Callie Beller Diesel

Callie:
articulated with such clarity!! If I have a weakness, cleaning would be it. However, my creative solution includes pouring a 10 x 10 concrete pad on the side of my detached studio. I have already built a stand for my pugger on 600lb wheels for easy moving. Install an exterior plug, and the big dust bomb will be outside when I dry mix. Also plan on throwing out there when the weather is pleasant. I find the wooded view and the natural hymnals being sung rather inspiring. Now all I need is the time to actually work with clay: which has been in short supply since last October.

Yes.
Being disciplined doesn’t mean stifling creativity. If you simply wait around for some mysterious inspiriation fairy to hit you upside the head with a magic “I will now make awesome art” stick, you’re not going to make a lot of art. You must be disciplined to create reliably, but how you go about that discipline is important.
If you’re applying discipline to produce creativity, it means doing all that you can to create the headspace in which idea generation occurs, and doing those things diligently. It means protecting that space once you have it, too. Some of this discipline  is self care, and looks like messing around to the outside observer. It’s not. A burnt out mind can’t generate good ideas. 
Most of it is showing up and doing the mundane tasks, even if you don’t feel like it. Practicing skills is also critical. Musicians play scales, painters and drawers sketch and do colour studies, potters throw cylinders. Discipline in this instance  does not mean being harsh with yourself. It means showing up and being receptive. It helps to also be in motion, and not thinking too hard about it. Hence all the cleaning or pugging.

Yes.
Being disciplined doesn’t mean stifling creativity. If you simply wait around for some mysterious inspiriation fairy to hit you upside the head with a magic “I will now make awesome art” stick, you’re not going to make a lot of art. You must be disciplined to create reliably, but how you go about that discipline is important.
If you’re applying discipline to produce creativity, it means doing all that you can to create the headspace in which idea generation occurs, and doing those things diligently. It means protecting that space once you have it, too. Some of this discipline  is self care, and looks like messing around to the outside observer. It’s not. A burnt out mind can’t generate good ideas. 
Most of it is showing up and doing the mundane tasks, even if you don’t feel like it. Practicing skills is also critical. Musicians play scales, painters and drawers sketch and do colour studies, potters throw cylinders. Discipline in this instance  does not mean being harsh with yourself. It means showing up and being receptive. It helps to also be in motion, and not thinking too hard about it. Hence all the cleaning or pugging.

I found that energy begets energy occurs in the classroom also. The more energy I put into demonstrating, getting around to the kids, excitement on my part about projects was returned to me and bounced back and forth by the students. If I was in a slump for some reason, they were too. In the end I found that even if I had a fever, cold and chills that pushing that energy out there made my day. . . and theirs. Of course I slept well at night!

It is a priority for me to surround and indulge myself with items/activities that bring me pleasure (other than people)----be it fresh flowers, great music,  little collectables,  making great mushroom soup-whatever. Usually "working" in any capacity is quite satisfying, but sometimes I go inert and the "juices" seem to dry up. Metaphorically, that indicates a lack of hydration & a need to overcome the perverse, self-defeating struggle to resist the intake of sufficient water.  When it's hard to force it down, it's important to sip slowly until the self begins to reopen.  
 So, I have this posted on my studio wall, and I just do what it says. I then get some meditative breathing (energy work/heart breaths) going.  A few sessions of staring at the wall (over days, weeks, whatever it takes)  and eventually I'll get  twitchy/thirsty enough to start doing something-anything--in the studio, as other people have mentioned--ex. cleaning, organizing, reclaiming clay.  That will lead fairly quickly to picking up a hunk of clay and getting back in gear.
I guess that is a ritual. It clears my mind---calms the static--- and eventually gooses the neurotransmitters to squash the inertia and reboot the "get on with it" system. Who knows? Works for me, strange as it may seem.  I think it's in the vein of "energy breeds energy", as GEP/Mea sez, or "You can act your way into right thinking, but you can't think your way into right acting".  "Act as if." "Walk the talk." "Easy does it, but do it." , and so forth. 

When i was trying to make a living making pots, my studio time was so monopolized with getting ready for the next show, calculating how to push loads through to boxes with the functional items that sold (read a lot of mugs, bowls, cups spoon rest etc.) that pottery started feeling more routine. To counter this I was starting to try and make some time each day to work on a few art pieces. For me that was some vases and such but I had other more elaborate pieces in mind. True my vases didn't sell at the same rate as mugs but they were exciting to work on and they did round out my booth when I bought fresh flowers on the way to the show and they added something to my day.

