2024: Layout of the land
Welcome to the first journal entry of 2024. I will be writing about life as a potter and everything that feeds into my creative life as a potter in the hope that it connects and resonates with an audience and grows into a collective, a community, a small arts precinct in my own hood. The intention is to build community and connection through what I love to do, to inspire family, friends and new acquaintances, building a bridge between creative hearts and hopefully release the creative in you.
So, what will I be writing about. What will be the main topics of discussion and do they interest you, the reader.
Obviously the first topic of discussion will be ceramics. I once did a blogging course, a one on one with someone I connected with online, her name is Neve and I am not sure what happened to her business. She came to my house and she was very organised and discussed how to go about starting a blog. I often go back to the notes she provided as they were really valuable. One of the first things she asked me to do was to create content buckets which are essentially the main topics you want to write about to engage with your audience. In blog terms they are categories. In hierarchical blog terms they are categories with sub categories, main and sub topics. So the bones of this blog can be categorised firstly with the major content buckets.
Major Content Buckets : Categories
- Ceramics
- Intuition & Creativity
- Travel & Photography
- Plants and Garden
- Connection & Community
1. Ceramics
Ceramics is a pretty broad category but it includes coming up with ideas for functional and sculptural wares, testing new glazes, combining hand built and wheel thrown techniques, improving technique through repetition, being guided by an internal creative compass that focusses on my own style, pushing the boundaries of creativity. Launching new products. The creation of a small art space in my home is a plan for 2024.
2. Intuition & Creativity
So many topics fall under this category. I have always loved exploring creativity through many personal journals that I’ve kept over the years. Starting with daily habits that frame and nurture my creativity, what I call a dailiness that helps set the mood for the rest of the day. I often fail at this but maybe this blog will make me more accountable! The days go something like this: morning walks, morning pages, tidying the house, preparing food from the garden that then moves into the project part of the day, making, doing, creating. Finishing with a clean up, a good meal and the task of writing this blog from snippets of the day – journal notes and photography. Finally the quiet hours, before bed: gratitude, doodling, vision board, little anecdotes from the day. Stretching, meditation and reading just before sleep.
3. travel and photography
Travel feeds into Intuition and creatively. I think it is when we are out intuitive self. The sensory overload of new places does something to us, returns us from brief moments to who we really are, our soul purpose for being here. We can also travel right where we are, as though we are overseas. Things like Artist’s Dates (Julia Cameron) take us on these kinds of adventures in our own locale. And Sunday walks and drives as a sabbatical, A sabbatical is a rest or break from work; “an extended period of time intentionally spent on something that’s not your routine job.”
4. Plants and Garden
My ceramic journey started with plants. I had a plant gift business called Pulp Kaktus before Et Al Ceramics. Essentially I paired succulents, cacti and architectural plants with pots and delivered them to homes around Melbourne. It kept me sane during lockdown and I loved being able to connect with people, particularly those in true isolation, those living alone and the elderly. I started taking pottery classes at the end of 2017 with the intention of creating quirky planters for my plants. I fell in love with pottery and closed my plant gift business, but handmade quirky planters feature in my ceramic wares. I would like to bring back the plant gift idea but more as a local pickup option. I am also an avid gardener, thanks to mum for developing this passion, and I have visions of creating a sculpture garden with my ceramics here and then hopefully move to the country to really develop this idea.
5. Connection and Community
I believe that people step into your life for a reason along the lines of there are no coincidences. And I love this idea, of connection to community through open garden and studio days, small private gatherings, events, popups, markets and fairs. I hope this leads to a larger communal space in the future. Connection and community are at the heart of this blog. The intention behind all writings.
Et Al Ceramics is a small ceramics studio in Williamstown that is already bursting at the seams with glaze ingredients, clay, wheels and a kiln ready and waiting for the new year to begin. Let the journey begin.
