hey y’all,

recently, i visited my grandparents and indulged in the luxury of sipping a chilled white wine while drifting around in the pool. they’ve downsized recently, and the size of their pool makes the salt water as warm as a bath most days of summer. it’s a ritual and a right of passage in my family to drink wine in the pool, and it made me feel 22 again.

i’m not a big alcohol drinker, and for the last four-ish years, i haven’t kept alcohol at home. with my pool visit, and my recent proximity to a harris teeter, i find myself enjoying a small glass of wine in the evenings. i’m intimately familiar with their wine section, having been an overnight stock boy when i was 19.

i used to love looking through all the bottle designs, tasting notes, origins, and pairings. an empty grocery store at 2am is a liminal space, and i would let my mind wander while i dusted and filled the shelves. i pretended i was speaking with the vineyard owners and the marketing teams, discussing what inspired the brand story and where the grapes were sourced.

when i turned 21, i wanted my first alcohol purchase to be from the harris teeter wine section and i knew exactly what i wanted. it was a black label bottle of the red velvet blend from cupcake vineyards. i loved the dessert imagery the title invoked, and the crispness of the design. i know you’re not supposed to judge a wine by the bottle, but branading wouldn’t be a billion dollar industry if it didn’t matter. plus, i was a beginner! what did i know.

to this day, i prefer cupcake wines. maybe it’s nostalgia, maybe it’s stockholm syndrome, maybe it doesn’t matter and i just like it. all that to say, i’ve been enjoying their butterkissed chardonnay in these waning summer days.

i’ve been particularly refreshed by a glass after my intermediate pottery class lately. tomorrow is my third intermediate class, and i feel like i’m beginning to understand the mechanics. i was really nervous that i wasn’t intermediate material. i only purchased this difficulty level because the next cohort of beginner classes sold out instantly. i didn’t want to lose my momentum, even though i’m still very much a beginner, so i said “fuck it, i’ll do my best.”

what a revelation. i tend not to look behind me and see how far i’ve come. i gaze helplessly into the yawning berth of the unknown future, trudging forward with little hope but resolute determination. this is not good for me, as you might imagine. so, i was overcome with a gentle sense of pride that the desire to make art outweighed my perfectionist pessimism. instead of a fear of failure and shame, i knew i wanted to keep trying.

since my first intermediate class, i have felt my confidence building. most days that i throw clay i leave empty handed. i haven’t been able to consistently pull even a basic cylinder. i can’t control the shape i’m making, i can’t get my walls to be the same thickness on all sides. i can’t get my pieces to the right hardness for trimming, and then i can’t center them for said trimming. in the quiet part of my heart, all of these sentences end with the word “yet.”

i have no measurable aspirations adding pressure to my learning. i’m meeting new people with shared interests. i’m not expected to know anything at all. i’m enjoying the process. i want to keep trying.

in the spirit of looking back, i thought i’d make you another mug museum, but this time all of them i made myself(!). i hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think! tell me which ones you like, which ones you think i should have scrapped, ones you feel medium about but would love if i added just one thing. i truly want to know (and please excuse the non-mug in the mug museum).

thanks for looking <3

xoxo,

kuya von