Wins·Mateo Serrano·1d

A woman came to the market on Sunday, picked up the tall vessel with the crooked neck, the one that slumped in the second firing and I spent a whole week deciding whether to break it or pretend it was on purpose. She held it up to the light and said "this one looks like it's listening." I sold it. Full price. I didn't even have to do my speech about how the leaning is intentional. Here's the thing though, I've been making for two years now and I still can't predict which piece people will go for. The ones I sand for an hour and finish in three glazes sit there all day. The one I pulled out of the kiln and said "joder, no" goes home with someone who sees something I didn't. So my win is small and confusing: the piece I nearly destroyed is now in somebody's living room in Godella. I keep thinking about that woman's face. She wasn't being polite, she actually looked at it. Anyway I'm not going to start making everything crooked on purpose. Or maybe I am. Kiln doesn't care either way.

Studio Life·Mateo Serrano·2d

There's an old radio in the studio, a Grundig my abuelo had in the kitchen, and it only picks up anything if the antenna is wrapped in a bit of foil and propped at exactly the angle I found by accident two years ago. If I move it, silence. If I bump the shelf, silence. So I don't move it. I've built the whole morning around it. It has to be on before I open the clay bag, always the same station, some talk program where a man argues with callers about football and then they play boleros. I don't even like the program. But if it's quiet in there I start hearing my own head too much and then I sit looking at the piece for twenty minutes doing nothing. I tried to replace it once, bought a cheap bluetooth speaker, and I used it for three days and then went back to the foil. The speaker works perfect. Maybe that's the problem. Anyway it died this morning mid-sentence, no reason, and I spent an hour with my hands wet and no sound at all. Got more done than usual and I hated it. Anyone else got a thing in the studio that's broken in a useful way?

Artwork Feedback·Mateo Serrano·3d

so I've got this tall hand-built vessel, maybe 60cm, leaning on purpose like it's about to say something. been working on it for three weeks. spent two whole evenings on the face that comes out of the glaze around the shoulder. opened the kiln yesterday and the glaze crawled off the chin. just. gone. a bald patch right where the jaw was, and now it looks like the figure has a scar I never planned for. here's my problem and I need someone to be honest with me about it. half of me thinks the scar is better than the face was. the other half thinks I'm doing the classic thing where I call a mistake a "choice" because I'm too tired to start again. I've got a market in two weeks and this is supposed to be the piece on the table. I know what the fix is technically. grind it back, refire lower, thin the glaze on the second pass. that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking how you know when an accident is actually better, and when you're just lying to yourself because the kiln is a bastard and you're tired.

Wins·Mateo Serrano·5d

Opened the kiln this morning and my tallest piece, the one I'd been building up for three weeks with the neck leaning like it's listening to something, came out in two pieces. Clean break at the shoulder. No drama, no explosion, it just decided. And here's the thing: I'm not gutted. Six months ago I would have sat on the studio floor for an hour. This time I picked it up, looked at the break, and the two halves actually look better than the whole thing did. The inside is this pale unglazed white I'd never seen because I always cover it. So now I'm thinking, do I join them back with a visible seam and some gold-ish glaze, or do I leave it as two objects that know each other? Also means my shelf for the market on Sunday has a gap in the middle. Which, honestly, might be the best thing that could happen to that table. Anyone else had a piece that broke into something more interesting?

Studio Life·Mateo Serrano·6d

My wedging table has been standing there for four months holding a bag of plaster, three empty bottles and my keys. I do all the wedging on the floor now, on a canvas sheet, knees on the tiles. Started because I needed the table for drying pieces and never gave it back. Now I can't do it any other way. On the floor I use my whole body for the spiral and I can feel the air pockets leaving, like little pops under the palm. Standing at a table I was mostly using arms and the clay stayed stiff in the middle. Floor it comes out even. Downside is the knees and that I have to sweep before I start or I'm wedging in whatever came off my shoes. Also my neighbour below has asked twice what the thumping is. Not saying is better for everyone, my back is already filing complaints. But is anyone else working lower than they should be? I want to know if I'm the only one crouching on the ground like a goblin at 11pm

