Multitasking Creativity

My sister-in-law is an artist also, her major was interior design but, being a creative, she also has lots of other creative projects going on, often several at one time.  This is true of many of the members of Mudfire too, they are doing pottery part of the day, maybe knitting at night, and using culinary arts to make terrific dinners for their families.  It seems like we don't, or maybe even we can't channel our creativity to just one outlet.  Yet I read blogs where people are concerned about this and feel like they should be single focused.  Then I remember Julia Cameron telling us in The Artists Way that we should be taking ourselves on artists dates and playing with other creative outlets.

I talk to people that hate to glaze and people that love to create interesting surface decoration.  For some it's creating the form that matters, the rest is all just window dressing.  For other people the form is simply the canvas for the design.  But when people look at a piece of pottery they often see either the glaze or the form first, then notice the entire piece as a whole.

Drawn, Carved, Horse Hair, Glazed Raku Vase

I guess if you don't like to glaze you should think about that and try to figure out what sort of surface decoration would be interesting to you, then play with that until you enjoy finishing the piece as much as you enjoyed starting it.  The same hold true if you don't care so much about the form; find forms that are interesting to you, maybe sculpting would be interesting with your special surface decoration.

The bottom line, in my opinion, is that creating art should be fun.  If you don't like a certain aspect of it then start playing until you find something you love.  Chances are you're creative enough to find or invent something.  Think about your other creative outlets, how can you bring elements from that into your pottery?

Check out the gallery page - Future Relics Gallery