Made, Messed Up, Kept Going

This is my making journey. Not a highlight reel.

I'm a ceramicist. I have a degree in it, and a master's. And I still make things that go wrong. I still have days where I sit at the wheel and nothing works. I still pull a piece out of the kiln and feel disappointed.

I'm telling you that because if you've ever looked at someone's work and thought I could never do that — I want you to know you're not seeing the full picture. You're seeing the pieces that survived. Not the ones that cracked, collapsed, or went in the bin.

This page is the full picture. Or at least, a more honest version of it.

Why I make

Making has always been how I process things.

I grew up with undiagnosed ADHD. School was hard in ways that nobody really understood at the time. I felt misunderstood a lot. But when I had something in my hands — clay, paper, materials — something shifted. I could think differently. I could communicate things I couldn't put into words.

That's still true now. Making is where I go when things are complicated. It's not always pretty. But it's always honest.

The work I do with Just Be You comes from that same place — a genuine belief that making things can help people work through stuff that's hard to talk about. I didn't come to that academically. I came to it through my own experience.

Clay, mostly. But not only clay.

My main practice is ceramics — handbuilding, throwing on the wheel, surface work. I love the directness of clay. It responds to how you're feeling. When you're tense, it knows. When you relax into it, it does too.

I also work with found materials, paper, mixed media, and whatever else makes sense for a project. Some of my work is autobiographical — made to process something I've been through. Some of it is made collaboratively, with communities and groups. Some of it is just me experimenting in the studio with no plan.

Not all of it works. That's part of it.

Things I've made that didn't go the way I wanted

A piece I threw and was really proud of — cracked clean in half in the kiln.

Glazes that looked nothing like I expected. Sometimes better. Mostly not.

A whole body of work I made during a difficult period that felt important while I was making it, and that I now look at and cringe slightly. But I also don't regret any of it.

Work that felt technically good but emotionally empty.

Work that felt emotionally true but looked rough and unfinished.

That gap between what you're trying to make and what actually comes out — that gap is where most of the learning happens. I've come to think that's not a failure of skill. It's just what making is.

You don't have to be good at it for it to matter.

People come to Just Be You sessions — in schools, in community spaces, in workshops — and one of the first things they often say is I'm not creative or I can't draw or I'll just mess it up.

I understand that. I've felt it too. Even now, after years of practice, I can walk into a studio and feel completely out of my depth.

But the point was never to be good. The point is to make something. To use your hands. To be in the process. To let something that's been stuck inside you come out in a way that doesn't need words.

That's what I believe making can do. Not for everyone, in the same way, all the time. But for a lot of people, more often than they expect.

If you're someone who's told yourself you can't make things — I'd like you to look through what's on this page and see if you still believe that.