My unofficial studio motto is inspired by an old t-shirt that I loved so much I wore it until it was more hole than fabric. Better Mistakes Tomorrow reminds me that there is joy and progress in failing; and that for me, making mistakes is essential to making art. It allows me to let go of the looming sense that I urgently, desperately need to fix what is broken. Instead, these three words help me to accept today for what it is and to look at tomorrow as another opportunity to create: to make mistakes – better ones even.
The Better Mistakes Tomorrow project has all the core values of my creative practice: an ongoing exploration of acceptance whilst finding beauty in variation and imperfections. Giving myself permission to play: allowing time and space for being a beginner, making mistakes and learning to be okay with whatever happens.
Curious about what my work would look like in different clays, I ordered fifteen sample bags in colours ranging from deep grey through pink all the way to the brightest white. Making the requisite testers only took a few grams of each, so I decided to try my hand at throwing off the hump with the remainder of the clays. After all, making actual vessels is a much better way to gauge the feel of clay on the wheel and to visualise what each clay would look like as an object.
I decided to make five cylinders out of each type of clay so I could keep one in bisq (1000°), and have glazed and unglazed ones in earthenware (1100°) and stoneware (1240°). This resulted in a wildly varied cityscape of different colours and textures that now serves as my studio reference library for future projects.
It was important to me to focus on the process, not the result. All I had was one lump of each clay to finish off, no do-overs and no restrictions: my hands were free to explore which shapes and heights came most naturally. Some of the clays were an absolute joy to throw with and worked up into tall, slim, smooth shapes in no time. Others could barely be shaped into even the tiniest salt cellar without collapsing, or left my hands raw from the sharp grog they contained.
Throwing off the hump leaves quite a lot of clay to remove at the bottom of each vessel, so after trimming over 75 of them, I was left with a block of mismatched clays all squished together. It wasn’t until I sliced the block in half that I spotted the accidentally beautiful marbled effect. Inspired by Tara Collette’s felt banners, I decided to cut the slabs of marbled clay into pennants to commemorate my unofficial studio motto: Better Mistakes Tomorrow.
If you could also do with a reminder to never stop failing at stuff, there is a limited amount of these available in the shop.