I keep getting that feeling that I’m doing the same thing over and over…

I repeat themes. I do it again and again, yet each one is a little different. So I’m putting drawings of fish on pottery. They swim out of the stylus and onto the clay. If I caught 20 herrings in Lake Superior, I bet they would all look pretty similar. I’m developing my voice in my pottery, and I need to allow the pieces to look congruous. I don’t put fish on every piece. When I do put fish onto a pot, I hope it’s obvious that this is something I did. I’m leaving my mark.

There is no reason for me to feel bad about it.

In the place where I have my genealogical roots, they’ve been decorating ceramic pots with fish for hundreds of years. It makes me feel somehow connected to my ancestors, to adopt that motif in my own way today.

What I’m doing in clay feels like a continuation of what I often paint.

Over the past month or so, I’ve been working on a commission painting. It may be more honest to say I’ve been avoiding working on it. I love to paint. I paint for fun. But when another person has an expectation about what it will look like, I kind of freeze up. Again, there is no reason for me to feel this way. When the deadline is looming, I no longer have the choice to put it off.

I give myself pep talks.

I paint a little bit, and then throw another pot, or decorate one of the pots that are in various stages of drying. I’m not usually meticulous and full of self doubt about my art. I think that what I’m feeling finds its way into the work. I need to relax and enjoy the process. I feel what I feel and I do what I do. Besides, what an honor to have someone want an image painted by my hand.