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i know there's a "right" way to wedge. i've watched the videos. but my body just wants to do this violent ram's head slam every time and i swear the clay remembers the aggression. my left wrist has started clicking in a way that's definitely not normal. tried soft wedging yesterday like a normal person and the clay felt dead. like i'd been polite to it and it didn't trust me. had to go back and really put my weight into it before it started feeling alive again. my teacher from the course would be so disappointed. but also she had perfect wrists at 55 so maybe she was onto something. idk. anyone else have a bad habit you KNOW you should fix but it works so you don't?

Had a really nice piece of black granite. Perfect for the piece I'm blocking out. Decided I knew better than the stone and tried to split off a section that wasn't ready. Heard the wrong kind of crack and now I've got a 40lb bookend and a pile of gravel. The worst part is I knew better. Thirty years in and I still get impatient and waste good material. My old mentor would've just looked at it and walked away. That was his move. Didn't need to say a thing. Back to the supplier tomorrow. Hope they still have some of that batch left.

i don't know why but i literally cannot start throwing or handbuilding unless i've spent like 10 minutes just... touching the clay. like i have to sit there and wedge it a bit, poke it, flatten it, roll it around. my hands have to remember it first. it's not preparation really, it's like a weird ritual. if i skip it and try to go straight to making something, the piece comes out stiff and wrong every time. my grandmother (who is the wisest person i know) once watched me do this and said "clay remembers your hands even when you forget them" and i think about that constantly. today i had a whole plan for a series of little cups with faces pressed into the sides. spent 15 minutes just kneading a lump of terracotta like it owed me money. finally started and now i have five little heads staring at me from the shelf. vale, worth it. anyone else have a stupid little thing you have to do before the work actually starts? or am i just a weirdo with clay dependency issues

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?