Getting in the "Habit"

Alright! If this blogging thing is going to work, I am really going to have to be intentional about consistently posting to it each week. I doubt that daily is realistic, but my hope is that by posting a couple of times a week, I will also be more intentional about a regular schedule of throwing and finishing pottery. Having to juggle time for pottery around my "real" job of teaching sometimes causes it to take a back seat in priorities. What I need to do is to get myself in a rut - create a schedule that I can follow that will allow me to do everything I need to do in addition to everything I want to do. Sounds easy enough, doesn't it???

Today, my first order of business is to clean up the corner of the utility/furnace room that I call my studio. It really is a corner that I share with the washer and dryer, furnace, some shelves and a cupboard. Not a lot of room, but enough for my wheel and a portable workbench that I can use to prepare clay for throwing. The countertop of the cupboard becomes the drying rack. There is very little room, but the dogs, Josie and Bear, do manage sometimes to come lie at my feet while I work, and Voltron, the nappy yellow cat, likes to use the wheel from time to time.

Once I get things straight in the "studio" and can set aside a good couple of hours to devote to throwing, I need to get to work on a few projects that need to be finished in the near future. I really have been pleased that I was able to sell most of what I made in my first year of pottery, but really need to work on not openly looking terrified when someone says, "This is so beautiful and so nice and heavy!" So, my goal this year is to really work on making more with less - cutting down on the weight and thickness of the pieces - and to make more pieces of larger size. Hopefully, I will have something to show for my efforts in my next posting.

cmj