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Qotw: Are You Living Your Dream, Or Dreaming Your Life?


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Boy, how time flies!

 

Want to help shape what the Potters Council is going to do? We are now accepting nominations for a chair-elect position, a full board member position, and a student potters council board member.

 

Did you already fill out the nomination form?

 

No, this isn't the QOTW, but it is important! Think about it!

 

 

QOTW is: are you doing what you want to do, or are you still trying to find out what your dream would be if....

 

Please interpret my topic question as widely as possible.

 

Evelyne

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I was living my dream. I worked my bum off and made beautiful things. I barely had money to scrape by, but I WAS getting by. I was happy. I wasn't in a cubicle, and I made all the rules. Success or failure all depended solely on MY actions, on my drive, and my work ethic.

 

However, that paragraph was written in the past tense. I don't have that anymore.

 

Here's hoping I finally get on a biologic and will be given my life again. :wub:

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I am quite ready to acknowledge what I dreamt, am doing that..when I consider life and its few years..i discovered better change  (back to my corporate world !!called its QUIT)now or never!!

 

If this were my last day,I ‘m almost sure I’ spend it working in my studio…..This creativity gave me direction and purpose…

 

Vinks!

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After teaching ceramics for 25 years...which was a great job until my body started giving out from all the physical demands. Tuition increases caused students to work more jobs to pay for it. Lost my helpers. Retired early at 50. Now I am enjoying my studio time and teaching workshops. My physical well-being has returned. I am very happy with my life. We do plan to move when my husband retires in 4.5 years. We have never adopted to the heat down here.

Looking forward to autumn colors , snow, and cool evenings. 

Marcia

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Like Marcia I retired at 50 the women in my family rarely live past 64, I just turned 63 and doing quite well with the new MS medicine.  We decided to build our dream workshops and house, found a lot with a view and wildlife.  I can go out to my workshop open the blinds and get a lot of sunshine and a occasional deer running by. Who could ask for more, living the dream.   Denice

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Are there others out there who like me, who have multiple dreams that pull me in a multitude of directions. Most are good. Some are better. But that elusive best is very hard to pin down.

 

Jed

 

The hardest for me is coming to terms with the fact that I won't be doing all of them in one lifetime.

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new dream is to find a lot and build a new house and studio.  one where my daughter can live as well with her vehicles in a heated garage and her apartment above.  she likes motorcycles and cars, has a truck she built herself, and many interests just as intense as my love of clay.  i want my own tiny house and a studio that will be built to my specs.  

 

like this one that i built in hamilton, va. in the late 90s.

post-2431-0-85979800-1446051925_thumb.jpg

post-2431-0-85979800-1446051925_thumb.jpg

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I think in a way I’m on the same page Jed is. I look at “living my dream†as a moving target.


 


I quit my other job about 6 years ago to work in clay full time. That was my dream then. Now we are thinking of moving into the countryside, current dream. Having 4 terrific daughters is a daily dream, (actualized). For the past few years having all my oncologist visits clean is my fingers crossed dream.


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I must admit that I am more "dreaming my life" rather than "living my dream", but --for me-- that is not a bad thing, it is just a work in progress. Building my home studio is a dream-coming-true.  I believe it is never too late, and this dream will give me-and others, I hope-pleasure in the years to come.   

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50 years ago my dream was to be an Industrial designer/automotive stylist. I love cars as sculpture. However, through a series of steps that were really in my lack of taking control to follow that dream, I drifted into teaching Art. Along the way I gained a wonderful woman for a wife, and soon had a family. The dream changed over the years as I learned and became exposed to more. I guess I am one of those leafs in the stream that just goes with the current, bobbing along until it gets caught up in some jetty. Do I regret any of it, not a bit. It has been a wonderful journey, not predetermined, constantly in flux. In the end I think that yes I have been living the dream, but my dream as with real ones is changed by outside influences like a dream is. A noise here, a bit of indigestion there, or a touch somewhere and the dream changes, mine is much the same.

