Moving Work On

It is tempting when you develop work that people like (and which you too like) to rest on your laurels and just keep making that. Some makers find that one particular product is so successful that it is very difficult to move on. However staying put is the coward's option, and ultimately doesn't feel that good. Moving on however means taking risks, possibly making work you and other don't like. But even producing a batch of dross will teach you something. It is interesting to look at a pot that you don't like and analyse why it doesn't work. At some stage you must have felt it did.

Of course ceramists live in a very different world to other artists. When you paint you get to judge what you have done in the instant, and can row back, paint over, amend, improve. In ceramics things change so much during the making process. Unless you have made a certain style of work a number of times before it can be very difficult to see in your mind's eye what you are going to get. This is also in some ways the fun of ceramics. Will this piece be great or awful? Will it look as I imagined? Will it be a stepping stone towards something better? Or will it be a lesson in what doesn't work or a chance for you to learn more about your aesthetic.

I am doing a lot of experimenting at the moment. I am firing higher which means changing clays and glazes. there may be stumbles on the way but if I stick with it then something will eventually emerge.