Beauty is held deepest in the imperfections of my work. The textured dip in a vase, the slightly wonky checker on a mug, the organic shape of a dish I pinched with my hands. Evidence that my fingers were there, my energy embedded into each piece and now passed on to you.
My pottery process lasts weeks, creating each piece takes more time than I have left in NYC before we head to the west coast for a month of retreat, time with family, creating a collection of work in the desert. It’s physically impossible for me to make any more pieces this year, so my hands sit dormant, and they don’t like it. My body craves creation, holding materials and fabricating them into beautiful, imperfect things.
My yearning for a creative project sent me on a journey to Hector in Sunset Park who made my grandma’s old Singer as good as new. Then it led me down to DUMBO where Amy taught me how to maze thread through my sewing machine’s tension and spin a bobbin and sew a line of string to attach pieces of fabric to one another. My hands are creating again; mini quilts with their beautiful wobbly lines, evidence that I am here.
May you follow whatever it is that lights your spirit and find evidence of our humanity within it.
If you’re in NYC, my final holiday market is next weekend in DUMBO! Meet me at Empire Stores under the Brooklyn Bridge 12/17+18 from 11 until 6 pm.
If you’re not in NYC, you can find special gifts right here and I will ship them to you in a box with a hand carved stamp alerting the incredible delivery people that there is fragile pottery inside! :)
I know pottery is pricey and I’m always brainstorming ways to make my work more accessible. I love hand carving stamps (you’ve probably seen them show up on some of my mugs!) Now I’m offering them as sweet reminder prints (for $10!), inspired by notes I write to myself and tape on my desk. You can find them all here.
This week’s essay was partially inspired by the recent discussions around AI generated artwork. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, designer Jessica Walsh also has a helpful thread of her thoughts around it here and you can read a little about how it works + the ethical dilemmas here. There will be so much more of this in the future and there’s a lot of potential for amazing things, but as someone who makes and designs and illustrates for a living, it feels important to be thoughtful around the growth of this type of artwork and remember to look and pay for evidence of the artist’s hands, proof of our humanity.
And my messy studio photo this week is my pots en route to a holiday market!
The personal peace toolkit is your own catalog of accessible mindfulness to fold into your life in 30 seconds, 5 minutes, and 10 minutes, bringing a little more thoughtful calm to your days.
This week I recommend a beautifully raw documentary filled with tools from an impactful therapist, plus we’ll mindfully melt into my friend’s tulip and I finally give an explanation I should have given a long time ago.
If you’re not already a paid subscriber, I hope you consider joining and building some peace and reflection into your life with me <3
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to studio processing to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.