General·Mateo Serrano·1w

i built these three little heads last month, all from the same lump of clay, and i swear they were meant to be the same face. same pinch, same eye sockets, same mouth line. open the kiln this morning and two of them have the mouth pulled open like they're saying something, and the third one looks like it's asleep. same clay. same firing. i did nothing different and the kiln decided they were three different people. my grandmother came by and said the two open ones look like they're arguing with each other, which is fair, they do. now i have to price them and i don't know if i can sell the argument. it's mine now, in a way the sleeping one isn't. anyway the glaze crawled off one of the chins, so there's also that. friday.

Marketing & Social·Mateo Serrano·1w

did the Mercado de Tapinería this weekend, first stall since June. ten pieces out, four sold. which is not good money once you count the stall fee and the hours, and I was in a mood about it sunday night. but the three that didn't sell were the weird ones, the tall vessel with the crooked neck and the two little heads with the glaze dripping down the chin like they're crying. people kept picking them up and putting them back down and one woman stood there for maybe four minutes just holding the crooked one and turning it. yesterday she messaged me: can you make a set of six for a dining table. so the thing I thought was my failure pile turned into the actual work. meanwhile the safe little bowls, the ones I make because they always go, sold in the first hour and I already forget who bought them. I'm not going to pretend I know what to do with that information. I can't pay rent with a commission that lands in November. but I keep thinking I've been building the wrong catalog. anyone else find that the stuff you almost don't bring is the stuff that pulls?

Wins·Mateo Serrano·1w

third face on this vase. first one the nose slumped in the kiln, second one the glaze ran and she came out looking like she was crying brown tears. this one, the eyes are actually there. she's looking slightly past you, a bit annoyed, and I have no idea how that happened. it's not a good piece. the neck is too thin and I already know it won't survive shipping if anyone buys it. but I sat on the kitchen floor at 1am with the light on and just turned her around in my hands for like twenty minutes. my flatmate came out for water and asked if I was okay. anyway. nobody in my family has seen it yet. I sent a photo to my grandmother and she said "this one has a soul." she says that about everything so. but this one I almost believe her. nine months of noses sliding off and now I don't want to touch the kiln again in case I break the streak.

Gallery Outreach·Mateo Serrano·1w

ok so I want to hear the real stories, not the polished ones. mine: I got my first "gallery" because I was doing a market in Ruzafa, a woman bought two small vessels, and three weeks later she messaged me saying she ran a space and wanted to show my stuff. I said yes before I even googled her. Turned out it was a bar with one wall and a very good wine list. Sold nothing. But I learned how to hang a show in one afternoon and I still say "my first exhibition" about it, so. how did yours actually happen? cold email, walk in with a box of work, someone's cousin, a group show you almost didn't apply to? and was it a real gallery or a bar with a wall? honest answers only

Gallery Outreach·Mateo Serrano·1w

I sent one last month and I'm still recovering. Subject line: "ceramics, Valencia, please look." That's it. I wrote it at 1am with clay still under my nails and hit send before I could think. No answer, obviously. so I'm asking the people who've actually had a yes: what goes in the subject line? do you name the work, put your name, write something that sounds like a person and not a catalogue? I keep swinging between boring and too cute and both feel wrong. and did anyone ever get a reply from a terrible email? tell me there's hope for the 1am ones

Artwork Feedback·Mateo Serrano·2w

So here's the thing that's eating me. I've got this tall bottle form, maybe 40cm, hand-built, it leans like it's tired. I did the base glaze in a copper red, and then over the belly I layered a tin white with a little rutile in it, thinking I'd get these soft clouds breaking over the red. In my head it was gorgeous. Out of the kiln this morning it's a bruise. The white went grey and pulled up into these hard islands, and the red underneath went almost purple where they meet. Not soft at all. It looks like something that's healing badly. And the annoying part is, I kind of like it. But I can't tell if I like it because it's actually good, or because I spent three weeks on it and I'm rationalizing. The real question I keep circling: do you chase the result you designed, or do you take the surprise and redesign around it? Because I can refire and probably get closer to the clouds. Or I can lean into the bruise and make it uglier on purpose, which is more honest to how the piece already feels. I've been staring at it on the bench for two hours with a coffee that went cold. My grandmother saw a photo and said it looks like a sky before a storm, which did not help me decide anything, but I keep thinking about it. Anyway if you glaze over glaze people, tell me how you handle two colors that don't want to be friends.

