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Sometimes, when I'am procrastinating too long, I think of converting my studio into something else...

 

Or when I see people strolling through my exhibitions, telling me how beautiful my pieces are and then leave, I think: "what am I doing here"?

 

Or when I work for 30 hours on a delicate, filigree porcelain tripod and then it warps in the kiln, I want to change profession...

 

Or !?!?

 

 What discourages YOU and how do you get over it?

 

Evelyne

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Great question, @Evelyne Schoenmann. Discouragement happens...particularly when you invest so much time into a piece and the results are not what you want..that can really hurt. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that many of us have been there.

 

Sooooo...

  • Cut yourself some slack. We just THINK we are in control of the clay :huh: .
  • Don't turn around and spend  the next 30 hours making the same thing...unless, of course, you learned an important lesson and just can't wait to try again.
  • Do something familiar that can re-build confidence or make you feel productive.  My familiar, comfort zone is soup bowls. Cranking out a dozen or so, knowing they'll probably end up in an Empty Bowl event gets me out of a funk quickly.
  • And to be more cliche': Ceramics is a more of a journey than a destination. Enjoy, REALLY enjoy those long hours of work and hang onto those memories.

-Paul

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Funny you should ask this. I had a disastrous Saturday trying to fire the rest of my raku pieces. In my large kiln I fired a slab that had been buried away in some shelves. I put it in with my large slabs all firing on edge. The older slab cracked knocking over all the pieces and pushing the pyrometer out of the kiln where it broke part of the sleeve. I didn't notice that. So I shut off the kiln and moved a burner to my other kiln and fired that up with smaller pieces. Approaching 1800 F the pyrometer stopped working. I shut that off. 

I have 7 underfired slabs now. And some warped. So it goes. I am firing up some freshly mixed glazes today. The kiln is already loaded.I threw out the ones not worth refiring.

At the Seattle NCECA Marge Levy presented a video to the whole audience "Keep on Keeping on" . If I can find it, I'll post it.

Marge is my friend from 60s in college. We're both still keepin' on. It is a funny but encouraging video.

Just remember you are not doing this for the people who walk away from your show. You are doing this for you...and as Paul says, enjoy the journey. 

Best to you.,

Marcia

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Just got some pieces back from a stoneware kiln firing yesterday. I glazed 10 mugs with a white glaze that I hadn't used in a while, but a glaze that I had used for years. All the mugs ran! Not my kiln, so this is embarrassing.

Got the big two day Mother's Day sale this weekend, so I needed the work.

I hate glazes running. Not going to quit though.

TJR.

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Number one discouraging factor for the guinea?

 

Pain.

 

Absolute 110% pain.

 

Though, moreso the limitations that the stupid pain imposes on me. I used to be able to crank out 30ish pieces in a single sitting, my friend, and walk away feeling tired, but very accomplished. When I tried throwing the other day, I was only able to get five medium bowls and a big mug off the wheel--and the mug lit a stick of dynamite off in my knuckles when I was pulling up its wall. I gasped, jerking my hand away, clutching it, sobbing. Yeah, it hurt like the devil, but the tears were more from anger, frustration, and yes, discouragement. I was able to finish the mug and make it into a pretty nice form, but it was like throwing with hands made from eggshells. The next day, my fingers wouldn't bend for two hours after I woke up.

 

Yeah, I was pee-o'd to the highest level. Those six pieces layed me flat in exhaustion and oh, I cried.

 

But! Hindsight is always 20/20, and I looked back on it with a different set of eyes last night. I honestly thought my throwing days were over...but, making six pieces means that, well, I made six pieces! Yeah, it's not 30+, but it's not zero, either. I also realized that centering and claw-pulling were the worst things for me--and I remembered how in college, the wheel I had spun faster than my tired old Little Baby, thereby making centering and such a lot easier on me.

 

I have said this many times, but if ceramics is one thing, it is a lesson in humility and a real trial by fire. It sure as heck ain't for the faint of heart. But, it's also given me drive to not let this joint-munching disease beat me. I'm gonna work on my Community Challenge piece today, in fact! ^_^

 

@Marcia: Omg. I read your post here and it literally hurt my insides--I am SO SORRY. Is your kiln okay? Do you have time to make more pieces before the show? Ugh, how rotten! :(

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I am not making pieces for a show, but thanks. I am just keeping on making them. My kiln is fine since I turned the kiln off before anything melted. I got some great new glaze colors out of my little kiln this morning. I will put a little more glaze on top of what is already there as it appears too thin. So I feel I made progress. 

