Editor's Note: Anything Goes Holly Goring

Appears in the May/Jun 2024 issue of Pottery Making Illustrated.

I was recently reading about the Bushwick Look (Bushwick being a neighborhood in Brooklyn), a fashion trend where it’s common to see people layering pieces like skirts and pants, mixing expensive brands with cheap or thrifted items, and blurring traditional gender lines of clothing. It is a style philosophy where one is not afraid to look kind of weird with the thought that others either understand their outfit, or they don’t. What matters is if the person wearing it gets it. While I am no fashionista, I see this trend as a generation embracing the mindset to mix anything and everything not just for comfort, economics, and sustainability but also to curate a collaboration of styles where the pieces and parts are ultimately more important than the whole. This is contradictory to what ceramic artists think; handles, lids, feet, and surfaces all marry to become a unified whole. But, what if they didn’t? 

While at the NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) conference in March, where one gets to both see and touch a lot of handmade functional work, this mix-and-match style was equally evident: chunky forms with tight trimmed bottoms, awkward handles over intricate line decoration, plates without rims filled with edgy narratives, basically anything goes. For an old-school-trained ceramic artist like me, my gut says that’s all wrong. All forms must have balance and beauty throughout. But, is that always necessary? 

Every up-and-coming generation pokes the bear, and this new one is saying, “If I like it, why not make it and see what I get?” It’s more important to express oneself than it is to be afraid of doing it wrong or having someone else not like it. The freshness here is that there is no failure. Perfect was never the goal. 

This mix-and-match approach doesn’t work for everyone, but I appreciate those who buck the norm for the sake of an authentic aesthetic voice. These are the makers who forge new paths forward and keep ceramics compelling. 

This issue focuses on all things wheel throwing. While we share several great projects that you can follow step by step, consider combining techniques: Impress your cake plate with wooden boards, chatter a new pair of earrings, and create a pour-over vessel to catch and filter the drain water from your hanging planters. And, if you are still a purist, go no further than the last page where suggested weights and sizes are given for the clay needed to form balanced bowls, cups, plates, and even a soup tureen. Cheers!