An illustration of a serene potter in a blue apron throwing a pot with closed eyes while a crowd of people lean in from every side pointing, gesturing and shouting advice

Electives · Your own way

Do it your way. Nobody else’s.

Every potter starts by copying. The mug from the class demo, the bowl from the video, the glaze the person at the next wheel used. That is how every tradition on earth got handed down and there is nothing wrong with it, right up until the day you notice that the pots on your shelf could have been made by anyone. This page is about what happens after that day: where your own way actually comes from, how to go looking for it on purpose, and the one trap that catches almost everyone who tries.

This page covers why the copy is a step and not a destination, the five places your own way is already hiding, six things to do at the wheel that pull it out, the permission slips most people are waiting for someone to sign, the trap of calling a weakness a style, and how instructors here handle a member who wants to do it differently. Five videos.

This is the short version: the six things to do, and the permission slips. The six places your way hides, the reasoning, the trap in full, the questions and four of the five videos are in the comprehensive version.

30Pots thrown. 6 kept. That ratio is how almost every potter found their forms
1Glaze for a season teaches more about your surfaces than fifty for a week
x5Videos, from potters and artists who do not work here
x6Things to do at the wheel that pull your way out
Jump to a section
Why this page has words and video The whole idea in four lines Why the copy is a step and not a destination Where your way is already hiding Six things to do at the wheel The permission slips The trap Five voices on finding your own work The one video to watch How it works at The Clay Hole Questions people actually ask Related lessons

Why copying ends, where your way hides, six things to do, the permission slips, the trap, five videos.

Read it, then watch it

Why this is written down and filmed, both.

This is not a technique page, and it cannot be filmed the way one can. Nobody has ever recorded the moment a potter looked at a shelf of their own bowls and saw the one that was theirs. What can be filmed is other people talking about how it happened to them, and it turns out that hearing five different potters and artists describe the same slow process in five different ways is about the most useful thing there is, because the process is the same and the pots are not.

So read the page for the shape of the idea, and watch the videos for the voices. Reading gives you a map you can hold, and listening to someone who found their work gives you the sense that it is findable. Then go to the wheel and throw thirty of something.

Use both, in this order

The five places your way hides, then the six things to do. Then the first video. Then a bag of clay and a form you already know.

The whole idea

Copy to learn the pot. Then look at your own shelf until you see the one that is yours.

Copying is how every potter learns a form, and it is also how a shelf fills with pots anyone could have made. Your own way is not invented; it is noticed, in your hands, your kitchen, the clay you reach for, the mistake you keep making, and the pots you keep looking at. Throw thirty of one form, keep the six you cannot stop looking at, and make those again. Give yourself permission to make only what you love, and never call a weakness a style until you can do the strong version on purpose.

Copying

The copy is how you learn the pot. It is not the pot.

Every apprentice in every tradition spent years making the master’s forms, and for one reason: you cannot learn what a bowl is by thinking about bowls. You learn it in your hands, by making the bowl someone already worked out. The class demo mug, the video bowl, the glaze combination from the person at the next wheel: those are the same thing, and they are exactly the right way to start. The clay does not know you copied it, and the skill goes into your hands either way.

The trouble is not copying. It is stopping there. A shelf of pots that are all somebody else’s forms, in somebody else’s glazes, arranged the way the feed arranges them, is a shelf that could belong to anyone, and at some point that starts to feel like it. The feeling is not envy and it is not a lack of talent. It is the ordinary discomfort of a person whose hands have caught up with their eyes, and who now has to decide what to do with them.

Copying puts the skill in your hands. What you do with the skill is where the pots become yours.

The algorithm makes this harder than it used to be, and it is worth saying plainly. The feed rewards the same six forms and the same four glazes, over and over, because they photograph well and they are what people already like. A studio full of members who learned from the feed ends up with a shelf of the same mug, and none of those mugs is wrong. It is just worth noticing, on the night you notice it, that the mug is not yours yet.

The six places

Your own way is not invented. It is already hiding in six places.

Nobody sits down and designs a style. They notice one. Here is where to look.

Your handsYour reach, your grip, the size of the mug that fits your hand, the wall thickness your fingers naturally leave. A potter with small hands throws a different bowl from one with large hands, and fighting that is how pots get stiff.
Your kitchenGo home and look at what you actually eat and drink from. The bowl that is always in the sink is telling you what you value in a bowl. Make that, first, and you will find you have opinions about it nobody taught you.
The clay you reach forSome people gravitate to porcelain and some to grog, and it is not random. The clay you keep choosing is choosing your surfaces, your forms and your patience for you. Follow it further before you fight it.
The mistake you keep makingA rim that always flares. A foot that always comes out too tall. A wobble in the same place. A mistake you make every time is a habit, and a habit you can do on purpose is a style. Learn to do it straight first, then decide.
The pots you keep looking atNot the ones you keep liking online. The ones on your own shelf that you pick up and turn over when you should be doing something else. That reflex is the most reliable signal you have, and most people ignore it because the pot is not perfect.
What you refuse to doThe forms you do not want to make and the surfaces you find boring are as much a part of your way as the ones you love. A potter who will not glaze glossy has already made half of their decisions.

