Wabi-Sabi Rocks Series — When Perfection Finally Cracked

After nine years of endlessly caressing pot rims, refining every curve, obsessing over clean pulls and perfect compression, something inside me began to shift. I had spent so long guiding clay into quiet, controlled forms that the pursuit of “just right” became a reflex — unconscious, automatic, and eventually… exhausting.

At some point I realised that studio potters are three in one:
designers, artists, craftspeople.
Balancing all three is beautiful — until it’s not.

I don’t know if other potters allow themselves to have what I call creative depression, but after twelve years of throwing, there are moments when I suddenly look at everything I’ve made and see nothing. Everything feels wrong. Flat. Uninspired. Usually it aligns with my luteal phase (nature has a wicked sense of timing), and it passes quickly.

But in 2022… it didn’t pass.
It lingered.
And then stretched.
And then sat heavily on my shoulders like a long winter.

I wasn’t just tired — I was long-term tired.

One day, in that stillness, I picked up a rock from the garden. Nothing special. Just the first one that caught my eye. I brought it into the studio, placed it on the table, and instead of carefully wedging and preparing my stoneware, I simply grabbed a piece of clay and slammed it against the rock.

Then I did it again.
And again.
And again.

Each throw reshaped the clay in unexpected ways — dents, ridges, soft fractures, new lines. My assistant stood frozen, staring in disbelief, unsure whether to interrupt what was happening. I said nothing. I just kept going, grabbing more clay, more slabs, more forms, throwing them against the rock over and over. Somewhere in that wordless rhythm, a new collection was born.

I thought I had finally released my perfectionism, smashed it right out of me with every impact. But ego has more tricks than we like to admit.

Because what followed next surprised even me:
after throwing a certain number of plates against the rock…
I became very good at it.

Not just good — excellent.
I developed an uncanny ability to achieve perfect imperfection. I could control thickness, guide the contour, predict where each impact would land. I could throw a slab against a rock and somehow shape it into exactly the kind of asymmetry I wanted.

So much for abandoning perfectionism.
I had simply found a new arena for it.

It turns out there is an art to throwing clay at a rock — and when I tried showing the technique to my assistant and later to students, I realised that not everyone’s rock-thrown bowl looks the way mine does. Mine carried intention disguised as chaos.

And the final touch — the element that made the whole collection come alive — was my signature lava crater glaze paired with a bronze metallic glaze. The surfaces bubbled, cratered, reflected light, held shadow. Raw edges met molten textures. Wabi-sabi met alchemy. It was the perfect cherry on top of this earthy, unrestrained range.

The Wabi-Sabi Rocks Series began as rebellion, as release —
and became, unexpectedly, another expression of mastery.
Not mastery over clay, but mastery of my own creative contradictions.

Beautiful, wild, controlled, imperfect, intentional —
all at once.

In the end, the Wabi-Sabi Rocks Series became a perfect reflection of how I describe my work —
the essence of duality held in one unified expression.

Simple yet complex
Minimalist and organic
Rustic yet contemporary
Timeless and new
Familiar yet fresh

A quiet reminder that clay — like life, like creativity — is always both.
And that beauty lives in the meeting point between opposites.