completing a piece end-to-end would take on average three weeks for me, since I’d throw the piece the first week, let it dry, trim it the second week, bisque fire it, glaze it the third week, and I’d get back a completed pot on the fourth week. If the firing schedule for the kilns was off, it’d take even longer. On top of this, my studio only has a few slots of additional studio time, which really limits the time I can work.

Earlier this year, I would excitedly watch a few hours of pottery videos before each class but lately have been phoning it in most lessons; it’s on the back burner right now because I have another long-term project in the works as well as some travel plans coming up to round out the year.

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The video editing project I’ve been working on is coming together nicely, and I have a soft deadline for myself to be the end of the year. I’ve been preparing it for years now, and although it has a lot of PII, I hope I can share a part of it when it’s done. Week to week, though, there’s not much to share. I originally created this substack to maintain a log for my hobbies, but with the hope it would reduce overhead in sharing my ideas with my friends. Sometimes, writing here is the overhead.

There’s a niche part of YouTube history I think about sometimes, related to the YouTuber Devon Crawford. He mainly does tech related projects and vlogs but has been on a hiatus for a while, working on a longer term project. During this gap, he sent a message to his community that stuck with me when thinking about my own hobby projects.

“When building a real product there is practically an unlimited number of problems to solve. It makes more sense to keep working at full speed rather than explain every setback or solution in the moment…

… Only after the project is done or launched will I then edit everything together and explain the process in hindsight. This is technically the same strategy with my previous YouTube videos, the only difference is that now my project is taking years rather than weeks to finish… I still consider myself a YouTuber/developer, I just have a longer-term plan. Hope that makes sense.

- Devon”

Dropping pottery for the few months while I commit myself to other projects seems like a fitting and necessary sacrifice. All this to say, I do hope to return to pottery in time.

Below are some of the final pieces I created.

Throwing smaller and thinner. A small glass and vase with a different glaze

Likely my favorite bowl I’ve made so far. It’s currently in the kiln, so I’ll post an update photo when I get it back.

set of small white plates

This one feels a little half-baked but getting it out felt important to staying consistent.

More about the trip soon.

- chib