Electives · The feeling
Overcoming imposter syndrome as a potter, an artist, and a human.
There is a particular feeling that arrives in the second or third year, sometimes sooner, when the pots have started to come out well. It says the mug you are holding was a fluke, that the compliment you just got was politeness, that everyone else at the wheels tonight is a real potter and you are a person pretending. It is nearly universal, it is loudest in the people who are actually getting good, and it has never once been right about anyone. This page is about what the feeling is, why clay makes it worse, and what to do at the wheel when it shows up.
This page covers what the feeling actually sounds like in a studio, why pottery in particular breeds it, what it is really telling you, the seven things that quiet it, the two things that are not the same as it, and how the studio’s show and tell was built with it in mind. Five videos from artists who have talked about their own.
This is the short version: what the feeling is telling you, and seven things to do. The reasons, the questions and four of the five videos are in the comprehensive version.
Read it, then watch it
Why this is written down and filmed, both.
This is a page about a feeling, and feelings are hard to film and easy to fake. What films honestly is a person who has the feeling talking about it plainly, and it turns out that hearing an artist with a large following say out loud that they still feel like a fraud most mornings does something no paragraph can do: it makes the feeling smaller by making it ordinary. The reading is for the map, and the videos are for the company.
So read the page for what the feeling is and what to do, and then watch two or three people you would never have guessed had it describe it in their own words. The words give you the moves and the videos give you the permission. Then go to the wheel, which is where the feeling is quietest anyway.
Use both, in this order
The band on what the feeling is telling you, then the seven things. Then the first video. Then the wheel, tonight, whatever it says.
The whole idea
The feeling shows up when you get good enough to see how far there is to go. That is what it is.
It is not a verdict on your pots. It is what competence feels like from the inside, when you have learned enough to see the gap between what you make and what you can now imagine. Everyone at the wheels tonight has it, including the instructors, and it has never been right about anyone. The fix is not to feel ready. It is to keep the dead pots, count the hours, say thank you and stop talking, and make the next thirty.
The feeling
What it actually sounds like in a studio.
It rarely says the words. It says these instead.
“That one was a fluke”
The best mug you have ever made comes off the wheel, and the first thought is that you could not do it again. So you do not try, because trying and failing would confirm it.
“They are just being nice”
A member at the next wheel says the glaze is beautiful. You explain the three things wrong with it before they have finished the sentence. You have now taught them not to compliment your work.
“Everyone here is a real potter”
You look round the room and see thirty people who know what they are doing, and you are the exception. Every one of the thirty is thinking the same thing about you.
“I should not be selling this”
Somebody wants to buy a bowl and it feels like a con, because a real potter’s bowl would be better. The bowl holds soup. They wanted it. That is what a sale is.
“I still cannot do the basic thing”
Three years in and centering still goes wrong on Tuesdays. So does everybody’s. Centering going wrong on Tuesdays is not the mark of a beginner; it is the mark of a Tuesday.
“When they find out”
The vague dread that at some point somebody who knows will look at the shelf and see. There is nobody who knows. There are only people with shelves of their own.
Why pottery in particular
Four reasons clay breeds this feeling better than almost any other craft.
- 1Failure is public and permanentA painter’s bad canvas goes in a closet. A potter’s bad pot comes out of a shared kiln on a shared shelf where thirty people unload around it, and it is glass now, so it cannot be fixed. Everyone sees, and it is done.
- 2The kiln decides lateWeeks pass between making the thing and finding out whether it worked, and the finding out happens in a box you cannot see into. That is a long time to hold a hope, and the kiln opening feels like a verdict on you rather than on a glaze.
- 3You compare your insides to their outsidesYou know every wobble in your own pot because you were there for it. You see only the finished shelf of everyone else’s. Their reclaim bucket is not on display, and neither is their Tuesday.
- 4The feed is a highlight reel with the failures cutNobody posts the collapsed cylinder. The pots you see online are the six that survived out of thirty, filmed in daylight, from the good side. Measuring a Thursday night against that is measuring a rehearsal against a trailer.
The reframe
What the feeling is actually telling you, which is not what it says.
The feeling arrives at a specific moment: when you have learned enough to see the gap between what you make and what you can now imagine. A beginner cannot see the gap, which is why beginners are often cheerfully confident. Two years in, you can see it clearly, and the seeing feels like fraud. It is not fraud. It is the first real evidence that your eye has outrun your hands, which is exactly the order things have to happen in, because the hands only ever catch up to something the eye has already seen.
So the honest translation of the feeling is this: you are now good enough to know what good is. That is the room you wanted to be in. Everyone in it feels the same, because the gap never closes; it moves, and every time your hands catch up, your eye has already gone further. The potters you admire do not have less of this feeling. They have more of it, about better pots, and they make the next batch anyway.
The one line to remember
It has never been right about anyone. Not once. Not about you.
At the wheel
Seven things to do when it shows up.
Seven things to do.
None of these is a cure, because it is not an illness. They are habits that make the feeling quieter and the pots better at the same time, which is not a coincidence.
Habits that make the feeling quieter and the pots better at the same time.
- 1Keep the dead pots for a weekLine them up on a bat and look at them on the next visit, when you are not the person who made them. Half of what you called a failure will turn out to be a lesson, and a lesson is not evidence against you.
- 2Count hours, not potsA pot is a verdict. An hour is a fact. Two hundred hours at the wheel is two hundred hours, whatever came off it, and the number only ever goes up. Keep it somewhere you can see it.
