More living = better crafting

When I was learning to make pottery a couple of decades ago, I just sort of made the next thing on the list. First, bowls. Then, a vase or tall-ish thing. Then, something with some semblance of a handle. Other people would share ideas and inspiration, and I’d make my version of whatever they were making. Sometimes I used the things I made, once in a while I sold them, and mostly I gave them away.

It’s a totally different game now, and I realized why! I’ve been alive for way longer. Interacting with the physical matter of life for so many more hours, days, and years, developing relationships to the things I use every day. A few months ago, I was bending down yet again to put an apple core in the compost can under the sink, when it occurred to me that it would be better for that can to be up on the counter. But they’re so unsightly, those manufactured compost containers… aha. I should make a ceramic one!

And I did. To be clear, I made three. One wasn’t dry enough and exploded in the bisque, one had only the bottom explode so I made a weird ceramic patch thing and it is now gracing my kitchen counter (on top of another plate because it leaks- you can’t really ‘patch’ ceramics), and one is going to be gracing the holiday sale in a couple of weeks.

The point here is that it was only through living, through thinking about design and the way we use stuff in our daily lives, that this cool new vessel was born. And, bringing it all back home to where this blog, we have to be paying attention to notice these things- to see an empty space where a cool feature could make our lives easier or more efficient, and to imagine what that thing might be. AI wouldn’t have ever thought of this solution, I’m pretty sure. It would have just tried to sell me a better looking unsightly compost can. Maybe with some generic flowers painted on it.