Pricing·Mateo Serrano·2w

A woman at the Ruzafa market picked up one of my little leaning cups on Sunday, the tall one that came out of the glaze with a face half sunk in it. Asked how much. I said 85 and she didn't even blink, paid in cash, walked off happy. The thing is I'd already decided in my head that cup was a failure. It's the third one from a batch of six, the other five sold for 60 and 65 and I'd basically priced the ugly one as a tax, like if you want the weird one you pay more. She got a bargain and I got 85 euro for something I was two days from just keeping on my own shelf. Here's what's actually bothering me. I don't have a price for my work, I have a mood. Depends who asks, depends if it's Sunday, depends if I'm behind on the clay bill. Last month I sold two pieces in the same afternoon, one for 45 and one for 140, and I could not tell you now why. My grandmother is the only one who says it straight, she told me the 45 one was prettier and I should have charged double for it and I think she's right and I hate it. I'm not asking what to charge for a cup. I want to know if anyone else out there has an actual number they hold steady, or if we're all just vibing our way through markets and hoping the rent works out.

General·Mateo Serrano·2w

she came to the market on Sunday, stood at my table for like 20 minutes holding this little wonky bowl with a face half sunk in the glaze, the one where the eye came out a bit crossed. I told her it was a failed one, I only brought it to fill the table. and she pulls out her purse and asks how much. I said no no it's for you, take it. she said no, I want to pay, you work. and I don't know, we went back and forth in front of everyone until she put 20 euros under the cloth and walked off like nothing happened. joder. I know it's a nice thing. it is. but it sat weird all night. my whole family still thinks this is a phase I'm doing before I get a real job, and she's the only one who never said that. so her paying me felt like, I don't know, like she wanted to be a customer instead of just my abuela who likes my things. or maybe she was saying she believes it's worth something. both? probably both. the 20 is still in my jacket pocket. I don't want to spend it and I don't want to give it back, that feels worse. so it's just sitting there.

Gallery Outreach·Mateo Serrano·2w

So I got my first (small, tiny, one wall) gallery show in the dumbest way. I was carrying a box of three of my wonky vessels across town for a market, they were rattling and I was sure two were cracked, and I stopped for a coffee on the way. Owner of a little space next door sees me, asks what's in the box. Next thing I'm showing him one on the floor of his cafe. He put them on a wall for a month and sold one. No email, no portfolio, no nothing. I keep wondering if that's normal or if I just got lucky with a man who likes coffee and ugly ceramics. So tell me, how did you actually land your first gallery? Cold email, walk in with the work under your arm, a friend hooked you up, an open call you almost missed? And did it go anywhere after or was it a one-time thing? I want the real story, not the polite version.

Rants & Vents·Mateo Serrano·2w

Spent three weeks on a tall handbuilt vessel, the neck leaning like it's listening to something. Textured with a wooden rib until my arm ached. Glazed it in that pale green I mix myself, the one my abuela says looks like the sea at El Saler when it's grey out. She named the piece, actually. Called it "la que escucha." The one that listens. Went to open the kiln this morning, half nervous like always, and the whole thing had slumped. Not cracked, not exploded. Just folded over on itself like it got tired of standing. Now it's a green puddle glued to a shelf I'll be chipping at with a chisel for the rest of the afternoon. The worst part is I know what I did wrong. Packed it too low in the stack, fired a bit fast, didn't give it a slow enough ramp at the start. Rookie stuff. I've done this firing maybe forty times and I still rush it when I'm excited. Anyway the shelf is ruined, my hands smell like vinegar, and there's a lump of green glass on my bench I can't throw away yet. Going to go sit outside with a coffee and pretend I'm fine about it.

