The permission slip we all need
On following our happiness and building ourselves new mental houses
Hi friends,
I’ve been thinking about something my pottery mentor Naomi Clement said to me a number of months ago. I was feeling really stuck in my pottery studio, and so I’d joined a group of 10 other potters for a 5-month ceramic mentorship with her, focusing on creative exploration.
In that first group session, she pulled up the image above and said, “This is your permission slip to do anything you want in the studio. Use it however you need it. If you want to stop doing something, stop doing it. If you want to start doing something, start doing that. This is for you to use however it’s most useful in your life.”
This permission slip’s been in the back of my mind for 5 months, and a lot’s happened because of it. I pulled back on selling to focus on creative exploration. I questioned where and how I sell my craft, how I talk about my work, how I think about myself as an artist.
Most recently, I’ve started paying more attention to what I enjoy doing in the studio, and what I don’t. Then I try to rearrange things so I can spend more time doing the things I enjoy and less doing the things I don’t.
Sometimes this means doing something I don’t enjoy more efficiently (like photographing work for the web), or asking myself if I could change my approach to something so that I do it in a more enjoyable way (like glazing). Sometimes it’s asking myself, “do I really need to do this at all?”, often realizing I don’t, and not doing it anymore (like selling wholesale).
I heard this amazing quote from Lori Britt today in my partner’s Brand Story podcast, which felt like it crystalized this process for me:
“The ways that we think are often conditioned by society in ways that we don’t even realize. So we end up in these boxes that we don’t even recognize exist. We don’t recognize the walls around us.” - Lori Britt
I do think we build boxes around ourselves that we don’t see, and that these boxes fundamentally shape our lives. They shape the activities that we do everyday, and they shape what we think is possible for ourselves. What a feeling to actually look at the walls, maybe give them a poke or prod…ask where they came from and whether they’re helping us or not.
In the pottery studio, I’ve been thinking about this box as being made up of my “should”s. For the most part, these are the things I think I “should” do as a “good business person” or a “good potter”. I’ve come to see that many of these are not things I intentionally decided to do because they felt right for me; they’re things I saw other people doing and assumed I needed to do too.
Naomi’s permission slip started me questioning these “should”s, and it really does feel like walls are falling away.
It’s not like we don’t need some walls, some structure…but I want to be the one to build it. Instead of being trapped in an invisible box, a largely foreign object that was built from inherited or unconscious beliefs, I want to build myself a beautiful place to live in that fits me. One that gives me the structure and support I need, but that lets me dance around and be free. A structure I can shift and change and rebuild as needed — as my needs change, and as the world around me changes.
I wanted to share this permission slip with you, because I think we all need this reminder from time to time, especially as things get busy and overwhelming and we don’t feel we have time for introspection.
Obviously we can’t do anything we want anytime, but it’s a powerful thing to take a close look at the box we’ve built for ourselves and see if there are any walls that need repainting, or even areas that need to get demo’ed and expanded. Or maybe if there are new doors and windows we need to install to connect the different parts of our lives, or to give ourselves space to move and grow.
Let’s all grab a hammer and get to work :).
Much love,
Ros
Hello fellow human, I’d love to hear what’s going on with you! How did this post land, and what did it remind you of in your own life?
Or…
Email me at ros.obrien.ceramics@gmail.com
Fun pottery stuff
Lots of bud vase experiments happening in the studio right now. Playing around with leaving parts of the pots a raw clay stained red (and sometimes carving designs into them, which I did here and LOVE), and adding tints to my white glaze (this one’s slightly yellow). Also there are somehow only purple flowers in my garden right now. Not complaining, and neither are the bees.
I love this so much. I've been thinking a lot about things I (and other theater people) do that we do....because that is how we do things. So much of our practice is unexamined, and we all assume that the way we do things is the only way. Because it's how we do things.
I've been working really hard to think about whether I'm making choices or replicating patterns. It's okay if my choices match those patterns I inherited, but I'm trying to be intentional about choosing them. It sounds like you're doing that too.