I find if you're burnt out, a short break is necessary. For me, I have to take a day (not too much more or its agony going back) and do absolutely nothing that involves pottery. Get out of the house, go do some self care, whatever that means for you. Eat a good healthy meal that doesn't leave you too full and get some exercise. Have a bubble bath or get a pedi, or for the gents, treat yourself to a hot shave. Spoil yourself just a little.
Then when it's time to go back, pick something fun to do, even if it's kind of "off topic." It might develop into something important later, so it's not wasted time. Forgive yourself if the experiment doesn't work: added pressure doesn't help right now. Bribe yourself back into the studio however you need to with that project that you've been wanting to get to, or thing you wanted to play with, but haven't made time for yet. You have to find a way to play again.  Put some love songs or songs you love on the player. Creativity actually isn't a luxury for us, it's necessary. Delaying it too long makes us miserable. 
 
If you've left it too long and bribery isn't working, building momentum more slowly helps. I make up small tasks that have to happen in the studio, just to get me in there. The floor needs mopping, glaze waste needs dealt with, reclaim, I wanted to re-arrange a shelf, there's test tiles to reorganize and make notes on, etc etc.  While doing this mindless work, I find I pick up thought threads I'd dropped previously, and start noodling again. And if I didn't get anything made, well, I still got chores that needed to be done out of the way so I have the sense of accomplishment from that, and you try again tomorrow. 

On that same theme, work begets more work. 
There's a theme here of doing tedious, mindless chores, things that encourage your brain into a delta wave state. That's where the magic happens.  Keep your hands busy and let your mind wander. It allows you to rest while being restless. 

The phrase I learned in college is “energy breeds energy.” This is along the lines of what Magnolia and Callie are saying. Such a short phrase but it made a huge difference for me going forward out of college. I still say it to myself all the time. Creative work requires an immense amount of energy. So many acts of initiative. Many people underestimate that, thinking something so “fun” shouldn’t require effort. 
Putting energy into any task creates momentum that makes it easier to generate energy the next day.  Putting practice into skills makes those skills easier, which then require less energy, giving you free energy to spend on new initiatives. It multiplies over time. On the other hand, sitting around doing nothing leads to more sitting around doing nothing. This also multiplies over time.
I guess the important crux of “energy breeds energy” is that the fuel needs to come from yourself, and shows you how to generate fuel.

On that same theme, work begets more work. 
There's a theme here of doing tedious, mindless chores, things that encourage your brain into a delta wave state. That's where the magic happens.  Keep your hands busy and let your mind wander. It allows you to rest while being restless. 

On that same theme, work begets more work. 
There's a theme here of doing tedious, mindless chores, things that encourage your brain into a delta wave state. That's where the magic happens.  Keep your hands busy and let your mind wander. It allows you to rest while being restless. 

On that same theme, work begets more work. 
There's a theme here of doing tedious, mindless chores, things that encourage your brain into a delta wave state. That's where the magic happens.  Keep your hands busy and let your mind wander. It allows you to rest while being restless. 

I follow the concept in this quote from Chuck Close: 
“Amateurs look for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work.” 
Chuck Close 
( https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/166434.Chuck_Close ) 
 

I find if you're burnt out, a short break is necessary. For me, I have to take a day (not too much more or its agony going back) and do absolutely nothing that involves pottery. Get out of the house, go do some self care, whatever that means for you. Eat a good healthy meal that doesn't leave you too full and get some exercise. Have a bubble bath or get a pedi, or for the gents, treat yourself to a hot shave. Spoil yourself just a little.
Then when it's time to go back, pick something fun to do, even if it's kind of "off topic." It might develop into something important later, so it's not wasted time. Forgive yourself if the experiment doesn't work: added pressure doesn't help right now. Bribe yourself back into the studio however you need to with that project that you've been wanting to get to, or thing you wanted to play with, but haven't made time for yet. You have to find a way to play again.  Put some love songs or songs you love on the player. Creativity actually isn't a luxury for us, it's necessary. Delaying it too long makes us miserable. 
 
If you've left it too long and bribery isn't working, building momentum more slowly helps. I make up small tasks that have to happen in the studio, just to get me in there. The floor needs mopping, glaze waste needs dealt with, reclaim, I wanted to re-arrange a shelf, there's test tiles to reorganize and make notes on, etc etc.  While doing this mindless work, I find I pick up thought threads I'd dropped previously, and start noodling again. And if I didn't get anything made, well, I still got chores that needed to be done out of the way so I have the sense of accomplishment from that, and you try again tomorrow. 

I find if you're burnt out, a short break is necessary. For me, I have to take a day (not too much more or its agony going back) and do absolutely nothing that involves pottery. Get out of the house, go do some self care, whatever that means for you. Eat a good healthy meal that doesn't leave you too full and get some exercise. Have a bubble bath or get a pedi, or for the gents, treat yourself to a hot shave. Spoil yourself just a little.
Then when it's time to go back, pick something fun to do, even if it's kind of "off topic." It might develop into something important later, so it's not wasted time. Forgive yourself if the experiment doesn't work: added pressure doesn't help right now. Bribe yourself back into the studio however you need to with that project that you've been wanting to get to, or thing you wanted to play with, but haven't made time for yet. You have to find a way to play again.  Put some love songs or songs you love on the player. Creativity actually isn't a luxury for us, it's necessary. Delaying it too long makes us miserable. 
 
