little vases

My journey in ceramics of the last few years has come to an exciting point this week, I've started adding my little vases to my Etsy shop. I didn't want to sell any ceramics until they were perfect in my eyes and something I wanted to share with the world.

To see my vases and buy one of your own you can go to the ceramics section of my Flowerpress Etsy Shop.

For those of you who follow my craft wanderings you will know that its been a while now since my first steps in this craft (how funny are those lumpy first pots!). I've been practicing and learning this skill since 2013, an itch I'd been wanting to scratch for ages.

The impetus was a blog story about a working ceramicist. I loved watching the process of her work and as my crafting has always been about making beautiful pieces to live with everyday, the idea of crafting my own ceramic pieces just seemed like a wonderful thing to work towards.

And it is, I love it!

What I didn't know when I started that process was that ceramics has a hugely steep learning curve. Much of it is complex and can only be learnt slowly by trial and failure. I went into it at a sprint, only to learn it is a marathon.

I like that too. I like the idea that the skills are hard won, my appreciation of ceramic work has grown so much as I explore all the processes involved.

Throwing on a wheel is hard. I'm often reminded of the idea that 10,000 hours of practice brings mastery in a skill. I'm slowly whittling away at that number, and enjoying it more as my skills increase.

It feels good to have earned a modest skill at throwing pots. It feels hard won.

clay journey

My blog voice is rusty.

I have been back to this space many times, trying to craft a post, to get the machinery moving again. But the longer you stop the harder it is to start again.

So please accept this photo heavy post about the part of my creative life that is getting the most attention and taking the most of my time - Ceramics.

I want to document this part of the journey before I travel on further. You can see how I ended up here by using the #clay tag which I've added to all my ceramics posts.

Its all about clay at the moment, which you will know if you follow my instagram @flowerpress, or definitely if you've seen my new clay themed account @flowerpressclay!

There is something about the meditation of throwing in particular, the slow journey to improve at this very difficult skill that is consuming all my creative brain.

And it can't be rushed, so I'm learning patience along with my practice.

After a few weekends at the wheel I have a big batch of thrown pots now sitting waiting for decoration and to be fired. But this post records some of the pots I've made so far this year, before I rush off to that next batch.

As you can see I've tackled handles, and found them not quite as scary as I thought. There's something wonderful about the shapes they make and the magic of their strength.

I've also experimented with different styles of decoration too, wax resist, mishima, crackle glaze, underglaze and pooling glaze.

I promise another blogging in the not too distant future.