Since then, I've been studying up and consulting the experts on what I need to do to convert my garage into a home studio. But there are several caveats that add a layer of complexity to this game plan: 

1. I currently rent the home I am living in. 

2. I have no desire or intention to purchase this home. 

3. The owner of the property will likely not want me to make any changes to the current garage: i.e. adding a utility sink, or adding any modifications to this fairly older property. 

4. I plan on changing residence in the near future, to my own home - which will be selected based on the ability to convert a utility room to a home studio. 

Knowing all of these things, I came to a rather undesirable conclusion. In order to have a home studio, today, I'd have to create a very barebones studio/garage environment. Specifically, that means, a three bucket water maintenance system (a lot of work each and every time I set up/break down from a session), clearing out the few (but necessary) items I currently store in the garage, battling Austin winters and horrendous summers in a VERY drafty space with no insulation around the garage door, and then finally? Dealing with the general creepiness of my garage, in general. 

The three bucket system is a requirement in order to save myself from a plumbing nightmare. The clays I use are non-toxic, so I don't have to worry about poisoning my environment when it's time to dump the water/silt. However, I will likely kill some grass...and I'm not especially excited to do that, either. With all that said, if I worked around all the hurdles and came up with a solution that made all of my side issues go away - I still come to this. 

I may be moving at some point this year, or the very beginning of next. Whatever I come up with...would be a temporary solution until I can get into a space I'm ready to call my own.

All of this weighed heavy on my mind this weekend until I found out a convenient and timely alternative: 

My learning studio is willing to rent me space. A nominal monthly fee, and I get my own private space to store my wheel and shelving. Access to all the amenities the studio provides including: working utility sinks, access to the kilns and glazes. This also helps me stagger my next big acquisition - a kiln. 

I can rent space there, continue my house hunting at a leisurely pace and most importantly...create on a regular basis. Mind you, it's not as convenient as walking into the garage and going for it...but it's close enough that I don't have to feel like it's an inconvenient commute. 

Hopefully, I can move into the studio in the next few months. 

Stay tuned. 

Photo Courtesy of: Flickr/luisillusion

Some of my favorite work from my portfolio seems to be pieces that include some sort of surface augmentation. I love chattering, carving and using all manner of conventional (and unconventional) tools to texturize the surface of my work. It brings out hidden personality in glazing and can really transition a fairly traditional form into something that feels like it has history, depth and character. 

Just before the holiday break, I started playing around with some sponge stamping. I was very excited about my finished product (not yet posted). After talking with one of my potter mentors this weekend, I've decided to add some of my own sponge stamps to my arsenal. Literally minutes, with the proper tools

Much like clay stamps - I hate using stamps made by other folks. While they are lovely, the idea of using them to augment my work feels like cheating. I'd rather learn how to make the stamps, then fiddle about in my own space, creating designs from the recesses of my strange imagination. 

I'll likely take one of the designs from some of the mandalas I've painted and see if I can transform them onto the face of a silk sponge. I shopped around and purchased a wood burning kit - I'll share my sponge stamp making results soon. 

Today.

• I need to get my home studio up and functional.
• I need to work on my throwing schedule/project commitments. I want to know what I'm throwing, where my focus should be (aesthetically) and what I need to do to challenge myself this year.
• I need to be more strategic about how I present my work to the world.

No matter how you plan, schedule and get your logistical "A-game" going...there is nothing to prepare you for the despair that is the line at the post office. It's been rainy in Austin this week, that veil of clouds and misty rain helped to further frame the dread.

I had about 25 inidividual little items to send out...and after standing in line at the automated shipping kiosk, I began to have some low scale anxiety about the reactions of people behind me when they actually saw how many items I needed to post and ship. About mid way through, I began to hear loud audible sighs and heavy shuffling of feet. I looked down in my bag, and saw a dozen more to go. Dare I continue on, or take a break. My inner panic-bot said, "QUICK, GET OUT OF THE WAY BEFORE THEY BEGIN SHOOTING ARROWS AT THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD!" And...I complied. I walked back around to the back of the line, and opted to wait for another twenty minutes, to complete my shipping. 

I pondered people at that point, and how they behave during the holiday. I try really hard to be upbeat and positive with people during this time of year, but the reality is...most of us are feeling some kind of tension, fatigue or annoyance with trying to keep up with commitments we swore we weren't going to replicate...but somehow did. 

Even those of us hellbent on holiday cheer start sneering when attempting to ward off the grumpy energy of hundreds of people around us. 

I scowled in that line, annoyed with people, annoyed with their general impatience and their audible protestations over things that really aren't that awful. 

Finally at my turn (again) at the kiosk, I raced through my remaining packages. As I turned to storm off into a rainy day, my eyes caught the gaze of an older lady waiting in the line behind me. She whispered, "Merry Christmas," and gave me the sweetest smile. 

In that instant, everything in me melted and I beamed back at her. "Thank you. Merry Christmas to you, too." It's what I said. But my heart added a quiet, "thank you." To her, and whatever sweet spirits heard my pleas for kindness. 

That little moment will probably be the sweetest gift I remember from this season. And you know what? I'm incredibly satisfied with it.

Happy Holidays. 

If we have goals and dreams and we want to do our best, and if we love people and we don’t want to hurt them or lose them, we should feel pain when things go wrong> The point isn’t to live without any regrets, the point is to not hate ourselves for having them… We need to learn to love the flawed, imperfect things that we create, and to forgive ourselves for creating them. Regret doesn’t remind us that we did badly — it reminds us that we know we can do better.

- Kathryn Schulz, Author of the book: Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error.

