Pottery – Freedom From Perfection

Posted on 16 September 2023 by wellnesswarriors

From painting the cutest vases, mugs and plates to the practice of creating with our hands, pottery is full of benefits. I have experienced both the crafting of clay with my hands, and also the painting of someone else’s creation of clay. I found both to be calming and healing because they allow freedom from perfection.

Let’s start with throwing pottery. I visited the Cotswolds late last year, with my partner, on a day when the streets were beginning to be graced with hues of auburn, burgundy and gold. We arrived at this beautiful, family-run pottery company who regularly run workshops using potter’s wheels. We were greeted warmly and told that throwing pottery was challenging. In fact, they said that perfect was rarely an option. There was something so freeing in thinking that perfect wasn’t an outcome for today. That we sat, all total beginners, in this room just ‘playing’ with clay. Yes, it did feel like playing. We were giggling and laughing as clay span off wheels onto the floor or each other, as clay crumpled in our hands, as the pottery we had just almost finished broke down into pieces. Perfection didn’t exist. I think that’s important. Creativity is important because it is one of the only places in life where perfection isn’t the end goal. Some of the best, creative outcomes are those which are far less than perfect. My favourite piece that I took home had a big chunk missing from the top, and I liked it. It gave my creation ‘character’. I enjoyed creating it, and it was magical to see it grow and change in my hands. That growth or change didn’t need to be perfect. Isn’t that a lesson for life?

It was a totally different experience painting pottery. First of all, you start with perfection. You get to choose somebody’s hand-crafted clay, you work with professional paints and brushes and sometimes you even get professional advice on how to paint. I was already getting a little stressed on how my mug would turn out, but then I started. I forgot what I was aiming for as I chose some of my favourite colours to paint. I forgot that I wanted it to be perfect when I sat and painted. I forgot that I shouldn’t paint over the lines when my friend made me laugh and my hand slipped. It had character. So what if it was patchy or if the colours were in the ‘wrong’ places? Why should there be wrong places? There were no wrong places with my mug because it was MY creation. I loved it as it was.

Pottery is a form of creativity and like most forms, it unleashes our brain from societal constraints. When we create, we don’t have to be perfect, we can just be us. I let go of all my worries and stress when I was throwing pottery, or painting pottery. Simply because I did not have the brain power to hold onto those thoughts and concentrate on pottery. It allowed me to escape my worries and also, to escape perfectionism. Pottery is a lesson not to take things too seriously. Perfect is an ideal forced upon us by society, which we all know is unattainable but still strive to achieve it. Take a break from your worries and from perfectionism with pottery. Remember, every diversion from perfectionism is one step closer to character.

(WW) Brooke