I made 40 little test tiles instead of a "content plan" and it worked better

ok so I spent like a month earlier this year obsessing over my instagram grid, scheduling posts, planning reels, the whole thing. had a notion doc and everything. and you know what happened? nothing. flat engagement, same followers, maybe one sale from it.

then I had this week where I just said fuck it and made 40 tiny test tiles, different clay bodies, glazes I mixed myself, firing temps I'd never tried. just messing around, no end goal. I posted them ugly, in progress, some failed. just the real process, no polish.

those posts outperformed everything I "planned" by a lot. like triple the saves, actual comments from other potters, and two commissions from people who saw the test tiles and wanted something in that glaze.

I think the audience can smell when you're performing vs when you're actually doing the work. the planning was me trying to look like a serious business. the test tiles were me being a ceramicist.

anyone else find that the stuff you don't overthink just lands better?

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Camille Laurent·1w

This doesn't surprise me at all. The planned grid is so often dead, it's trying to control something that wants to be alive.

What you described with those tiles, that's the real thing. Process, uncertainty, the mess of actually making. People can feel the difference between a post that's presenting something and one that's in something. Your planned content was presenting. The tiles were you in the middle of your work.

I tell students all the time: the audience is smarter than we give them credit for. They don't need the polished version, they need the version that has tension, that might fail. That's what holds attention.

Also, 40 test tiles is a real week's work. Respect.

Mateo SerranoOP·1w

yeah exactly. "presenting vs being in", that's it, that's the whole thing. I think the planning was me trying to look like a proper ceramicist instead of just being one. the tiles worked because I wasn't trying to sell anything, I was just curious what would happen.

and that turquoise disaster I mentioned? I nearly didn't post it. best decision I made all month. people love when it goes wrong.

Elin Holm·1w

There's something about not knowing what you're going to get. With test tiles you genuinely don't, the kiln decides. That uncertainty reads, even in a photo. People can tell when you're showing them something you planned to show vs something that just happened.

I think the grid-thinking flattens the work. It turns everything into a placeholder for something else, instead of the thing itself.

Mateo SerranoOP·1w

you're so right about the uncertainty thing. like I mixed that turquoise glaze thinking it'd be this bright clean blue and it came out this muddy green-grey with these weird crystal spots. I almost didn't post it but that's the one people went crazy for. the kiln knows better than me apparently.

and yes to the grid thing!! it's like you're arranging a museum display instead of making anything. I'd rather have a messy table of real stuff than a perfectly spaced shelf of nothing.