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Okay, the glazing station is basically a crime scene. I have three buckets with murky water, like, a week's worth of brushes in various stages of 'drying' (read: crusty), and there's this one specific shade of blue glaze that has somehow gotten onto EVERYTHING. My apron, my hands, the shelf, probably my hair. I swear, I try to be tidy, vale? But then I get lost in mixing colors and things just... happen. Anyone else's creative space look like a Jackson Pollock painting after a mud fight?

I am trying to do a simple glaze over a dried underpainting, a bit of a warm umber glaze to unify the shadows, and it is just…mud. It’s not thinning properly, it’s grabbing the surface in streaks, and it looks like I’ve smeared dirt on the canvas. I’ve tried thinning it with a bit more solvent, a bit more oil, but nothing makes it behave. This is the same medium I always use. Sometimes I think the paint itself has a will of its own, and today it’s decided to spite me.

i have like fifteen bisque-fired pieces just sitting on a shelf waiting for glaze and i keep adding to it instead of finishing them. started a new face vase this morning because i got distracted by a photo of my grandmother from the 80s and wanted to try the hair shape. now my shelf is fuller and my glazing queue is longer and i'm pretending i don't see it. the thing is i KNOW the glaze step is where pieces actually become themselves or die but there's something about the raw bisque that feels so perfect?? like this fragile little ghost of what it could be. i'll ruin half of them in the kiln anyway so maybe i'm just stalling the heartbreak lol. anyone else have a graveyard of unfinished work that you walk past every day? or is it just my adhd clay collection

She came to the studio today. I've been sending her photos for like two years but she's never actually touched any of it until now. She picked up this lopsided little vessel with a face pressed into the side, one I almost scrapped because the glaze crawled weird, and she just held it for a minute. Then she said the glaze looked like the old robes on the figures from her village in Extremadura, the ones they'd bring out for Christmas, all blotchy and wrong but full of something. I don't think she knows how much that meant. She's the one person who never made me feel stupid for doing this, even when I was living off tortilla de patatas and rage. I made her take a piece home, the one she liked. She tried to say no. I won.

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?

Joder, just opened the kiln and half my pieces are cracked. Some of these little faces look like they're screaming now, which is... on brand I guess? But still, so much work. I think the temperature was a little too high on the glaze firing. Back to the clay dust for me, I guess. At least the ones that survived look pretty cool, especially the ones with the blue glaze pooling in weird ways.

I said yes because I felt for him. Grief makes people weird and I get it. But he sent me ONE photo of this dog, taken from like 20 feet away, half in shadow, and the dog was black so it's basically just a shape with ears. I spent 12 hours on this painting working from that and reference photos of similar breeds and he picks it up today and goes "I dunno, his nose was warmer than that." His nose. Was warmer. Than that. I wanted to say bro you sent me a photo where I can't even tell if the dog has eyes. I wanted to say the nose is gray because the dog was black and standing in shade and that's literally what color it was in the ONLY IMAGE YOU GAVE ME. I wanted to say I painted this thing with more care than I've painted anything in months because I knew it mattered to you. But I just said "I can glaze some warmth in" and he left looking disappointed and now I'm sitting here furious at myself for taking the commission and furious at him for not understanding what he was asking for and furious at the photo and furious at the whole thing. Why do we do this. Why do we take jobs we know are going to make us feel like this. Because we need money? Because we want to be helpful? Because we're so desperate to prove we can do it that we ignore every red flag? Anyway. He's coming back Saturday. I'm gonna put some warm brown in the nose area and try not to scream.

My sixteen-year-old came into the studio yesterday without knocking, which she never does, and stood behind me for maybe a full minute while I was working. Then she said, "Maman, your paintings look less sad now." I wanted to be defensive at first. But she's right. I didn't even see it until she said it. For years my palette was all terre verte and raw umber and bone black, everything in that low grey northern light. I think I was painting the inside of my own head without realising it. The fallow years I had, the disappointment, it was all there in the colour, every time. Now there's more warmth. Not bright, not cheerful, just... alive. A little Naples yellow in the shadows. A red glaze where I would have left it dead. Kids see things. She doesn't know about the decade I lost, she only knows what she sees on the easel. And she saw it.

