Rule #1 is remembered

new blog for pottery specific stuff
Yeah... that's it

A thing you should all know about DreadPirateOlson (DPO)- me, is that I tend to drift off on tangents. Well sometimes I drift and sometimes I just violently veer.
And I am dead clumsy. (I blame genetics)

Oldsin's cardinal rule of clay:
1. Never get attached to a piece. EVER.
I was carving this bowl(pictured above) and had been off and on for months. I wanted it to be awesome and perfect and I already had the gift box ribbon planned. Then I dropped a tri-pod on it and the bowl exploded*. Le Sigh... Now we begin anew by saying: It's nothing that can't be made again.

Some other rules:
2. Keep a sense of humour. What else can you do when you give an extrusion demo or show someone how to pull a handle? Yes. It looks like a hand job and once admitted and laughed about, peeps can focus on what you're trying to tell them. We all still have that 12 yr old on the inside. Tee hee!

3. Step away when nothing is working out right. Go drink tea, wash your hands, (maybe reverse the order of that) sit in a normal chair or whatevs. Some days are just bad, end of story.

4. Experiment and practice How are you going to know if you can make a giant robot of doom out of clay and plywood if you don't try it? And the whole practice thing is just exactly what it is for anything else - you want to be good, throw 12 mugs that look like they were made in a factory mould? Well, throw 200 and trash every singe one of them** and THEN throw your 12 mugs. But remember, if you want 12 perfect mugs, you can always go buy them at the store... so don't be BO-ring!

Thanks for taking a look

*What was I doing with a tripod near my bowl? Excellent question, my dear Watson, I was setting up to take a picture.

**I dare you.