At the wheel

Six things to do that pull your way out of you.

Six things to do.

None of these is a trick. They are the same slow methods every potter you admire used, said out loud.

The same slow methods every potter you admire used.

  1. 1Throw thirty of one form and keep sixOne form, one clay weight, thirty times over a few visits, each one allowed to be different. Line them up on a bat. Keep the six you cannot stop looking at. Reclaim the rest without ceremony. The six are your first opinion.
  2. 2Make the six againNow the keepers are the plan. Throw them again, deliberately, and see whether you can make the thing you noticed on purpose. When you can, it is yours. Our plan or no plan lesson is about that switch.
  3. 3One glaze for a seasonPick one glaze from the wall, or one combination from your tiles, and use nothing else for three months, on everything. You will learn its behavior on every form you make, and you will learn what your forms look like without a surface doing the talking.
  4. 4Ask people what they use, not what they likeGive away a few pots and ask, a month later, which one lives on the counter. What people reach for is the truth. What they said at the time is manners.
  5. 5Break one rule per pot, and say whichA folded rim on a form that never gets one. A trimmed foot on a mug. A glaze where it does not belong. One deliberate wrong thing on each pot, named before you do it, and the rest of the pot made straight. Some of them will be terrible and one of them will be the start of something.
  6. 6Stop scrolling for a monthNot forever. A month. Long enough to find out what you make when nobody is showing you what to make. Our comparison lesson is the long version of why.

Permission

The permission slips people are waiting for someone to sign.

The permission slips.

Nobody is going to sign them. Consider them signed.

Consider them signed.

It is fine to make ugly pots you love

The pot that is technically wrong and that you cannot put down is worth more to your work than the pot that is technically right and forgettable. Keep it. Make it again.

It is fine to make only one thing

Some potters make mugs for a decade. Some make only planters. A body of work is not a range, it is a depth, and depth comes from repetition nobody else can see the point of.

It is fine to never throw

Hand building is not the beginner version of pottery. Coils, slabs, pinch pots and sculpture are whole traditions, and some of the best potters in the world have never centered a lump of clay.

It is fine to never hand build

And the reverse. A thrower who does not want to make a slab box is not missing something. They are focused.

It is fine to change your mind

The way you found this year is not a contract. Most potters have three or four of them across a working life, and the earlier ones are how they got to the later ones.

It is fine to ignore the demo

Instructors here teach a method that works for most hands. If your hands center a different way and the clay ends up centered, your way is the method. Take what works and leave the rest, and say so, because instructors like knowing.

The one trap

A weakness is not a style until you can do the strong version on purpose.

Here is the honest part, which every page like this owes its reader. The fastest way to talk yourself out of fundamentals is to call the thing you cannot do yet a choice. A wobbly cylinder is not an organic aesthetic. A foot that cannot be trimmed level is not rustic. A glaze that crawled is not a texture. Those things can all become styles, and some of the most beautiful pots ever made are wobbly, unlevel and crawled, but they were made by people who could throw a straight cylinder, trim a level foot and lay a glaze flat, and who chose not to.

The test is simple and it is fair. Can you do the straight version, on purpose, tonight? If yes, the wobble is yours to keep, and nobody gets to call it a mistake. If no, the wobble is still a mistake, and the way to own it is to go and learn the straight version first. It usually takes less time than the argument.

The order that works

Fundamentals until they are boring. Then the rules broken one at a time, on purpose, named out loud. That order produces a style. The other order produces an excuse with a glaze on it.

Watch it done

Now hear five people describe how it happened to them.

Watch this one, then go throw thirty.

None of these people work here or know we exist. Two are potters, three are artists in other materials, and they describe the same slow process in five different voices, which is the point. The still frames load while you read; the player and its cookies wait until you press play.

Seventeen minutes from a working potter on how a body of work developed, slowly, by looking. The other four videos are in the comprehensive version.