If you've left it too long and bribery isn't working, building momentum more slowly helps. I make up small tasks that have to happen in the studio, just to get me in there. The floor needs mopping, glaze waste needs dealt with, reclaim, I wanted to re-arrange a shelf, there's test tiles to reorganize and make notes on, etc etc.  While doing this mindless work, I find I pick up thought threads I'd dropped previously, and start noodling again. And if I didn't get anything made, well, I still got chores that needed to be done out of the way so I have the sense of accomplishment from that, and you try again tomorrow. 

I pug clay.  
There is no pressure.  Nothing that must be done.  No finish line.  No phones, no computers, no TV.   No control.  The pug mill tells me how fast to go,  gently ignoring any pleas to go faster...
Just lovely plastic handfuls of clay, Iike the first time you touched it.  In. Out. In. Out.  In. Out.  The mineral earth smell, cold and damp, squeezing through my fingers.  Slap into the hopper.  Down comes the plunger, extra force applied right to the bottom to leave no doubt about who is really in charge of everything in this little world.
Endless, rhythmic repetition (cut, smash, cut smash, cut smash), the low steady drone of the motor, the slow but inevitable extrusion of perfect worms, again, and again.
... hypnotic....like a wheel going round...and round....
...the mind wanders, ...  sequences of thoughts lead strangely down side paths.  Ideas occur, new but vaguely familiar, coming  from somewhere like things that happen in a dream.  Forms appear in your minds eye, once known, then forgotten and now rediscovered...  
have hours passed or only minutes?  No idea.  Cut slap smash.  It goes on.  You are far away now.
a distant call to dinner shakes you awake.. back to earth.  switch off the pugmill.  As the dream fades you quickly you scribble down a few thoughts, rough out a shape or two... 
tomorrow is another day.   As you drift off you know fresh pugs of clay wait silently in a neat stack, filled with possibility, daring you to try something new...
 
 

If you're moving, I'd strongly suggest at least bisquing the pots in a friend's kiln before you do. Greenware does NOT travel well, no matter how you pack it.  
I used to transport all my work to an arts centre to fire.  There were 47 manhole covers in between my house and the arts centre.  I had to make about 20% more work than I needed because of those suckers. 

Well, my kiln has been pretty good to me so far (touch wood), so I haven’t had to resort to any pagan prayers yet. But I’ve known one or two potters that made their cone packs into various weird critters, sea monsters and dragons. This is one from a friend of mine in college, and he sits on a shelf with a number of other little treasures. Now that I think of it, they could be good additions to fairy gardens. 

My workbench is full of ugly bisque again. I really is my least favourite stage. But a week and a half ago, I decided it would be a good idea to document some new compost buckets before I was packing them up to go to a sale. These are much nicer pictures!
Before you make fun of me for my product staging, I was legit making soup stock with the Easter turkey.

Because I can't *not* work in clay. 
I tried it for a few years, and made myself sick and miserable. I decided I didn't want to be sick and miserable anymore.  
After enough years of doing it, making pots is what I'm best at. (Currently working on the business stuff.)

Good question for a Monday morning!
I have a kiln load of bisque that needs washing and waxing. I’ve got samples for a mug re-design for an existing client and a big pile of test tiles in the bin to go along with that, I have 18 mugs for a new client, and serving bowls, sugar jars and more mugs for upcoming spring shows. And I have weekly scheduling, and homework for an online business course on the go. 
 
Yes, this is my kitchen. Washing and waxing bisque is the only job I really do outside of my studio this time of year. It’s still too cold to take it outside yet. 

My workbench is full of ugly bisque again. I really is my least favourite stage. But a week and a half ago, I decided it would be a good idea to document some new compost buckets before I was packing them up to go to a sale. These are much nicer pictures!
Before you make fun of me for my product staging, I was legit making soup stock with the Easter turkey.

My workbench is full of ugly bisque again. I really is my least favourite stage. But a week and a half ago, I decided it would be a good idea to document some new compost buckets before I was packing them up to go to a sale. These are much nicer pictures!
Before you make fun of me for my product staging, I was legit making soup stock with the Easter turkey.

My workbench is full of ugly bisque again. I really is my least favourite stage. But a week and a half ago, I decided it would be a good idea to document some new compost buckets before I was packing them up to go to a sale. These are much nicer pictures!
Before you make fun of me for my product staging, I was legit making soup stock with the Easter turkey.

My workbench is full of ugly bisque again. I really is my least favourite stage. But a week and a half ago, I decided it would be a good idea to document some new compost buckets before I was packing them up to go to a sale. These are much nicer pictures!
Before you make fun of me for my product staging, I was legit making soup stock with the Easter turkey.