MY POTTERY BACKGROUND & WHEN ARE YOU READY? // Wheel Talk

so i've been meaning to do a little introduction video and i've actually gave this a go but talking straight to camera the whole time just i don't know it's i'm not good at doing that so i need something to distract myself i need to be doing something while i'm talking so i thought i'll just do this little series and we're gonna call it we'll talk because i'm very clever with names um basically any like questions i get from you guys or any specific topics i want to talk about i'll do it in this format because it's just it gives me something to do i feel like i can talk a lot more casually if i'm doing something and i can always just edit it down because i know when i'm throwing for example i have pause where i'm doing stuff i was just completely shut down and not talk at all which is fine but i can just edit those out and they'll be okay so recently i got a question about how i felt confident or when do you know you're ready to i guess go out on your own and you know do a bit more stuff at home and stuff like that to improve and process and eventually maybe go into looking into a career of ceramics for example and i'll also take this opportunity to see like just a quick introduction to you know who i am and what i've been doing and hopefully that gives a little bit of a idea of what's possible because for example timeline is different for everyone some people could pick things up really quick and within six months they can make things that are you know good enough that they can sell and they can you know progress really quickly and improve really quickly but some people might take longer so i'm just giving an example of what i've done and you know my sort of timeline that's gone up to this point um so while i'm doing that i'm just gonna do a bit of trimming so i threw this i threw this at the live stream on reddit um it's a recycled clay so you can still see a bit of like black marbling in it it's because i didn't wedge it very well um it's not on purpose and so it's a little bit of a heavy side i think i like what the top is doing and i think the bottom just needs to kind of really trim down to match the rest of it and i'm just going to throw because of how small the room is i'm not going to put all that weight on it i'm just going to use a chuck um there's a video on how to use this or like how to make one of these and it's really helpful for shapes like these or you know taller fastest that just won't sit on it properly i'm using a batman that's damp and i also wet the bottom of this so it's kind of like stuck on it um it should provide decent amount of stability i'm hoping i don't think that's too bad um so anyway for those that you don't know my name is kevin and so welcome to the ali's youtube channel so often i get messages where people assume my name's ali so today i just want to talk about how i got into ceramics and you know what i've done along the way to get to this point so i started about two and a bit years ago so i'm also a food photographer so i work with food stylists a lot where they just have massive collections of props that were used for photoshoots and often it's handmade ceramics that's just it's really nice and i just i fell in love with you know the idea of making something that i can photograph or like that's good enough i can use in shoots and stuff um so that's kind of how the idea came by and then also so ally the brand name dearly kind of it's named after my samoyed who have popped up in a few videos here and there do you mind no ellie no can i please recall the video without you interrupting no okay it was a bit of a joke when i said okay i want to you know make a ceramics brand that's that only sells white you know porcelain because ali is the same boy then she's pure white and we'll name it after her uh so that kind of changed because i realized there are a lot of brands that do pure white stuff and minimalistic stuff very well there's a lot less to hide behind so in order to make a i guess a brand that works with such a simple aesthetic it needs to be really good and i don't think i'm gonna be able to achieve that in a reasonable timeline in the future i'll definitely have like a line that's you know more of the minimalistic snipe i also do enjoy things that are a little bit more rustic i mean the style is still a ever-changing thing like nothing's really decided yet um and even you know it can evolve along the years as well so i'm not really concerned about finding something that i'll stick to forever um i think being flexible and you know adapting is a good thing because of that idea i started you know thinking about it and usually if i have a hobby or something that i enjoy doing i always turn it into a career or business that's what happened with photography and i think that's what's going to happen with ceramics as well so i enrolled in the beginner's throwing class that runs for eight weeks per term here in melbourne from a ceramic place called soca so it's school of clay and art and that's where i learned how to throw so i did that for about two years and along the way after after the second term i started practicing outside of class because i realized doing three hours a week or two and a half hours a week was just not enough like i needed more just hours on the wheel and i think without that you can have the greatest teacher in the world but if you're not getting in those practicing hours um it's really hard to improve uh so there's a studio that where i'm firing now and they also have a studio access where they have wheels and you know basic equipment that you can use and you just charge by the hours and it actually caps at like 35 for the day so that was great so i'll just go in and with no intention of keeping anything i'll just throw so they have like recycled clay that you can use for cheap and i'll just throw for four or five hours um so i did that for maybe once a week on top of the class uh not that consistently to be honest because it's a bit of a hassle sometimes and that's when i realized i really needed