Teapot Revisited: or, What Are We Doing This Year?

In the past couple of weeks I’ve had some time to relax away from making pots and painting, and reflect on just how busy 2010 was for me! Pretty much rushed off my feet for most of the year, or so it seemed! And although it’s been really good and I’ve learnt lots of things and had lots of positive feedback from people, in the last few months I’ve been feeling as though things were running away from me a bit: getting swept along in a rush. And so it seems a perfect time – especially since we’re firmly into 2011 already – for me to re-evaluate what I’m doing.

Hence the photos of this teapot. A long time ago, back in March 2010, I made this ‘unexpected teapot’. It was unexpected mostly because it was hand-built (which I don’t really do, being mostly a potter) and also because it was unplanned and fairly spontaneous. And ever since then I’ve been meaning to blog about it when it came out of the kiln. It came out months ago but I never had the time to mention it. So here it is at last: slightly wobbly around the edges for being hand-built, but charmingly so I hope! It’s been reduction fired in a gas kiln and glazed using a clear glaze that allows the natural iron in the clay to show through as a lovely speckled effect. It’s only small – it holds just enough for a single cup of refreshing green tea - but it’s very cute I hope you’ll agree, and for once I decided to keep it all for myself (which is something I rarely do these days!)

But the point I’m trying to make is that this teapot was an experiment - and recently I’ve been feeling that experiments and creativity have been a bit sidelined in all the noisy demands and logistics of running a small art/craft business. It’s probably inevitable at times that the ‘business’ side of things takes over, but I’ve decided that this year I’m going to be focusing much more on developing what I make by getting back to the creative side of things. Get the balance back. At least that’s the plan.

Oh yes, and I really must do some painting too…