Pricing·Mateo Serrano·2w

Sat at the market in Ruzafa on Sunday with about thirty pieces and the small bowls were 45. Sold eleven of them. Felt like a great day until I did the actual math in the van. Clay, glaze, two firings, my table fee, the hours. Works out around 3 euros an hour and that's if I don't count the ones that cracked. Which I always don't count. Funny how the cracked ones disappear from the spreadsheet. The thing is people pick up a bowl, turn it in their hands, and 45 feels like the right number to them. And I keep agreeing with them because saying 70 out loud makes me feel like I'm taking the piss. My grandmother asked what I sold and when I told her the price she just looked at me and said "y eso?" and went back to her coffee. She's not wrong. I know the answer is raise the price. I've known it for a year. I'm just scared that at 70 nobody picks it up and then I have thirty bowls and no money and proof that I'm not as good as I think. Which is a stupid reason, I know. But there it is. Curious if anyone here actually made the jump and what happened, because I keep circling it.

Marketing & Social·Mateo Serrano·3w

Vale, real numbers because I'm tired of vague advice. My last three glaze process reels: 340, 210, 180 views. A story I posted from the studio at 23:40 with a photo of the kiln door and the words "esto va a salir mal, lo sé" (this is going to come out bad, I know it): 1200 views, and 9 people replied asking what I was firing. So the thing that "works" is me admitting I don't know. Not the finished piece. Not the timelapse. Me at midnight, in a dirty apron, betting against my own work. I think this is because everyone can smell when a post is a shop window. And a kiln at night is just a kiln at night, no selling in it. The problem is I can't schedule genuine dread. I've tried. I posted a very constructed version of the same thing last week with nice lighting and a caption I wrote twice and it got 90 views, which honestly is what I deserved. Also my firing did come out mostly fine, one small crack at the foot, so even the dread was a lie in the end. Do any of you post the actual middle of the process, the ugly boring part, or am I just going to keep accidentally making content out of being anxious

Gallery Outreach·Mateo Serrano·3w

I'm going to be honest, my first real wall was not a gallery at all. It was a hairdresser near my barrio in Valencia, she saw one of my warped face jugs at a market, asked how much, and then said "no, better, I put it in my salon and you bring more." Sold two from there. Still chasing the actual gallery thing, so I want to hear it: where did your first "yes" actually happen? Be honest, it doesn't have to be a proper gallery. Bar, bakery, friend's restaurant, someone's office lobby. Curious how many of us got started in a place that had no business showing art. I have an email folder of galleries that never answered, so this helps me feel less stupid about it.

Studio Life·Mateo Serrano·3w

Everyone thinks the studio is loud. It's not. Music goes on for the building and the trimming, but the second the glaze bucket opens, radio off. Full silence. I can hear the brush drag on the bisque and that's the whole point, the sound tells me if the layer's too thin before the kiln does, and the kiln is less forgiving about it. Last night I did six small cups, all leaning the same direction like they're listening to something. Three of them I swear the glaze went on perfect. The other three have a drip near the foot that I already know will go ugly at 1230, but I left it. Sometimes the drip is the piece, you know? Sometimes it's just a drip. The silence also means I hear the neighbours fighting through the wall. So. Pros and cons. Anyway the kiln opens Thursday morning and I'm not sleeping Wednesday. That part never gets easier, everyone tells me it does, it does not.

Gallery Outreach·Mateo Serrano·3w

I did the stupid thing last month. Carried a box of six wonky cups into a gallery here in Valencia with no appointment, no email first, nothing. The woman at the desk was nice about it but clearly wanted me gone in under a minute. Now I'm arguing with myself about whether emailing first is better or if it just gets you filed and forgotten. So settle it for me. What's the weirdest or boldest thing you ever did that actually got you in front of someone? Walking in unannounced, sending work out of nowhere, hanging around until the owner noticed you? Or the total opposite, a cold email that somehow landed? Mine: the box of cups got me a maybe, which is more than my emails got me, so I'm leaning walk-in. Tell me I'm wrong.

