Creek Road Pottery LLC Newsletter – June 21st, 2026-
Hello from rural Pennsylvania, where the kiln bricks are numbered and waiting, the Collectors Club has its first five members, and the studio is reminding me daily that the pots don’t make themselves while I’m out buying motor oil. This newsletter covers the last few weeks of thinking, writing, and working through the questions that come up when you are trying to build something while the world around you does its best to be distracting. The themes this time around are about staying present, staying calm, and staying in the studio long enough to make something worth making.
The thread running through all of it is one I keep circling back to. You are only your present self. The past version made its mistakes and the future version will deal with whatever arrives, but the one standing here right now is the only one that gets to pick up the clay, light the kiln, or decide what the next step is. Everything I have been writing about lately has been working toward that same point from different angles. Here is the full report.
The Wrong Goals Might Still Be the Right Ones
The last few days I found myself meeting goals that had nothing to do with the kiln or the pots. I was hauling bricks up to the kiln site and was going to finish the pallet when a friend pulled in to show me his project. We swapped ideas until it was late, I fell asleep at the keyboard trying to write, and the next morning I spent buying motor oil in five-quart jugs at AutoZone to stock up ahead of what looks like rising prices due to the situation in the Middle East. Buying in bulk qualified me for half off on each filter, so the timing was right even if it wasn’t kiln work. None of it got the pots made, but it did make me feel a little better knowing the vehicles would be covered for quite some time without paying inflated prices later.
The bigger news is the launch of the Creek Road Pottery Collectors Club. For $50.00 every three months I send subscribers pots, shipping included. I started with ten slots and five filled almost immediately. That felt genuinely great. Now I have five people to make new pots for every quarter, which gives me a reason to try new things and push my skills in ways that selling at shows alone doesn’t always demand. I appreciate everyone who supports the work and take nothing for granted. Just like I write for one person and not hundreds, I make pots for myself and one other person. To have five is over the top for me. In my opinion it helps me to have empathy, generosity, and gratitude, to have the ability to create work that matters for a few folks who care.
Knowing What to Create
It might take some time to plan and test a few things, but never let not knowing what to make stall you from creating. The block might simply be the fear of failure, and starting a new thing and working out problems as you go is part of the process. Just like when we learned to walk, we first had to learn to sit up and roll over, then fall a few times after bracing ourselves on furniture. We did not wait until the perfect time to walk, nor for any muse to inspire us. We stumbled around until we took off. This has happened to me personally a few times. The block was not that I didn’t know what to make but the fear of making bad pots. I had to make all the bad pots to gain the experience to make the good ones.
There will be times when you do not know what to make. The important thing is to show up in the studio anyway and just start something. Even cleaning has led to new and exciting things for me. Taking a break and doing other things you enjoy can help break the spell of Resistance, whether that is reading a good book, taking a hike, visiting family, or creating in some other way. Just be sure not to take too long. Taking too long not knowing what to make is the way Resistance stops us from creating and bringing about the changes we seek to make. We get comfortable doing the same things and the easier things and in turn forget to spread our generosity in the world by creating and solving interesting problems.
The Regret of the Unmade Pot
Nobody ever laid down at the end of their life and said they wished they had watched more television. The regrets that stick are always the same. I wish I had made more. I wish I had tried that thing I kept thinking about. I wish I had started sooner. Working nights at the factory under fluorescent lights will put those thoughts in your head whether you invite them or not. There are moments on a long shift when my mind goes to the studio and I can see the wheel sitting there in the dark, the clay wrapped up and waiting, the kiln cold. The unmade pot is always somewhere in the back of my mind, reminding me that the clock is running.
The creative things we wish we did have a weight that the things we actually did never carry. A finished pot, even a bad one, sits on the shelf and you move on. But the pot you thought about making for three years and never sat down to throw follows you around. It doesn’t weigh anything because it doesn’t exist, and that is exactly why it’s so heavy. I have a list of things I have not made yet that is longer than the list of things I have. Slab-built lanterns. A full set of nesting bowls. The large batter bowls I keep sketching on napkins. The window does close eventually. Between now and then, there is a stretch of days that can go toward making or toward wishing you had, and those are not the same thing at all.
You Are Only Your Present Self
I have spent more time than I care to admit living in days that already happened or days that haven’t arrived yet. Standing at the wheel thinking about the pot I ruined last week or worrying about whether the kiln build will be done before the snow comes or wondering what would have happened if I had started the pottery five years earlier. None of that centers clay. None of that throws a pot. Counterfactuals are comfortable because they cost nothing to think about. You can run those scenarios all afternoon and feel like you’re working something out, but when you look up the studio is exactly the way you left it and nothing has moved.
You are only your present self. The version of me that made mistakes last year is not the one standing here today. The version of me that might face problems next winter is not the one at the wheel right now. You get to pick your future. Not all of it. The factory schedule and the weather and the price of propane are not up to me. But the choices within those constraints are mine. I get to decide whether today goes to the kiln or the rabbit hole, whether this evening is spent worrying about what might happen in August or making pots that will be ready for August when it arrives. The constraints are fixed. The choices inside them are not. The pots don’t care about counterfactuals. They care about pressure and water and speed and hands that are paying attention.
Fake Calm Until You Make Calm
It might seem impossible, but attempting to remain calm while there is chaos all around could not only benefit yourself but also others around you and your work, even if at times you may need to fake calm until you make calm. Calm spreads just like panic, and if you are in a leadership role it might be far better to spread the calm around so you can react and make better decisions. Capcom later claimed the boys in mission control were turning blue when Armstrong announced he found a good spot. His heart was at 156 beats per minute. The fuel gauge read 5.6%. His voice gave away none of it. The skill is being able to distinguish between genuine calm, productive patience, and the false calm that delays necessary action while hoping things work out on their own.
This comes into play when firing a kiln. The going rule is that you should allow one hour at least for a change to take place and to see the results before reacting and moving anything else. Personally, I am still learning, as many times I tend to be impatient and make a few different changes at once, which can be too many at a time. One of the worst things you can do is read the information wrong and continue in the wrong direction, thinking you are correct. It is possible to go the wrong way correctly and calmly simply because you lack knowledge or skill. Everything we do is practice. If you find yourself going down the wrong path, just as calmly as you walked down it you can calmly walk back to the known spot and make a better decision. No need to be that villain, projecting a false hope and sabotaging others to save only yourself. The world can be quite lonely if you come to believe you are the only one in it.
Thank you for following along and supporting Creek Road Pottery. I hope everyone is having a great summer. Every comment, visit, and bit of encouragement is most helpful to hear. Soon, I hope to show images of the finished kiln once fully built. Be sure to keep making work that matters for the people who care
Until next time,
Alford Wayman
Artist/ Owner
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