The statement "I live life with no regrets." Has always annoyed the hell out of me. I've always felt that if you're making that statement you are either: a) consciously lying, b) unconsciously shielding yourself from the outcomes and consequences of things that occur in your life, c) too young to realize that living a life with no regrets is unlikely, and requires that you seperate yourself from the humility of accountability. It's like planning to live your life with no intention of maturation, or growth or change. Are you the same person you are at 16? 25? 35? 50? If you remain unchanging through the good choices (and the poor ones)...then you ARE living your life with no regret...and you're probably very alone while you are doing it. 

We ALL have regrets. Whether we speak to them or not, is the real question. What we DO with them is the answer. 

Thanks so my friend Camilla for this clip of Kathryn Shulz speaking about the psychology of regret at TED 2011. I highly recommend it. 

Art arises when the secret vision of the artist and the manifestation of nature agree to find new shapes.

                               - Kahlil Gibran

Home studio development begins.

The thing about blessings is that they don't always loudly make their precense known. Sometimes they slip in quietly, or masked in the disquise of something that initially causes us great anguish. Perhaps that's why we don't always see those things clearly when we're doing these sorts of exercises. But it's important to see them all. Because all things, good and bad can lead to incredible growth opportunities in our lives. 

With that disclaimer put out there, I want to acknowledge a late season blessing that touched me, inspired me and reminded me how much love there is in the universe. 

I've been wanting to move toward having a personal studio space outside of the collaborative studio where I currently throw. I put that out to the universe then started working on my financial planning as there a lot of big steps I'm attempting to make next year. I picked out my wheel brand, then put the intention aside to start preparing for other things. 

Here, about six weeks later, one of my dear friends and potter mentors backed her pick up truck up my driveway and with her husband, they unloaded a Brent pottery wheel, less than 4 years old, by my door. As I stammered to put together the words to thank her and to find some way to return such a huge gesture of kindness and love, she waved me off and offered me a tight hug. Her response was:

"Repay me by living your dreams." 

And I mean to repay her. With interest. 

So I have much to be grateful for this year...that message and wheel are two of many. 

"Everything in nature bespeaks the mother. The sun is the mother of earth and gives it its nourishment of heat; it never leaves the universe at night until it has put the earth to sleep to the song of the sea and the hym of the birds and brooks. And this earth is the mother of trees and flowers. It produces them, nurses them, and weans them. the trees and flowers become kind mothers of their great fruits and seeds. And the mother, the prototype of all existence, is the eternal spirit, full of beauty and love."

- Excerpt from Broken Wings, by Khalil Gibran. 

Sibbotery: Works in progress.

"You made this? I never knew you did this kind of stuff!" 

In some cases, I get a distrustful gaze as if I've kept some deep, dark secret. But the truth is...in potter years, I am only nearly 5 years old. It's my interest that goes back to childhood, hidden in my internal library of things I've always liked, but never attempted. I wasn't "inspired" by that scene in Ghost. I was inspired by Egyptian ruins, African art exhibits at the University Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and field trips to museums throughout Maryland, DC and New York. I was inspired by local Native American artists featuring their works at local festivals.

But like many kids growing up in a modest middle-class family, I didn't actually think to ask about pottery. Oldest child of three, you feel a bit of reservation asking about something that adds yet another expense to the household. So, I flipped through books and daydreamed in my mind. I imagined what it must feel like, moving your hands through mud, working in time with a wheel, spinning. And eventually, as many childhood curiosities do, it disappeared to make room for other things. 

As an adult, I uprooted my life when I moved to Austin. Running from things, running to things. When the dust settled on all the upheaval, I wasn't left with anything as I thought it would be. I look back and realize that those are the moments when you really understand what you are made of. And it's in the greatest heartaches that you find the very best in yourself. And I did. In the midst of sorting me out, finding my voice and learning how to let go, I came back to that curiosity. I remember sitting up very late one evening, watching the silver speckled Texas night from the open blinds in my bedroom and listening hard to quiet as is I was missing some cue. A calm settled over me, temporarily stifling my sadness, and I asked myself out loud, 

"No time like the present...so, what have you always wanted to do, that you've never done?"

 I got out of bed, walked down the hallway to my office and opened my laptop. I searched "pottery" and "Austin." I found my studio. And right then, at nearly 3 in the morning, I left a message inquiring about pottery classes. 

A few days later, I was enrolled. A few weeks later, I was sitting in an airy, dusty studio with eleven other faces, all at varying skill levels. Our instructor introduced herself and handed me my first tool set. A stiff, fresh yellow sponge. A needle tool. A wire tool. A trimming tool. A wooden rib. I collected my plastic bucket...filled it with water, and fell in love. 

My first instructor told me after a few weeks, that she was surprised at how quickly I was adapting. I learned to center, fairly quickly. By the end of the first 8 week session, I could make a pretty respectable little bowl. At the beginning of the next session, she introduced me as her "prodigy" to the new students in class. In retrospect, I think she was gilding the lily a bit, but I will acknowledge that I felt very comfortable behind the wheel. And I was not without my challenges: I was left handed, learning to throw right handed, from a right handed instructor. I was struggling with inner ear issues that make balance and vertigo a sometimes persistent nuisance. And because of the demands of my job, I could rarely come in to the studio beyond my one day a week.

Despite all of that, pottery became the calm in a storm. It was..and in many ways, still is my hiding place. The studio space is where I leave everything behind. Clay demands my full attention. When in the studio space with my potter pals, conversations happen - sometimes deep and moving, other times silly and almost dreadful...but then there are these lulls, when all heads are down, bodies tucked over the hum of the wheel. Creating. Centering. Pulling. Shaping. I contend that we're working as much on ourselves as we are that ball of clay waiting for it's form. And there is something deeply magical about those moments for me.

We're all in development. And maybe that's "why pottery." Maybe.