A gallery contacted me last year, really interested, came to the studio, said all the right things about the work. Then the email: "Would you consider working in acrylic instead of oil? It would ship easier and sell better." I said no. Maybe that was stupid. But oil is what I do, the way it moves, the drying time, the glazing, it's not a preference, it's the whole practice. I don't know how to say what I want to say in acrylic. Has a gallery ever asked you to change your materials or your style to fit them? Did you bend or did you walk? I'm curious where the line is for other people.

ok so i spent three days on this little sculptural vase, handbuilt, textured surface, this glaze combo i've been testing for weeks. really proud of it. posted a reel of the process, lighting nice, good music, the whole thing. got maybe 300 views. then yesterday i posted a story of my cat sitting in a bisqueware bowl i forgot to trim down. phone footage, bad lighting, my thumb in the corner for half of it. 4.2k views. 14 dms asking if the bowl is for sale. i don't know what the game is anymore. i'm not even mad, just... confused. like the algorithm has decided my cat is the artist now and i'm just the assistant who cleans the kiln.

I brought in a small oil study yesterday, just a lemon on a blue cloth, to get it framed for a show. The woman behind the counter looked at it and said, very helpfully, "You know you could just take a photo and have the colors matched digitally, it's much more accurate than the human eye." "More accurate." To a painting. Of a lemon. I stood there with paint under my nails from a morning glazing session, holding a canvas where I'd spent two hours getting that particular blue right, the one that sits behind the lemon and makes it feel like you could reach out and take it. And she's telling me a printer would do it better. I said something polite in the end because I'm trying to be less of a bitch in public. But I wanted to say: the whole point is that it's my eye. My eye that spent twenty years learning to see. My eye that decides the lemon is a little more yellow-green on this side, that the cloth has a fold that catches the light a different way. That's not an error to be corrected. That's the entire painting. Anyway the frame is fine. But I'm still annoyed.

I've been working on this little still life for three days, just lemons and a blue cloth, nothing fancy, and I mixed this gorgeous warm shadow color yesterday, like a deep ochre-y purple, it was PERFECT. Came back this morning and it's dried into this weak, chalky lavender thing that has absolutely nothing to do with what I saw on my palette. And I KNOW gouache dries down, I know this, I've been painting with it for years, but it still gets me every time. I just sat there staring at it like... who are you. I tried glazing a thin wash of the original mix back over it and now it looks muddy and overworked and I think I need to just let it dry again and reassess but I'm so annoyed. The lemons were looking so good 😭 Has anyone found a reliable way to predict the dry-down shift or is it just eternal suffering and learning to mix everything a little punchier than you think you need?

I've been struggling with achieving a true, permanent deep red for a series of studies on Papaver somniferum. Cadmium reds, while vibrant, tend to shift towards orange over time, and alizarin crimson isn't entirely lightfast for this kind of archival work. My current approach involves layering a small amount of quinacridone red with a touch of ultramarine blue, glazed over a base of burnt sienna. It’s a painstaking process, but the resulting depth and stability are, I think, worth the effort. Does anyone else have a preferred method for this particular hue?

Seriously, I'm starting to think the only reliable way to reach people who actually care about my work is through my email list. Like, I spent ages on this new glaze technique, posted it everywhere - Insta, TikTok, even tried a few boosted posts on Facebook. Crickets. But then I sent an email about it, just a quick note with a photo, and bam! Sales. Like, actual orders came in within an hour. I know people say 'build your email list,' but joder, it feels more critical than ever when the social platforms are just these black boxes where your reach can go poof overnight. Anyone else feeling this intense pull back to the fundamentals?

was set up at the little sunday market in russafa, selling some of my smaller pieces, little jugs, a couple of those face vessels i've been working on, some bowls with this turquoise glaze i finally got right after like six fails. and this guy walks up, picks up one of the face vessels, turns it over in his hands for a while. and he goes "so, this is 3D printed, right? the texture's very uniform." joder. i wanted to hand him a ball of clay and say "here, try making a face with your bare hands, see if it comes out uniform." but i just laughed and said no, it's hand-built, you can see the fingerprints if you look. and he goes "oh, so you designed the file and printed it and then painted it?" i told him the only file involved is the one i'm gonna use to file down my patience after this conversation. he did not buy anything.