- 3Say thank you and stopWhen someone compliments a pot, say thank you and do not list its faults. You are not lying by accepting it. You are letting another potter be right about something they can see and you cannot.
- 4Name the specific skillThe feeling is vague on purpose. Make it specific: not “I am not a real potter” but “my handles are too thin.” A vague dread cannot be practiced. A thin handle can, and our handles lesson is right there.
- 5Teach one thing to a newer memberShow someone how to wire off, or compress a rim, or find the glaze on the wall. Nothing dissolves the feeling faster than discovering that you know something someone needs, and every studio has a beginner who needs it tonight.
- 6Keep a made-this shelfOne shelf at home of pots you made, in order, oldest to newest. Not the best ones. The ones from each month. The feeling cannot survive a shelf that shows the hands catching up.
- 7Say it out loud at the wheelTell the person next to you that you feel like a fraud tonight. Watch their face. They will say me too, because it is true, and the feeling loses most of its weight the moment it stops being a secret.
The honest part
Two things that get mistaken for it, and are not.
A page like this owes its reader the other side.
Sometimes you are new
A person three weeks in who cannot center is not an imposter. They are new, and new is not fraud. The feeling on this page shows up when the skill is there and the belief is not. If the skill is not there yet, the answer is not a reframe; it is the throwing lesson and another hundred hours, and that is fine. Being new is the best place there is.
Sometimes it is humility, and humility is good
Knowing your handles are thin is not the same as believing you are a fake. The first is accurate and useful and the potters you admire have it in abundance. The difference is what you do next: humility goes to the wheel and practices handles; the feeling on this page goes home.
Watch it done
Now hear five people you would not have guessed had it.
Watch this one, then go to the wheel.
None of these people work here or know we exist. They are artists in other materials, which is the point: the feeling is not about clay, and hearing it described from outside makes it easier to see from inside. The still frames load while you read; the player and its cookies wait until you press play.
Six minutes from an artist with a serious following describing the feeling exactly. The other four videos are in the comprehensive version.
How it works here
A room built for the feeling to be smaller in.
This page is written for potters everywhere. Here is where our studio stands.
Three things to know here
Every instructor here has this feeling and will tell you so if you ask. Show and tell exists so that the pot you are unsure of gets seen by people who know what it took. And a class night is thirty to fifty people at the same tables, all of them thinking the person next to them is the real one.
The instructors have it
Ask any of them. The ones who have been throwing for twenty years have it about better pots, and they will tell you about the load last month that made them feel like a beginner. That conversation is worth more than this page.
Show and tell
Bring the pot you are unsure of, not the one you are proud of. The room has seen every mistake on the fifty ways page and it will see what the pot got right before you do.
The room is full of it
Thirty to fifty people on a class night, every one of them sure the person at the next wheel is the real potter. Say it out loud once and watch how many faces change.
Hours are the only score
Nobody here counts your reclaim. Membership is measured in months and the wheel is measured in hours, and both only go up.
Teach someone
A newer member needs to be shown how to wire off tonight. Instructors love it when a member does it, and nothing quiets the feeling faster.
When it is more than this
This page is about a feeling every potter has at the wheel. If what you are carrying is heavier than that and follows you home, talk to someone you trust or a professional; a pottery page is not the right tool for that, and there is no shame in reaching for the right one.
Questions people actually ask
The ones that come up quietly, at the end of a class.
Is it normal to feel like this three years in?
It is almost the rule. The feeling shows up when your eye has learned enough to see the gap between what you make and what you can imagine, and that usually takes two or three years of real work. It is a sign of progress that feels like the opposite.
How do I know if I am actually bad?
Look at the shelf, not the feeling. Line up a pot from each month for a year. If the hands are catching up, you are not bad; you are learning. If you cannot tell, ask an instructor, who will tell you the truth kindly and specifically.
Should I sell my work if I feel like this?
Yes, if someone wants it. The feeling is not a reason to wait, because it does not go away with time; it just moves to better pots. A bowl that holds soup and that somebody wants is a bowl that is ready.
Does it ever stop?
It gets quieter and it changes subject. Potters with decades of work still feel it about the piece on the wheel tonight. What changes is that they stop treating it as evidence.
What if I really am just new?
Then you are new, which is different and better. New is not fraud. The feeling on this page shows up when the skill is there and the belief is not; if the skill is not there yet, the answer is the wheel and more hours, and that is a fine answer.
Is this the same as being humble?
No. Humility knows the handles are thin and goes to practice handles. The feeling on this page decides that thin handles mean you should not be here. Keep the first and drop the second.
Related lessons
Six lessons that sit next to this one.
Three to read next.
The other Electives about the person at the wheel, and the pages that turn a vague dread into a specific skill.
That is the whole idea
The feeling is not evidence. The shelf is.
Every potter whose work you admire has stood in front of a kiln with their stomach in a knot, sure that this was the load that would prove it had all been luck. Then the kiln opened, and some of it was good and some of it was not, and they made the next batch anyway. That is the entire secret. There is no room you get into where the feeling stops; there is only the wheel, tonight, and the next thirty pots.
If you want why clay makes it worse, the two things that are not the same as it, the questions and the other four videos, switch to the comprehensive version at the top. Otherwise, pick one of the seven, and go center something.
Written for potters everywhere. Where our studio does things differently, the page says so.
Which version would you like to print?
Both print clean, with the videos turned into labelled boxes you can search for later.