Playing With Clay
Hi, thank you for joining me here! I’ve been doing ceramics on and off for a couple of years. I am still a beginner, but want to share what I’ve learnt along the way.
When I first started making ceramics a couple of years ago, it gave me something that I never knew that I craved. I hadn’t realised before how much I wanted to be creative and make things. I’d forgotten what it felt like to focus on trying to learn something new - however frustrating it felt at first, and then come away with a physical object that I had spent hours of my time and energy creating.
I wanted to start this newsletter partly as a creative outlet (writing on my terms), and as a way of sharing what I know about ceramics and to find out much more.
And for anyone out there who wants to do anything creative - you are good enough and anyway, this is a hobby, not an exam; no it is not too late; try it, you might surprise yourself.
What to expect
I’m going to send out a newsletter every couple of weeks. I’ll put together some tips from a beginner’s perspective, along with thoughts around well-being and creativity. I also want to interview some experienced ceramicists about their practice.
My first experience with ceramics
In the most straightforward sense, I got into ceramics because my friend suggested an evening ceramics class at WM College - a north London adult education college.
There’s a bit more to the story than that, though.
In the six months before starting the course, I had been going through a difficult time. I was living alone in a basement flat with very little light and mould on the walls, still feeling the icy loneliness of the tail end of the pandemic. I had been under a period of unsustainable pressure, trying to fit into a role and workplace environment that was completely wrong for me. I wasn’t following my instincts or treating myself with care.
One of the things that really startled me was realising that we had reached the shortest day of the year and that I had not even noticed the days getting shorter or made the most of the remaining light.
It was still winter when my friend suggested we join the course and it was another few months until we actually could - WM College is one of the cheapest courses in London, so they get very booked up. By the time we finally started the course in April 2022, things were already looking up for me.
I had clung on to the job until it became impossible and I had to leave. I had thought that would be the worst thing to happen to me, but the relief was almost immediate.
The course coincided with a time in my life when I was making a huge intentional effort to appreciate new experiences and emerge into the light again. While I still had intense anxiety, I had a surge of new freefalling energy.
A bit over two years on, a huge amount has shifted and I’m much happier. I still go through periods of anxiety, but my past experiences made me rethink my values and take my well-being and creativity much more seriously, as something to actively seek out and consciously reach towards - to choose to value my creativity.
A few courses on, I am still very much a beginner. I work very slowly. I still struggle with caring too much about what people think - it’s something to always work on. But I also surprise myself with how excited I am by what I create.
I had always thought that to consider yourself a creative, you had to be objectively/subjectively good at what you do, but I do not think that anymore. Creativity is simply the urge to create. And anyone can be a creative simply by creating things - it’s not up to other people to decide if you are or not.
If you stumble across Playing With Clay, I hope that it helps you find the space to be creative, whether with ceramics or through a different medium.
A little bit more about me
I have a background as a features writer, with writing in publications including The Times, Guardian, The i and the BBC. I now work in communications for a charity. I’m trying to find my way into doing a bit more writing, and I hope this will help a bit.
I love reading, swimming, yoga, running very slowly, and, well, creating things. I recently moved to Bounds Green in north London which is very quiet, but very nice.