Wins·Mateo Serrano·3w

my abuela never asks me for anything. she has a whole house of things she's kept since forever, she doesn't need another mug. so when she called last month and said she wanted a bowl, una fuente, for the rice on sundays, i got quiet for a second. i spent two weeks on it. hand-built, no wheel, walls maybe 4mm at the rim and thicker at the foot so it can take the oven. i was so scared of it, honestly. i made three, the first two cracked in the drying because we had that wet week and i rushed them. the third one i covered with a plastic bag for eleven days and just stared at it like an idiot. opened the kiln tuesday morning and it was whole. nothing. not one crack. i sat on the studio floor and ate a mandarin and didn't touch it for a while. i gave it to her yesterday. she turned it over, looked at the bottom, said "this one you made with your hands, no?" and put it straight in the cupboard with the dishes she actually uses. not on a shelf. in the cupboard. i've sold pieces for more than i'd like to admit and none of it felt like this. i think i've been making bowls for strangers and waiting for one person to say it's good enough to eat from. anyway. it's a bowl. i'm a mess about it.

Studio Life·Mateo Serrano·3w

The pyrometer on my little kiln reads about 40 degrees off when it's cold, then catches up somewhere past 900 and lies the other way. I know this. I've known it for months. And still every firing I stand there like an idiot sniffing the peephole like it's a wine. But the smell thing is real. Around 600 the last of the water comes out and it smells like a wet stone wall in August. Then it goes dry and a bit sharp and I know we're into the organics burning off. By the time I can smell nothing at all I'm close to where the glaze starts to move and that's my cue to stop pacing. Anyway I've got two mugs with the same wonky handle shape in there right now, cone 5, one in a celadon I've never fired before and I'm fully prepared to lose it. My flatmate says the smell is just my kiln element dying. He's probably right. I'm not telling the pyrometer either way. If you've got a kiln that lies to you, I want to know what your tells are.

General·Mateo Serrano·4w

fired a load this morning, twelve pieces, mostly the leaning ones with the faces half sunk in the glaze. opened it at 6pm. nine came out fine. three cracked right across the mouth, clean, like someone took a knife to them. the annoying part is they were the good ones. the three I actually liked. they're on the bench now and I can't throw them away yet. I know I will, probably tomorrow, but tonight they're just sitting there being better than the survivors. I keep picking one up and putting it down. weird day. warm though. if you're in Valencia and you hear a small crash around 2am, that's me.

Artwork Feedback·Mateo Serrano·4w

Spent three weeks on a head, hand built, eyes done with a copper wash that finally came out the way I wanted, glaze pooled just under the cheekbone, all of it. And it looks dead. Not subtle dead, museum diorama dead. Like something that should be behind glass with a little card saying what it ate. The problem is I fixed everything. Every time a fire came out with a chip on the lip or the neck leaned wrong I rebuilt that part until it behaved, and now the whole thing is very correct and has no air in it. My early stuff was a mess but you could feel the hand still moving in it. This one you can't. I'm not going to smash it, my grandmother would genuinely be upset, she likes this one. But I'm thinking of going back with a low fire stain and putting a hard line through the jaw, something that breaks the symmetry and gives it a direction, like it just got interrupted. Risk is I ruin a piece that took three weeks and is technically the best surface I've ever got out of the kiln. Anyone else get stuck here? Where the thing is finally good and that's exactly the problem.

Marketing & Social·Mateo Serrano·4w

last month i posted a piece i almost didn't photograph. warped rim, glaze crawled on one side, a face half sunk in. i called it fea in the caption, half joking. sold it in two days. then three people asked for a version of it. so i made the mistake of listening to them. posted the same shape again, cleaner this time, better light, nice caption about process and intention. nothing. twelve likes, zero messages. turns out what sells is the one where i'm clearly not trying to sell you something. the crooked one, photographed on my kitchen table with the light all wrong and a coffee cup in the corner i forgot to crop out. i've been doing this for enough time now to know that's annoying and true and i still can't make myself do it on purpose. the moment i try to be casual it reads as a strategy. because it is one. not asking for advice really. just putting it here because i spent all morning shooting a bowl and hating every photo.

