Learning by Churning

Methodology and Deliberation

These days, it's really easy to ‘find out’ - how a system works, what skills to develop to take up a new hobby, why the physical world is the way it is. Not long ago, if one was so inclined to learn, digging up the answer published in a book somewhere may have been one's only recourse, aside from the often not-so-sage advice of family and friends.

I'm grateful to live in the age of data. It seems like any question I could possibly conjure up has already been asked by someone and answered by another. I’m more likely to find my answer on Quora, Reddit, Facebook, or on some specialty enthusiast’s forum than in a reputable, published work, and that usually works out just fine, if not better.

I took a couple ceramics classes in college that was led by an outstanding master ceramicist, but it seems like I was there eons ago. She was an undisputed, indispensable, and invaluable authority. I do not, unfortunately, have her as my resource any longer.

In that case, I'll need to be my own teacher, and it is damned hard to teach something that you don't know to yourself.

Systematic Experimentation

This took far more hours (and back pain) than I am readily willing to admit.

Two hundred and twenty-five test tiles.

That’s how many I’d created to account for the 15 glazes I have accumulated over the last year or so, in combination with one another and as stand-alone glazes. Glazes interact with each other differently, and sometimes in surprising ways, both pleasantly and… not so much.

I have a small stack of pieces that have undergone their initial firing. This bisqueware is now sturdier than when it was ‘raw.’ Therein, however, arises the fear that the finished pieces I’ve envisioned will largely outshine their realized counterparts.

I hope all of this labor can alleviate the coin-flip anxiety of glaze-and-pray.

Do It Again, Now

In the words of one of my many wise chefs after I had asked what the trick was to opening oysters so quickly and easily, "open a thousand." Doing something once is a matter of luck, not skill, and in order to get better, I'd do it again, and again, and maybe another nine hundred and ninety-eight times.

Each day, I’m reminded that one task in particular demands a thousand more attempts from me, and that is keeping my handles on and crack-free. Porcelain is a finicky clay, but it has specific requirements when attaching one piece to another. For now, I’m just going to imagine that I’m making headway, even if I feel like Sisyphus.