Start here: a potter on finding itHow to Find Your Own Unique Creative Style in PotteryOxford Clay
Seventeen minutes from a working potter on how a recognizable body of work actually developed, which is slowly, by looking. The closest thing to this page on camera. Watch on YouTube
One exercise, six strategiesHow To Find Your Art Style (Using this 1 Exercise & 6 Possible Strategies)Contemporary Art Issue
Not a potter. An art critic laying out the exercise most artists used without naming it, and six ways in. Eleven minutes; translate every example to clay. Watch on YouTube
Seven minutes, one methodDo this to find your own unique style in potteryNic Torres Art
A potter describing the throw-many-keep-few method from step one, in his own terms, with his own pots. Watch on YouTube
An older voice on the same thingFinding Your Ceramic Stylebrookfieldpottery
Ten minutes from a potter years ago, before the feed existed, saying the same things this page says. Reassuring in exactly that way. Watch on YouTube
The fast version, for artists of any kindHow to find your art style FAST in 3 easy steps (yeah, really)Kelsey Rodriguez
Not a potter, and irreverent about it. Seven minutes on why the search is shorter than people fear, from an illustrator two million people have watched say it. Watch on YouTube

How it works here

Instructors teach a method. Your method is welcome.

This page is written for potters everywhere. Here is where our studio stands.

Three things to know here

Instructors teach a method that works for most hands, and if yours works differently and the pot comes out right, yours is the method. Reclaim is free, so throwing thirty and keeping six costs nothing. And the glaze wall has more than 650 brush-on glazes, which is a reason to pick one and stay with it for a season.

The demo is a starting point

Instructors teach the centering, pulling and trimming that work for most people. If your hands do it differently and the clay ends up where it should, that is your method, and instructors would rather know than watch you fight the demo. Say so.

Reclaim is free

Throw thirty, keep six, and the other twenty-four go into the reclaim at no cost. The whole method on this page runs on clay you get back.

A wall of 650 glazes

More brush-on glazes than anyone can learn in a year, which is a reason to pick one and stay with it for a season. The Mega Glaze Tool will help you choose the one.

Shelf space

Keepers go on your shelf with a name and a date. The thirty-pot bat is one bat, under a sheet, decided on the next visit. Nobody is grading it, and nobody will move it.

Every Level, every method

Wheels, slab rollers and slab molds are open to every Level. Whether your way turns out to be throwing, hand building, sculpture or something with a slab mold nobody has tried, the building has room for it.

Show and tell

When something comes off your shelf that is yours, bring it to show and tell. The members who have found their work are the ones who will see it in yours first.

Questions people actually ask

The ones that come up at show and tell.

Is it wrong to copy a pot from a video?

No. It is how every potter learns a form, and it puts the skill in your hands. The only thing to watch for is stopping there. Copy to learn the pot, then look at your own shelf.

How do I find my style?

You do not find it; you notice it. Throw thirty of one form, keep the six you cannot stop looking at, make those again. Repeat with the next form. It is slower than it sounds and faster than you fear.

What if my style is just my mistakes?

Then it is not a style yet. Learn the straight version, on purpose, and then decide whether to keep the wobble. A weakness you can turn off is a choice. A weakness you cannot is still a weakness.

Do I have to throw to be a real potter?

No. Hand building, coiling, slab work and sculpture are whole traditions, and some of the best potters alive have never centered a lump. The reverse is also true.

The instructor centers differently from me. Who is right?

If the clay ends up centered, you both are. Instructors teach the method that works for most hands and they would rather know yours works than watch you struggle with theirs. Tell them.

How long does it take?

Years, and it never quite finishes, and most potters have three or four ways across a working life. The good news is that the first one shows up faster than anyone expects, usually in the second or third batch of thirty.

Should I stop looking at other potters online?

For a month, yes. Long enough to find out what you make when nobody is showing you what to make. Then go back with your own shelf in your head, and the feed will look different.

Related lessons

Six lessons that sit next to this one.

Three to read next.

These are the other Electives about the person at the wheel, and the pages about the fundamentals that make a style possible.

ElectivesKeep Trying New Things in PotteryWhere the next way comes from, after this one. ElectivesComparison Is the Thief of JoyWhy the feed makes this harder, and what to do about it. ElectivesSometimes Pottery Needs a PlanThe switch from keeping six to making them on purpose. The pottery wheelHow to Throw on the Pottery WheelThe straight cylinder you need before the wobble is yours. ElectivesOvercoming Imposter SyndromeFor the night the shelf looks like it belongs to someone else. GlazingGetting the Most Out of the Mega Glaze ToolPicking the one glaze for a season.

That is the whole idea

Learn the pot. Then make yours.

The potters whose work you would know anywhere all copied someone once, and every one of them can tell you who. What made their pots theirs was not talent and it was not refusing help. It was hundreds of evenings of looking at what came off their own wheel and keeping the six that looked back. That evening is available to you tonight.

If you want the reasoning, the trap in full, the questions and the other four videos, switch to the comprehensive version at the top. Otherwise, throw thirty of something, and keep six.

Back to Clay Hole University Keep Trying New Things in Pottery

Written for potters everywhere. Where our studio does things differently, the page says so.