Gallery Outreach·Mateo Serrano·4w

mine was a disaster at first: I cold-emailed a small gallery in Ruzafa with photos so bad you could barely see the glaze, and they ghosted me for four months. then a friend dragged me to an opening, I brought one piece in a tote bag like an idiot, and the owner actually liked it. still not sure if it was the work or just that I showed up in person. so tell me the real story: how did your first gallery say yes? cold email, walk-in, a friend's intro, a market where someone spotted you? and did it feel like luck or like you actually did something?

Wins·Mateo Serrano·4w

Ok so I've been trying to make this piece since maybe February. Small figure, just the hands really, cupped like she holds them when she's watching her telenovelas. Nothing fancy. My abuela's hands. The first one exploded in the bisque. Second one the fingers slumped into each other, looked like a paw. Third one I glazed too thick and it came out looking like it was wearing gloves, which is the opposite of the whole point. Opened the kiln this morning and there they were. Still a bit off, the left thumb is shorter than real life and I'm not touching it. But the position is right. The weight of them is right. I don't know why I'm posting this here except that I've been telling everyone for months that I "make figurative work" like it's a category on a form, and this is the first time I actually felt it. I called her and she said "bueno, y por qué lloras" like it was nothing, and then she stayed on the phone for 40 minutes. If you're 6 months into something and it keeps failing, it might just be a firing problem. Or it might be you have to make it 4 times.

Marketing & Social·Mateo Serrano·4w

ok so against my better judgment I started filming the studio work. vertical, phone balanced on a bucket of grogged stoneware, the fancy one. seven videos in and here is what I actually learned. the timelapse of me building a vessel got 400 views. the one where I talk through what I'm doing, 90 views. the one where the piece collapsed at the end and I just said "vale, pues" and kept my hands in the clay, 6k. six thousand. on a collapse. so the thing everyone tells you, "teach, give value, be useful," is apparently worth 90 views. me failing quietly is worth 6k. I don't know what to do with this information. am I supposed to build failure into the schedule now? break things on camera for the algorithm? the part that actually bothers me is I film so much worse when I know the camera is there. my hands get self-conscious, I over-explain, I do the little laugh. and then I'm editing at 1am instead of, you know, making the thing that the account is supposed to be about. anyway I sold two pieces from the collapse video, so. maybe the answer is just keep failing where people can see it.

Gallery Outreach·Mateo Serrano·1mo

ok so this is maybe silly but I need the group's help, I have a first meeting with a small gallery here in Valencia next week and I keep thinking about the wrong things. my first ever gallery visit two years ago I came straight from the studio, hands still grey under the nails, clay dust all down my jeans, and the woman was nice about it but I could feel her looking at my shoes. I got the show anyway (a tiny one, three pieces, corner of the room) but I've never stopped wondering if I should have made an effort. or if the clay hands actually helped, like proof I'm real. now I have this new one and I own one pair of decent trousers, and they're from my cousin's wedding. so what did you wear? full artist mode with the aprons and the paint on you, or clean clothes like a person with a job? did anyone ever get the show because they looked the part, or lose it? settle this for me, I'm genuinely split and the meeting is Tuesday

Gallery Outreach·Mateo Serrano·1mo

I got my first no from a gallery last month and honestly I'm still thinking about it. They wrote back in about four lines, very polite, "not for us at this time." Fine, vale. But then a friend told me she prefers to just walk in because a no to your face is cleaner, you can see the person, you can ask what they didn't like and learn something. I did not learn anything from my email except that they have good stationery. So which is it for you, do you want the rejection in person where you can ask questions, or by email where you can close the laptop and go throw something at the wall? And I'm curious too if anyone ever got a real answer out of a no, like actual useful feedback, or is that just a story we tell ourselves.