a home studio because being able to just you know throw an hour here and out there it really makes it um easier to practice and just to and i wanted to do videos i always knew that i wanted to do a bit of work on the social media for the youtube um just as like uh you know documenting process as well as marketing like starting a brand from scratch when you don't even have i guess a proper product ready to go um it's hard to do any marketing and i want to build a little bit of a i guess audience before i even think about selling my first batch and yeah so to answer the question of like when when are you ready for me when i realize i can make things that i want even though they might not be perfect but i can get them to a point where i'm happy to use them that i think it's decent i can you know have the basic technique to figure out things that i've never done before for example when i did the what was it the fermentation crock in the previous video i've never done that technique before in terms of rolling the room down and splitting it and stuff like that but i've seen it done before and i know what the clay is going to do so i was able to i guess problem solve that sort of thing obviously you can learn that from you know watching other people and having class and stuff but i think when you have the basic skill set and so for example you know how to pull you know how to make things thinner you can color you can those really basic tools in your toolkit then you'll be able to figure out a lot of things just by seeing you know what needs to be done and what you can do i think this is still a little bit wet so it's not trimming as nice as it should after two years of class we moved to a new house here finally i have space that i can use to have my own studio so that was also a turning point where now that i have access to the space i need the money to you know buy the things and the wheel for example is a bit more expensive and to pay the extra rent that we're paying now so i decided to quit class it was just it was just a problem like if if money is not an issue and if time's not an issue i would continue class because i think it's a great great um social kind of you know it's it's fun you catch up every week you talk about ceramics a bit and you also just you know talk about life and it's a really nice environment and you know you have someone there that you can ask questions whenever you're trying to figure out stuff um like i was learning about you know i was like questions about glazing and stuff that weren't really in the beginner's class anyway i'm sure most teachers are more than happy to answer any questions you have so yeah so when i got my own wheel that's when i realized i don't really need the class i can you know i've got the basic skills that i can kind of practice on my own and figure things out and i think what's more important at that point was to find a style to do that basically i just want to make things as much as i can until i know what i like to make and i know what i want to show the world basically so i think i'll definitely do another video on like the creative process because it's it's very similar to what i went through becoming a photographer and i think it's been it's very similar to any creative pursuit really and then i think it's been about six months no not even maybe like four months since i've got the home studio set up so i've just been doing the youtube side of things and still trying to figure out the style i'm developing a glaze which is very hot right now because we just went into a full lockdown where all retail shops are closed which means i'm not able to fire my things at the studio so that kind of threw my plan off for what i'm doing this month you never really know know when you're ready but if you have the opportunity for example when i kind of you know had the space that i can do that and i had the resource where i can you know buy a wheel and all that stuff then take it i gave myself a year or two to go to class to make sure that it's something that i really want to do and we don't stick to and make sure that i'm serious about it before i start buying things and investing the time and the effort into it but i guess when you get to a point where like you just have to do it you know it's like i can't imagine not having a studio at home i can't imagine not being able to do this whenever i want um for me that's when it's like it's pretty clear this is what i want to do and i think that's the same with making this into a business as well it's like that's just a basic little background of how i've gotten to this point um so it's really simple really i just started class because i wanted to make this as business and then having the youtube actually forces me to do things that i might not be familiar with because you can only make a video of throwing bowls and plates so often until you need something different and i'm always looking for interesting shapes or interesting forms to make things that are just fun and different and i can figure it out for example that's why like throwing a donut was really fun that was like the first complex shape that i learnt but i'm just rambling a little bit now all right i think that's it um took a little bit longer than i expected but it's a little bit heavy on the belly like here it feels a little bit wide maybe yeah i don't mind it i think it's interesting shape yeah i think moon jars like this are probably oh one of the trickier shapes for me just trying to like figure out what looks good aesthetically and also making sure it's feels right so yeah thanks for watching if you want to see any photos and stuff or finish things just make sure you follow me on instagram which you can find from the homepage of this channel and yeah i'll see you next time

Channel: dear Ali Ceramics

Views: 3,474

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: creative business ideas, pottery, pottery chat, wheel talk, when are you ready, Background story

Id: TTTHeuDQg00

Length: 13min 5sec (785 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 12 2020