 

 

 

best,

Pres

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Well I am for sure living my dream.  Retired from the corporate world at age 50, moved to northern California, found a great group pottery studio and spend most days there making whatever I want.  Found a couple of fun coop galleries and all kinds of artsy fun people.   The only thing I still need to do is get more serious about my art and push myself rather than fiddling with whatever amuses me at the moment.  Have some bigger more complex projects in mind but can't seem to get them started.  guess in that respect i am dreaming my life.     gonna keep dreaming.     rakuku

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I was living my dream. I worked my bum off and made beautiful things. I barely had money to scrape by, but I WAS getting by. I was happy. I wasn't in a cubicle, and I made all the rules. Success or failure all depended solely on MY actions, on my drive, and my work ethic.

 

However, that paragraph was written in the past tense. I don't have that anymore.

 

Here's hoping I finally get on a biologic and will be given my life again. :wub:

I'm so incredibly jealous of your first paragraph. That sounds so incredibly good as I sit in this cube totally uninspired.

Marc

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If this is a dream, I hope I never wake up.  Retired with an excellent pension at 62 and hope to have good used of my hands, and the rest of my body for a  few years yet.  My own in house studio for when I'm feeling antisocial.  Large urban studio where I continue to take classes and have the comrarderie of other potters.  Small rural studio and gallery where I teach beginners and sell some of my work.  The gallery doesn't care that my clay voice is cacophonous.  I make what I want and it sells well.

 

I'm NOT going to pinch myself.

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Good Sunday morning my forum friends and thank you all for participating. Living the dream is really the best we can ask for, but not everybody can say that they do live their dream. Most are on the way to live their dream, a few are still dreaming... To have a dream and a goal is something positive: we can walk on the street that's bringing us to our goal. Like oldlady, who has this wonderful "dream"-house to build.

 

I myself am living my dream, after a long time dreaming my live. I once thought being a piano teacher is all I want, and then my knee and hands got worse and I had to stop making music. I changed profession and that was absolutely the best I ever did, because only in being a ceramist now and working with clay is what I (consciously or subconsciously) dreamed of.

 

I am thankful for every day I can work in my little paradies!

 

Welcome back John!!

 

Evelyne

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Lately, life has been back to the cubicle (wonder if I can work that into a trilogy of movies?).  Glad I stocked up over the summer . . . I can make it through the holiday season ahead without much worry.  Can't complain too much, though; the project is definitely worth the time. 

 

Driving a DeLorean back to the cubicle? 

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Lately, life has been back to the cubicle (wonder if I can work that into a trilogy of movies?).  Glad I stocked up over the summer . . . I can make it through the holiday season ahead without much worry.  Can't complain too much, though; the project is definitely worth the time. 

 

Driving a DeLorean back to the cubicle? 

 

Next best thing to a DeLorean . . . commuting on subway cars that seem to have the original color schemes and interiors from the 1980's when they were bought.  Actually, a wood-firer's dream  . . .  lots of oranges and browns.  (Guess I won't see Chris C. on the ride.)

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Never worked in cubicle-I have to much stuff to fit into one.

as far as dreaming-I never had to dream about life-its all worked well and been something I would not change if I could (maybe a few less personal family losses) Life is short and I have had a full one-I could say that in my 20's 30's or 40's or 50's and now my 60's-I just hope the ride lasts a bit longer. The only thing I need is more time on the sea or under it.

Mark

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Hey, I guess you could say I am living my dream. I have been very lucky, I have also worked extremely hard for what I have. I have the purpose built studio with heat in the floor. I worked on the second floor of a drafty brick warehouse for 26 years. Hauled my clay up, hauled the pots down.

I apprenticed to the late Michael Cardew, and lived in his house and ate supper at his table. Learned to decorate and pull a handle from the man himself. Got an MFA from Alfred. Taught art for 30 years. Loved it all. Have no regrets. Taught in Australia for a year, traveled, made pots.

I have a beautiful family-two identical 16 year old twin boys and a daughter who just turned 18 on Oct. 28, 2015.

I can't say I have done every thing I wanted to do, but opportunities seemed to come my way when I was open to receive them.

TJR.

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Mark: so we all wish you more time to dive under water! :D

 

Tom: that is a beautiful tribute to your life. One can seldom find people who are so thankful for what they got. Thank you!

You are welcome. I was not sure how much personal info to reveal, but I cannot complain about how it is going so far.

More time to travel would be great.Big Hyronimous Bosche show in the Netherlands this year that I would like to see.

T

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