Doing it all yourself…

Everyone assumes that because you are an artist, you can make anything yourself and maybe we can but do we actually have the time to?

I could make all of our dishes, all the tiles for the floors and counters, and even design logos and signs for my business. They wouldn’t be the best, but I have the skills, tools and materials to do it. But this means that every time I put effort into a creative project like tiling the countertop means that I take away time from making art, so how do you find a balance between the things you can do and the things you should do?

This countertop project was a real thing, I really wanted to make the tiles to mosaic the new studio counter and when I mentioned that to my husband who had just finish building the countertop, his response was, “Do you want to use this surface area in the next few months?” He was joking but he definitely had a point. I need to use the counter in a few weeks when my classes begin again at the studio, so a few coats of polyurethane and a few hours later the countertop was ready to go. Maybe someday in the future I will make the tiles, dry them slow and flat, fire and glaze them, then design the whole surface of the counter into an elaborate mosaic. Maybe.

But for now, I’ve settled on making my own numbers for the studio address and I’ve hand painted signs that will hang on the outside of the studio, these things still took hours but not weeks. And I’ve got no plans to make all my own dishes, I will leave that to the much more talented potters that abound in my community. I want my studio to have creative, handmade touches that make the space unique and intriguing for visitors but I also want to have a body of work that I’m proud of and has been given the thoughtful attention and time it deserves.

So with that, I’m going to stop blogging and start working.