How ceramics gave me back my confidence in creativity

If something brings you joy, that’s the reason to do it

Hi, thanks for reading! If you are new here, you might want to start by reading my first post, How I Got into Ceramics and my About page.

I’ve been doing ceramics courses on and off for a couple of years. It’s a hobby and I’m still a beginner, but it has brought so much to my life. 

It’s the first time I have had a hobby that I’ve kept up just for the love of it, for as long as I can remember, as an adult. I am trying to get better, but I’m not looking to go anywhere with it. I hope to get faster so I can give more pieces as presents, but I’m not looking to sell anything, at least for the time being. 

A mug with butterflies that I made recently

At the moment, I spend six hours making a mug, so if I sold things, they would have to be extremely expensive. (This has given me an appreciation of how much time and care goes into making ceramics - I can see why beautiful handmade mugs cost £50.)

There’s so many reasons why I like ceramics, but this has been the most revelatory:

It gave me back my confidence in being creative

The most important thing that ceramics has taught me is that everyone can be creative and find a path to creating things in their own way.

I had always previously associated creativity with being considered good at something - whether with writing, painting, interior design - the list goes on. 

There are problems with this, not least that it means that you rely on other people’s judgement to tell you whether or not you are good when creativity is subjective and comes from within. It also means that if you fall short of your or other people’s high standards, you think there’s no point doing it at all. 

I’ve fallen into this trap so many times and still struggle with it a lot. I’ve always put myself under a lot of pressure, at school and in my career. I should have realised this a lot earlier, but I have an urge to create. It’s important to do this without measuring it by whether I am talented or if other people like what I make. 

It gives me a creative focus outside of work

I took up ceramics a couple of years ago when I was starting a career change, moving from journalism to a role in communications for a health foundation. 

I had a very bad experience in my last journalism job, which knocked my confidence. It was an anomaly in the sense that it was a particularly toxic place to work and it didn’t even feel like journalism, but I’d already decided before I took the job that it might be my last role in journalism and that I felt ready to move on.

Before that, there had been aspects of journalism that I loved, which mostly came when I was freelance. My favourite part of the job was talking to inspirational people with fresh ideas and original ways of thinking and to artists about their work.

But the industry is exhausting, with an endless tide of instability, and the culture can be brutal, especially when you have to constantly perform and prove yourself. When I was freelance, I could write in my voice and make creative decisions, but there were too many days to count when I felt isolated and no one replied to my emails.

It was the right decision for me to make the move when I did, although I am hoping to do more writing outside of work, starting with this newsletter.

I started my first ceramics evening course a few weeks after starting my new job and it helped me with the transition which I can still find quite hard.

Ceramics gives me a creative outlet and focus outside of work. It means I have something else that I can pour my energies into in the evenings.

With journalism, I liked creating tangible things. It used to give me the biggest thrill to see my name in print next to a feature I had written. Ceramics gives me this satisfaction as well - I produce objects that I can touch.

I never expected to get so drawn into a hobby and it’s given me a huge amount of head space. Sometimes I have worries going round and round my head, and I find it very difficult to unwind in the evenings.

Ceramics can be a really good distraction, something I can get hyper-focused on. Outside of classes, I find myself wondering about what design I should create on a piece of work, wondering what combination of glazes I can put together on one vase, whether I can etch in seashells or flowers, how to achieve a particular effect. 

It’s given me something that I can lose myself in, a new world where people spend their whole life practising and endlessly learning more.

Let me know in the comments whether any hobbies make you feel like this.