Why Am I Making This?

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December 1, 2022

Pottery/depths - Why Am I Making This? Issue #29

Hello everyone,

It’s Julien. Artist who makes pottery, photographs, and other things - but this year, mostly pottery and photographs. First, most important announcement: I actually will be selling my pottery in one place for the holidays - from Dec. 16-23 at the pottery studio I work at in Portland, Maine. 

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I’m going against my claim that I wouldn’t be selling art for the rest of the year - just this once! It’s a very low-impact sale for me (the studio takes care of all the sales, I won’t be there myself for the most part) and it’ll be fun to be involved with something the whole studio does. I’m really looking forward to it.

Otherwise, I am still in the depths of the burnout zone, feeling kind of like I did around the time in my life when I graduated from university. If you knew me back then, you know that’s not a great place to be, lol. Creatively, at least, I’m feeling somewhat better than I was a few months ago. I feel like I’ve successfully taken the pressure off myself in my creative life, but it turns out that other aspects of my life were burning me out too. Almost everyone I know is kind of having a tough time of it as well. Just that kind of year, maybe. Getting through it and making small changes one day at a time, I suppose! 

I do have some fun things to share. I’ve begun photographing some of my pottery from this year since it will (hopefully) be leaving my life soon in the pottery sale. I still have more to take pictures of, but here are some finished pieces you maybe haven’t seen yet:

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I’ll be posting some of these on Instagram over the next week or two with extra commentary if you want to keep an eye out for them there!

I also have taken a few in-progress phone photos of pottery. Here’s some unfired porcelain with underglaze inlay drawings, and some molds I will use next year to make bowls and plates.

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I’ve also done a little bit of sketchbook sketching, since I’ve been feeling excited about drawing on pottery.

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That’s about it! I’ll hopefully have a roundup of pottery and photography and other miscellaneous stuff in the December newsletter to finish out the year. New beginnings soon, or so we all hope!

Julien

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