ok so I've been undercharging for literally years. selling my little handbuilt cups for €25, small wall pieces for €60, telling myself I can't ask for more because I'm still learning and who am I etc etc. finally just... raised everything. cups at €35 now, wall pieces at €80. I did the math on a single piece the other day, €25 cup, took me about 2 hours from wedging to glaze, plus firing costs, plus the ones that crack or warp in the bisque. I was basically paying myself €6 an hour and pretending that was fine. raised prices on my online shop and at the last market. nobody said a word. same people buying, same compliments. one woman even said "oh that's all?" about a piece I was nervous to price. now I'm mad I didn't do it a year ago. what are we even doing out here, giving away our time for free?

I was so sure this little vessel with the face emerging on the side was gone. There was a line I thought was a crack after the bisque firing, I almost threw it in the recycling bucket. Decided to fire it anyway out of stubbornness, or laziness, honestly, I was tired. Opened the kiln at 8am and it's not a crack. It's a thin dark line in the glaze that follows the curve of the piece and it looks like the figure is smiling through a scar. I sat on the floor with it for five minutes just turning it in my hands. These moments where the kiln decides something for you. I swear half the time I'm just the assistant and the fire is the real artist.

So I did a little market in this old garage space in El Cabanyal last weekend. Thought it'd be quiet, maybe sell a few small pieces, cover the table fee. I brought a box of seconds, things with cracks, glaze drips, a little jug that leaned so far it looked drunk. I almost didn't unpack them. Put them at the edge of the table for 10€ each, basically clay cost. They went first. People loved them more than the "good" pieces. One woman said the crack in a little cup looked like a lightning bolt and she wanted to drink her morning coffee from it. I had to stop myself from explaining it was a kiln failure. Meanwhile on Etsy I'm fighting the algorithm, paying for ads, packing things in bubble wrap like a warehouse robot. And I made more in four hours sitting in a chair drinking terrible coffee from a thermos, telling people yes that cup is supposed to look like that. I'm not saying markets are the answer for everyone. But I'm starting to think the friction of selling online is getting ridiculous for small makers. You spend more time managing the store than making the thing. At the market you just... show up. Talk to people. Hand them a wonky cup and they love it. Maybe the real hack is just lowering your standards and letting people see the ugly ones lol

There's this little vessel I made like three months ago. Handbuilt, sort of egg-shaped with a neck that bends too far to the left. I underfired it by accident and the glaze came out this weird milky grey instead of the deep green I wanted. Honestly I hate looking at it. It sits on my shelf and I keep meaning to recycle the clay. But every single person who comes to my stall picks it up. Like, reaches for it before anything else. I sold four others just like it this weekend at the market in El Cabanyal and I don't understand why. One woman said it looked "honest." I don't even know what that means. I'm not complaining exactly, it's paying for more clay. But it messes with my head a little, like maybe what I think is a mistake is actually the thing that works? Or maybe people just like weird egg shapes. I don't know. Anyway if you're reading this and you bought the grey egg thing from me on Sunday, I hope you like it more than I do. genuinely.

a girl in my studio's open session last night asked me to take a look at her piece. big abstract thing, mostly palette knife, lots of texture. i actually liked the bones of it. told her the composition was fighting itself in the lower left quadrant, too much heavy color pulling the eye down and nothing anchoring the top right to balance it. suggested she either pull some of that weight up or knock the bottom back with a glaze. she goes "i disagree, i think the tension is the point." okay. sure. then why'd you ask? i don't mind someone having a vision. i mind someone asking for help and then treating it like a debate. like i'm not trying to boss you around, i'm just telling you what my eye does when it lands on your canvas. you can take it or leave it, but don't make me defend my own visual cortex lol. i told her "fair enough, it's your painting" and walked off. felt rude but also i'm not gonna stand there and argue about why i see what i see. anyway this happens more than i'd expect and i'm curious how other people handle it. i used to dig in and try to explain myself but lately i just shrug and let them figure it out. saves my energy.