"...and that's step one."
Our teacher was demonstrating how to throw a pot on a potter's wheel. He had just listed 10 rules, tips, and recommendations for how to get the wheel going, aim, slam the ball of clay down, and start working with the clay to make sure it was centered.
That's all step one?!
Thus started my struggle with the rest of the class.
There were actually two points of pressure and struggle, which I have found come by default when doing any kind of art.
- Performance: what you expect to create vs. what is actually created. The larger that difference, the more disappointing it can be.
- Comparison: it's next to impossible to not compare what I'm doing with everyone else around me—or with work I've seen before.
One of the other classmates in this 2-hour workshop with the wheel had recently been in college and had taken a pottery class. This meant she was already familiar with everything that was involved and could create more interesting pieces during the class than the rest of us.
I had taken my mom to this class as well, so I started feeling a lot of pressure to perform. I have a BFA in Graphic Design, art is an integral part of my life, I should be able to plug into this new medium just fine.
But I didn't do well. My mom did amazing. The recent college grad did amazing.
The only thing that saved this for me was the experience I've gained in practicing art. I am very aware of how much pressure I put on myself to perform. How tempting it is to compare. Knowing this, I made a very concentrated effort to do the opposite.
I am here to learn something totally new. That means it'll be bad and messy and I'll fail a lot.
I am here to be an artist for me. This college grad doesn't need to know that I didn't just take one art class, my main college experience was art classes. I don't need to talk about how much I know. I don't need to worry about how my first three pots I've ever made in my whole life don't look nearly as good as hers.
For a competitive person, this is agony, but I finally am wrapping my head around the fact that it is greater agony to play the comparison and disappointment game.
Art taught me that. I had to do it publicly for years to learn all of this. I had to be embarrassed and scared. I had to keep showing up.
Eventually I was able to make one final, decent bowl, thanks to the teacher helping me start well-centered.
Subtly showing you my best piece and somehow omitting the other two... ;)
Centering the clay is the most important part of the whole process. Everything after that is easier and sometimes self-working.
Centering ourselves is one of our most important practices in life. I guess that means everything after that is easier (maybe?) and sometimes self-working.
Cyborg
Art is the combination of technology and creativity. We use technology to create all forms of art—visual, audio, etc.
I think that's why art is such a great teacher. It takes our use of available tech and shows us how to apply it in ways that are productive, beautiful, satisfying, or useful.
The hard part is choosing to do art. It's hard to perform and it's hard to let go of the judgment.
However, I'm pretty convinced that art will be even more important for humans to get first-hand experience with the more that AI develops, the more digital our lives become, the more technology dominates our attention.
Go try something new as soon as you can.
Here are some places to look:
- Pottery Classes Near You
- No judgment art exercise: Blind Contour Drawing (it's gonna look bad on purpose!)
- Learn 3 EASY Rubber Band Magic Tricks (Art = Magic = Art)
- Draw today's pose on Posemaniacs (Human anatomy models, shows computer generated, human models with musculature, no skin)