When I started making my mugs for January, I had an idea of how to make them, and most of the time it worked. By the end of the month, I had a process for how to make them, and I understood that process deeply.

For most of last year, I was focused on outcomes. “Man, it would be cool to make X”, “Oh, I bet I could try Y”. This kept me motivated and kept me excited to work on my pottery. Good to be motivated. That truly is step one in any endeavor, right?

The thing that scared me was when I failed, messed up a pot, and sometimes I didn’t understand what I did wrong. This created a sort of anxiety that was building over time. The unknown is a terror.

From working on these 100 mugs, I fixed small errors. I made a few adjustments that dialed in my ability.

Here’s a short list:

• I learned how much wedging I needed to do

• I learned how to center better by pushing out into my steady hand.

• I learned to be slow and careful when opening the pot. (This is where unevenness shows its ugly head very quickly if not careful.)

• I learned to use plenty of water, but to add consistently and not just drown the pot.

• I learned certain limits of applying pressure to the clay when pulling up.

• I learned a 1000 micro-lessons on pulling handles which are between my hands and the clay, and I can’t really put it into words.

Basically, it became a lot easier to throw pots.

As a side note, I was listening to Bob Spitz's book about the Beatles during much of the month. This turned out to be perfect. A good portion of the book covers the Beatles' time in Hamburg, where they used to spend 7-8 hours EVERY night playing to drunken sailors and their girlfriends. They were only 17-19 years old at the time. This intense amount of playing is often credited with why they were so good at performing. They were veterans of the stage and of their instruments before they were 20 years old. It wasn’t luck that they had success. They worked like hell for it.

Onward!

My next rung on my ladder to becoming a professional potter is to refine my styles systematically. Up to recently, I’ve just been throwing shit at the wall and throwing away whatever doesn’t stick (sorta metaphorically, sorta .. yeah).

In February, so far, I’ve been branching back out, making bowls and vases again. Oh, and here are some of those mugs from January after firing. So many more still need to be glazed and fired. As always, theses pots are available at www.noblestoneware.com

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Happy with my kiln having turned off, I returned inside. The kiln had been on since roughly 11 am on Sunday. Making the firing time roughly 18 hours. It would be another 12 before the kiln was cool enough for me to open the lid and get a good view.

Here’s what I pulled out:

I’ll call this vase a ‘study’. I was learning to make flowers and also learned the limits of how thick I should apply glaze... Note the solidified drips of blue. This is Iron Range clay with Caribbean Green glaze over top. Flowers were underglazed only, creating a very matte finish.

This is the same glaze applied slightly thinner and over a white stoneware clay body. Very much worked and I shall be making more pots inspired by this success.

An insane cousin to the previous mug. I kinda just started carving, and I’m fairly happy with it, though the glaze might need to be screened in the future to avoid those little pins you see toward the top.

This will be a lotion/soap dispenser. I was incredibly happy with how consistently the glaze spread over the surface. Couldn’t have turned out better.

This was a completely new glaze to me. I actually really like this and my wife likes that simple double line design across the center. I just love how you can get lost in the layers of this glaze. When you hold it, it almost looks like its moving across the surface.

A similar design to the previous, but with a speckled blue glaze. It looks kind of strange, but I like it (and so does the wife, so it’s a keeper).

These two Easter Island (Rapa Nui) shot glasses were glazed in an ‘iron’ Celedon glaze. I’ve learned that celedon glazes are tricky and tend to show up any runs or drips quite easily. They also look drastically different depending on how thick the glaze is applied. Left had a bit more glaze applied (whoops).

If you like what you see, be sure to check out www.noblestoneware.com . Everything is on sale, and shipping is free in the U.S.

Here are some honorable mentions from this batch.

Thanks for reading.