Sorry about your pain. It sound so serious for someone of your age.

I had serious pain issues before I retired and it was the reason I retired when I did. My pain was interrupting my sleep 23 xs per minute according to a sleep analysis. Plus fibromyalsia.  When I retired, all the stress left and so did the fibromyalsia.

So I am much better. I hope you are able to find a remedy to help with your pain.

 

Marcia

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Oh geez! So glad your kiln is okay. I was picturing a pretty substantial catastrophe from the description there. Close call!

 

Yeah, doc was a dummy and thought I had RA, but turns out I have its ugly sister, psoriatic arthritis. Mom's got it, too, and it's so lame. PsA affects the ending joints of the fingers, and RA doesn't, so it's actually worse for someone who throws. Fortunately, I got on celebrex and it's reduced the pain to a tolerable level! I throw on sunny days--the sunshine feels gooooood on the hands. Throwing outside is so much more relaxing than in a studio, I've found, and our weather's been in the high 60s/low 70s and sunnnny. Yay! ^_^

 

I thought I'd show what I made. The misshapen bowls I call my "cat-ear" bowls and they're popular with knitters. :3 Gives them a place to rest their needles without them moving all over. I gotta trim these pieces in a bit; drying them slow. ♥

post-63665-0-88471800-1430848124_thumb.jpg

post-63665-0-88471800-1430848124_thumb.jpg

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Well mostly what discourages me is my pig sty studio that gets so full of junk i can't do anything.  I hate to clean so usually I just clean up enough to work.  Also, getting a piece out thats ho-hum mediocre is more discouraging than a flat out disaster. Guess we all expect the occasional disaster but hate the ho-hums. And its worse when we unload the big kiln and all this other cool stuff of others comes out and I get the ho-hum. but it does make me try harder.

 

Yikes Marcia, what a nightmare that firing must have been. I once had someone else's piece blow up in a raku and it caused a shelf to crack and collapse. I think that piece had not been bisqued!   I am sorry for your disaster but in some ways it encourages me to know that someone as experienced as you has an occasional boo boo. We indeed surrender to the fire and take our chances.

 

and Guinea, I feel your pain.  Glad you are getting a new wheel.   rakuku

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I come here and ask questions in regards to pottery. For all else I meditate, watch a movie with my beautiful sweet loving wife and pet my Bostons buddha belly. Basically, just put my problems away till the next day. But I know that I will get good help here when somethings not working. I can't say much about people not buying, but just handing out praise. I haven't ever done an exhibit, yet, but I might, someday. I just trying to learn. Hope you don't stop what you enjoy doing. Maybe just try another way of doing it. Just have fun. Good wishes to you.

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Evelyne

 

Computers!!!!!!!!

 

I finally found the command needed to attach a photo to a post on this forum. 

So below is the photo of the Tile Tree for Raku that I wanted to post in  the Making Your Own Tools discussion.

.post-67258-0-42273000-1430878783_thumb.jpg

 

Solution; Shut the computer off and play with some clay.

 

Karen

 

 

post-67258-0-42273000-1430878783_thumb.jpg

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Discouragement....

 

I get discouraged when I don't get enough sales in a week, when I don't make it into a show, when a new gallery contact doesn't call me back right away, when a wholesale order takes five months to close, when my husband is having a bad week and I feel helpless, when I can't work as long at the wheel as I want because of my back.

 

But then...

 

I create something amazing and think wow did I just do that?

 

The secret is to not give into the discouragement but to spit in its gnarly face and keep on creating any way.

 

T

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When I compare my work to the work of potters who have been working with clay for 30+ years, I feel like giving up because I will never make anything that beautiful. Then I go and hold something I've made, look at it ... as long as it makes me smile it doesn't matter whether it's the work of a master. I like it when other people enjoy my work but I'm really doing this for me.

