Meme: 31 Days of December: Day 13 Collections

( 31 Days )

Day 13: new items you’ve added to collections this year

I don't really collect much, and I certainly haven't bought many things. Physical books, maybe; Jennifer Lynn Barnes is one of the authors I automatically buy her books, and in physical copies, so I added ALL IN and THE FIXER this year. Mostly I bought ebooks, though, which doesn't feel like a collection in the same way, even though, for example Seanan McGuire's Incryptid series is an auto-buy for me, but as ebooks. A friend gave me a Funko POP Black Widow for my birthday back in January, and das_hydra added to my werewolf book collection with a paperback copy of SISTERS RED and my scarf collection with a new handmade scarf. (Among other awesome gifts, but those were the two for collections.) If you follow my instagram, I'm collecting pictures of my dog and sometimes other dogs (my dad's toy poodle, my inlaws' pomeranian, any Australian cattle dog I can find).

I have a giant collection of Stitch toys, from Lilo & Stitch, but I haven't added to it in a long while.

Meme: 31 Days of December: Day 14 Proud

( 31 Days )

Day 14: What you are proud of from this year

My first instinct is to say nothing, because I feel like I have done nothing this year but fail and be mentally ill. However, that's pretty much bullshit, so I am going to talk about pottery. I've planned to talk about it more ever since Day 7, when I talked a little bit about a productive class, and you guys seemed interested, and this is a good time to do it, because really, I am proud of pottery.

I started taking classes because I wanted to challenge myself. I love learning new things (when I finished grad school, everyone else kept talking about how happy they were to be done with school and never going back, which makes sense, because our degrees were doctoral level degrees, but even then I was ready to find a new program and go back to school. It is a shame that I don't want to teach.), but I am terrible at being bad at new things in front of other people. I taught myself to play basic piano long before I let my parents sign me up for actual classes. I practiced for hours on my own before I ever even admitted to anyone I wanted to try out for color guard back in high school. I'd been writing stories for years before I ever let anyone read them. (Fandom was good for this. Yes, I'd already been writing for years, but it taught me to share stories and take criticism, and has been incredibly useful for everything else in my life.)

I am not artistic. I struggle to draw a straight line. I've never been big into painting until last fall, right after I got laid off, when I finally started teaching myself watercolors. I design jewelry and clothes all the time, but I never let anyone see, because they're not yet good enough. I love making art and cards with my arty friends and Sister K, but I hate letting them see what I'm doing, because it's never good enough. (I've been going to card making events with Ms J, where we create cards that have already been designed, and the instructor is right there to show the technique, and even then, (a) I can't stick to the design I have to make it my own (which is encouraged), and (b) I hate that people see me struggling.)

So with all that background, plus the fact I've spent most of this year job hunting and failing at getting a job, in my field and casual jobs alike, I decided what my bipolar brain needed was something else to fail at something new to learn.

Long story short, J and I reconnected with a friend of the family at the end of last year, who is also called J because dear god no one believes in any other initial in my world. I would call him Brother J, but J's brother was Brother J, so. Fuck it. Baby J is like a little brother to me (he was bffs with Brother M back in the day), and his wife, K, owns a pottery studio. She offered me lessons for free, and gifted me my first bag of clay, which I actually have yet to finish, though I am down to the very last of it, and J just bought me a new bag. After that first set of lessons (technically six weeks, but because of scheduling, as long as the first bag lasted), I'm exchanging work around the shop for studio and kiln time. (Last week, I helped her price a bunch of new pieces she was taking to an event over the weekend.)

I am good at pottery, and that is a problem.

I showed a lot of progress early on, and then had a couple classes where nothing came off the kiln, I kept damaging it while trying to raise the walls (the move that allows you to make the walls the same thickness from top to bottom) or while trying to cut off the top (because I kept making one side higher than the other while raising the walls). I struggled a lot with that. More than once, I ended up crying over a piece, either sitting at the wheel (not ideal because then K worries) or while scrubbing my hands after class (still not ideal because JFC why am I crying it is just clay, but better than where anyone can see). The early success was actually terrible for me, because then I felt like I should be doing better, I could be doing better, I was just failing because I am a big failure. (See also: time at my last job, or this job hunt, or my writing, or pretty much everything I've ever done but especially the last few years. Grad school + bipolar + incredibly stressful more than full time job did a number on my confidence, my mental health, and my physical health.)

I thought about giving up, a lot. I felt like I was wasting clay and K's time. (Who cares about my time. I am clearly doing nothing with my life.) It is hard enough to even get myself out of the house for class some weeks. But when it works, when it clicks and I finally understand something I have been struggling to get, god, that is a good moment. (Pottery skills are not skills I had picked up anywhere else in life. Everything, from kneading the clay to centering it on the wheel to doing any sort of shape, is new and difficult and I can't wrap my brain around it. Until I do.)

I'm going to keep trying, because being bad at something is good for me, and having to work to learn something is good for me, and I really love it. There was a time, before my most recent bipolar crash, that I even loved the failures, because hands on clay is such a good feeling. I want that back. (Plus K wants to sell my work, eventually, which is stressful and wonderful at the same time. I am so far from there, but I want to get there, and that requires putting in the time at the wheel.)

I am trying to challenge myself more in 2016, and pottery will be a part of it.

Now, for pictures. I've had about 8 two hour lessons, total, though sometimes they are split up into a couple one hour lessons depending on scheduling.

( Pictures of Pottery Wins and Fails )

In short, pottery joy, and woe.