When I rebuilt my studio into a better workspace over a year ago, it looked like I would be able to offer classes there, the occasional birthday party, or a group session based on ideas like Mom's Night Out, or Make a Project With a Friend. These are good ideas. It turns out, after using the reconfigured studio, that it is a really ideal space... for one person. One person always in one phase or another of a project. One person who cleans one bit of space while filling up another bit of space with work in progress, so that there is no allover clear space at the end of the day. My studio is like a head full of ideas.
Just a year or so ago I thought I might be able to do it all. I blogged about the possibility of doing parties and classes in my studio space. But since then this web site has gone live, my gallery became a reality, I filled the studio with projects in progress and the gallery with finished work, and I had major surgery somewhere in the middle of all that. The list does not seem to lessen. (I will be glad to skip the surgery part though.) If I were to somehow throw classes for schoolchildren and children's birthday parties into the mix, it would have to be enabled by numerous studio elves. Alas, there seems to be a dearth of the little critters.
If you remember sparkling clean photos of the newly rebuilt studio, here are the current counterparts. Reality.
The clay area as I left it yesterday afternoon. Magically, it had not been cleaned up when I came back this morning.
The glaze area as left a few weeks ago, with unglazed ware, duds, glaze sample pots, glaze buckets... Where to put the pottery party?
I'm not sure why this doesn't look worse today. It looks, dare I say it, almost clean. But I just hung the shelves last week.
Making pottery keeps a person sooo real. You can't act like a royal princess and make pots. There is, let's say, making mugs, and then there's mopping up after work. Making bowls, and recycling the scrap clay left over. (And then mopping up.) Making vases, and weighing out ingredients to replenish homemade buckets of glaze. (And then, you got it, mopping up.) It's all work, whether I love every part of it or not. There's work that requires wearing protective gloves because it's hard on the hands, and work for which I need to wear a mask to protect my lungs. And there's the delightful work of carving designs into pots, which transcends most of the rest. (After which, yes, there's mopping up.)
Then there are taking photos and putting them on the website, doing the books, updating the inventory, pricing the work, cleaning the gallery (dusting as well as mopping!), assessing supplies, ordering materials, and taking trips to the supplier. I like unloading a kiln full of good pots, but not grinding and whitewashing the kiln shelves periodically between firings to clean and protect them from glaze drips, or the physical act of loading and unloading the kiln, which requires lots of leaning in and lifting. I like talking to people at shows, and selling work, but before that there's packing the work, getting to the show, unpacking, setting up the displays; and then afterward, breaking the displays back down after and re-packing the unsold wares. The creative part is good. Very good. But it is not free. And when I price something, it is not only about "How long did it take you to make that?" It's about so much more. Still (and even though I know very well that the term is relative) I try to keep the work affordable.
While I may not offer classes, you are most welcome to visit the gallery. Come on over in person! It will make all that mopping worth it. (Although we sanded floors upstairs yesterday, and now there seems to be a fresh cover of fine dust. It's called living!)