 

I feel depressed and anxious when my studio is messy and hard to work in. So I set a timer for 30 minutes and just clean, then when it goes off I stand in the middle and look around, letting the peace and tidiness soak in. It's always surprising how much you can accomplish in just half an hour. If I tell myself I have to clean it ALL I don't even want to go in there, yet usually 30 minutes does clean it all ... ;) 

 

For everything else, usually just getting my hands on clay makes all the other worries and stresses melt away.

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I don't get discouraged by failures in my work since for me, it is often the fastest route to eventual success.

Equipment failures and bad days when everything goes wrong are more annoying than discouraging.

Pain , well that is a good reason to stop and rest a while.

 

I get discouraged most often by images in magazines or show announcements ... for two reasons.

One ... the work is so fabulous that I wonder if I will ever make anything that great.

Two ... the work is so lacking in craftsmanship, talent and design that I wonder why I bother if this is what people want.

 

Solution in both cases is to get back in the studio and make something.

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Hahaha!! If I stopped and rested every time I hurt, I'd never leave my bed. :D It's 24/7 and will never stop as long as I live, but it can grouse all it wants. I'm still makin' stuff. :) It just makes me upset that I can't make as much, because this is my sole source of income and being unable to produce at a decent volume is really stressful. I'm doin' all I can, and I guess that's all anyone can do. :3

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I get discouraged by bad glaze firings. I'm trying mixing my own and currently this is much less successful than using commercial glaze - and it's so frustrating as I don't understand the chemistry enough to know how to modify a recipe!

 

For example - love the colour, but it's too matte. Why is it matte? Which ingredients make it matte? How can I make it shinier - fire to higher temp / lower temp / faster / slower??? Add something? Remove something? Change something?

 

Glazing courses are almost impossible to find here and even then, unless they involve extensive study are pretty limited - it's such a big subject.

 

Sometimes it feels as if I'm going backwards rather than forwards on my ceramics journey.

Hey ho! Got a whole day free to have some success tomorrow!

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there are so many tried and true recipes that you should be able to find one or two that will work for you.  color is the simplest thing to change.  if someone uses a glaze you like on the same clay you use and at the same cone you fire to, it should come out ok for you.  if it is an ugly or even a mediocre color, try using just the base recipe.  try one or two other colors added to the base.  something might work wonderfully for you if you try this. i use a recipe that was given as "green".  it is also wonderfully flexible, the base is great as a white, yellow is very  nice, blue is good, even an orange with encapsulated stain is attractive.  several base glazes work that way.  there is no reason for despair, or even unhappiness. 

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Thanks Old Lady, that's encouraging. I'll take a look at the CAD Tried and True glazes download that I have on my iPad. I'd forgotten about it until I read the phrase in your post.

I have had success with colourants and oxides in commercial transparent glazes, it's getting to the next stage and starting from scratch where I'm having thee problems. I've got Greg Daly's and Linda Bloomfield's books as recommended on CAD, so am not really short of resource material. A sustained focus on glaze testing has to be the answer, I'm sure.

 

Celia (wide awake in the middle of the night - NOT as a result of fretting about glazes!)

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I get discouraged when I've work hard on a new item for my booth, tested, fired, tweaked the proportions developed the pattern or design to look just right. and finally put it out there for sale.Then someone from the same town comes through my booth, chats me up for a while, (Why, you don't bother to speak to me when we pass in the grocery)??  and then 3 weeks later I see the item, copied and priced at 1/2, in their booth in my home town at the next show. 

I don't know how to not feel discouraged about this.   If you're going to snitch someone else's ideas at least have the class to get a little farther away to do the selling.

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No Clay Lover, I don't have that one - I've only just moved from white earthenware to stoneware, so wouldn't previously have been looking at cone 6 glazes. If I find I get on with the stoneware, that might be a good investment. Thanks for the prompt - I've seen it recommended many times on the forum, so it's clearly a good one to have.

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celia, here is a cone 6 glaze named satin matt.  really complicated but i have faith in you

 

cornwall stone           60

dolomite                    20

edgar plastic kaolin   20

 

i realize you probably cannot get EPK but i bet one of the glaze gurus here knows the british equivalent.  

 

the only problem i know of with this beautiful glaze is that it turns green underglaze grey.  it is a smooth, satiny finish that feels lovely on an exterior.  i would not use it as an interior glaze because the sound of cutlery on its surface would be annoying.  it works beautifully on my white stoneware clay, it might do the same for you.

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