I had a good friend years ago, someone who was incredibly helpful and mentoring when I first started my biz. Later, I had the opportunity to return the favor.
I'm not sure of the correct term, but I'll say she was a pinchpotter. She made beautiful, organically shaped pots that weren't thrown. She pinched and shaped each one by hand, slowly and carefully. She made bowls with convoluted rims, sometimes deeply cut and folded. They didn't have official "bases" either--each pot was meant to be laid gently down to find its own balance pot. She then straw-fired them and burnished each one by hand to a soft sheen. No two were alike, yet each one begged to be handled and touched.
We met periodically to discuss successes and big plans, to encourage each other through roadblocks and difficult times.
One week, she asked for help. She was concerned about how she made her pots. She wanted to be more focused and product-oriented. She wanted a plan she could follow to produce pots more constently and efficiently.
Her goal sounded realistic. She was approaching a point in her artistic career where she felt she needed to build her body of work. In order to do more shows, enter more exhibits, sell more work, she felt the need to "professionalize" her production.
Just what did that mean?, I asked.
She felt she needed to have a plan. She needed to visualize a potential pot beforehand and then make it; maintain a folder of potetntial designs and keep track of her ideas, devise and schedule some sort of production schedule to get her on task.
She sounded very down-to-earth and business-like as she talked. She is, indeed, an extremely grounded and pragmatic woman. That's a source of her strength and what I loved about her. But she also sounded a little sad...
What did she want to achieve by doing that? I asked.
She wanted to build a body of work. Increase production. Spend more time with her clay.
What was it about the plan/evaluate/draw/compartmentalize/etc. process that was attractive to her? After a lot of thought, she realized she'd been hanging around professional potters who worked that way and academics--professors--who encouraged that process for class assignments. She had come to think it was the more professional, more "correct" way to develop work. Her way didn't sound very focused or grown-up. She seemed embarassed by it's "soft" approach.
Did she need to earn enough to contribute more to her household? Did she need enough pots to support a lot of wholesale accounts?
No, she was primarily interested in achieving different, more artistic and professional, rather than finacial, goals--having a show of her work, appearing in more exhibits, filling a few very select wholesale accounts some day. She did want to sell her work, but didn't care if it generated a lot of money. She wanted respect among her peers, a name in the clay world, and enough money to show, travel, etc.
What was her process now? She said after her day job (working with her husband in his business, and trying to carve out some studio time), her habit was to sit and watch TV with her husband. She would take a lump of clay in with her, and work on a pot as they sat and talked together.
Did that process result in a pot every time? Yes, every single time. A pot she was happy with? Yes.
If she did that every night, could she produce enough work to achieve her goals? Definitely.
Did she do it every night?
A hesitation, then...no, she didn't. Once she had set up her own clay studio in the basement, she didn't feel she should bring her work upstairs in the evening. She was afraid it was imposing on her "couple time", her down time, making a mess, etc.
Had her husband said anything to that effect? No...he actually liked her working with him in the room, he liked her company and the fact that she could work while they talked.
I then repeated her own words back to her. Her process was to work on a lump of clay while she relaxed with her husband every evening. It resulted in a lovely pot each and every time, and would reliably produce enough pots to achieve her goals.
That was her process. And it worked.
If you have a process in place, and it works, why change it? She already had a reliable, successful and enjoyable process in place to achieve her goals. She didn't need to do someone else's process just because it "looked more professional" or sounded more businesslike. The only time to reassess and change your process is when its outcome does NOT meet your objectives.
And make sure your OBJECTIVES are your own, too. Many people end up defining their success with other people's definitions. But that's a whole nother subject for another day's blog...
My advice to her, and to you:
"Trust your process."
