Hi {{first_name | worms}}!
Welcome to Brain Worms! Brain Worms is part blog, part culture newsletter - but I’m also still figuring it out. Special thanks to my friend Naomi (who is also the friend referenced below!) for designing all the logos, favicons, and dividers that are used for this newsletter!
"If you can build it once, you can build it again." This is my pottery teacher's mantra whenever my latest piece falls apart, dries out, or accidentally gets sliced through (it happens!).
My friends had fun guessing what this could be while I was making it. What do you think this is supposed to be? Scroll down to find out!
I used a rolled out slab and template to cut out the pieces of a fairy house.
I’m not known for my creativity (or patience) and I was itching for a creative outlet. Two years ago, my friend was signing up for a local wheel pottery class and encouraged me to join. I’d never done anything like that before, but wanted to give it a try. I hadn’t tried anything new and relatively low stakes in a while. There’s something special about the feeling over trying over and over again until I accomplish something, and that feeling was becoming increasingly rare for me. I was forgetting what it was like to struggle and overcome while teaching myself something new.
My back hurts just looking at a pottery wheel again.
An assortment of a few things I made on the wheel. Are they actually useful? No - but it was still fun to make them.
Using a pottery wheel is incredibly physically taxing. You sit on an incredibly hard stool and have to be just the right distance from the wheel and bend over, holding your elbows just so to be at the right angle to put adequate pressure on the clay. Once you open the hole, consistent pressure from both sides is required for the nice, even walls you’d want.
Fairy houses and a planter ready to be glazed (the most fun part!)
The house that I cut out from templates above ready for a layer of clear glaze for shiny-ness. When I posted this house to my IG story I used “House Tour” by Sabrina Carpenter as the audio.
Hunched over the pottery wheel, losing pounds of clay at a time that just got too wet, flew into the air, or got sliced through in the trimming process, there are many things that can go wrong. And yet each mistake is an opportunity to think about what went wrong and how it can be avoided the next time. Did I put too much pressure on the outside or inside? Did I use too much or too little water? Did I not spray enough water between classes to keep it moist? Did my piece just get lost in the kiln? Sometimes I’d go an entire class with nothing to show for it, but I still made good friends in the process and learned about myself.
Remember that cylinder with a gap in the middle from earlier? It became this fox. I got the instructions to build it from The Beginner’s Guide to Hand Building.
Glazed and shiny final version of the fairy houses from earlier.
Many of the items I managed to make on the pottery wheel were made by accident. A hunk of clay falls off and a bowl becomes a vase, for example. Mostly I’ve gained appreciation for the process and the amount of pain required to make something that appears so simple. On the wheel when things go poorly, it happens very quickly. I discovered that I’m better at handbuilding, which involves molding the clay with your hands and tools. It’s slower and more deliberate, and allows for more creativity at every step. It’s an opportunity to embrace whimsy - most of my pieces are just for decoration. I’ve made fairy houses, vases, a fox, and more. Of course, some turn out better than others - but I can always try building it again.
What I’m Watching/Reading/Listening to:
Love Trapped (podcast): a great listen for anyone who enjoys the intersection of reality tv and true crime
Soccernomics (book): as someone who doesn’t really watch sports this book helped me understand the data behind the World Cup (and get excited for the Women’s World Cup next year!)
Adults (show): when this show premiered last year, I loved it because it reminded me of how my friends and I talk to each other. Adults recently got a new prequel episode to make it more friendly to new viewers.
Cory Doctorow On Why AI Won't Replace Workers, But Will Crash The Economy (interview): Sometimes the discourse on AI can get very overwhelming so I liked this interview with its clear explanations of how AI is a bubble and the differences between how technology and humans complete tasks.
