How I found my style

Written By Nicole Dacey

I want to start by saying I don’t like the phrase “find your style”, as if it’s something you’ll stumble upon in a single moment, randomly. I would rather say, “How I developed a style that is both ever changing yet always me at it’s core”. But that wouldn’t do as well with seo...

I have been working in clay regularly since 2009, when I took a college course that was mostly handbuilding. I always took the assignments into the most whimsical and challenging directions I could imagine and had to work with the teacher to come up with a plan to actualize my visions. I wouldn’t use the word “whimsical” to describe my work now, and over the years I feel I’ve matured and settled into a more quiet way of making.

Once I took a wheelthrowing class, I couldn’t care less about handbuilding (for a long time). I loved the structure and rules of making on a wheel, the challenge, and the attempt at perfection. It played well into my need for order, predictability, and control. If you don’t know me well, you might not see that side of me, but those three things keep my anxieties at bay.

In the beginning, as it is with most beginner classes, wheelthrowing was about assignments to teach me how to make simple forms on the wheel. It’s goal was to teach me how to speak “clay”. So my priority for years wasn’t to find a style, it was to make everything. I wanted to try every form - cups, bowls, mugs, plates, vases, jars… And then I wanted to make things other potters were making or were known for. The beginning of your pottery journey is the perfect time to be a copycat. You’ll never be able to make the item the same as, or as good as, the established potter that you’re stealing the design from; and I doubt you’re going to try and sell it and/or try to pass off the design as your own. So copying other potters is the best way to stretch your skills, to probably fail beautifully, and most importantly learn what you love and don’t love. Proudly copy, steal, reproduce for the sake of learning!

Here’s an example: you see a beautiful bowl covered in a raised swirling pattern. You search around and find out it’s called slip trailing. You buy everything you need to do slip trailing, and you sit there copying the slip trailed design. Your work looks identical to the work you copied. Ok, it looks a little worse… a lot worse… but you still think it looks great and you’re proud of it. But boy was that a lot of work, and your hand hurts a little, and your patience to make it ran out way before you finished. Then someone sees it and asks you to make them something similar. You make them a few custom items, and maybe end up doing a few more. And you realize that the first one was fun, but beyond that first slip trailed bowl, you absolutely hate slip trailing. You have zero patience for the fiddly designs, and your hand hurts, and you keep smearing the design, and you wish you were done with the piece yesterday. You vow to never slip trail again.

These are 4 works I made, copied from other potter's designs while learning (L to R): James C. Watkins style pot; Charan Sachar style slip trailed yarn bowl; Beth Zebal style bud vase; Van Gogh style bottle

And then you move onto copying something else.

A lot of people are extremely worried about copying someone else’s ideas or work, usually unintentionally and sometimes subconsciously. That is definitely a concern you should have later in your journey as a maker (I’ll get back to this idea), but when you are beginning, copying is one of the best ways to learn. Don’t concern yourself with worry about “what if they find out I copied them?” Those of us who have been doing this for a while can see when someone is copying to learn or just to try a new shape, and when someone is copying with malicious intent.

So go be a copycat for a while if you are trying to learn and develop, and over time you will begin to filter. You’ll filter out the things you don’t enjoy doing, or that you’re not drawn to, and you’ll explore the things you are interested in. Then you’ll filter those things too. Picture, or actually make, a flowchart, leading you to the final results of what you actually like to do. If you’re interested in an exercise to find what you should be making, you can try this idea (from the Creative Pep Talk podcast): Make a Venn Diagram with three circles - what do you like, what are you good at, and what is there a hole in the market for/what is missing in the world? The idea is to find the overlap, the things that make it into all three categories, and that’s what you should be making.

Anyway, back to me finding my style.

I didn’t feel like I had a style for many years. In 2017 I moved from Massachusetts to California and decided to try this potter thing full time. I became a member of a pottery studio that fired cone 10 clays and glazes in a gas kiln. And while I loved the rich colors of the clays, the glazes weren’t resonating with me as much. I liked them on the sample tiles, but I couldn’t figure out why I was always a bit disappointed with the results. So I stopped combining glazes, which is what I had almost always done and what everyone around me always did. I started to enjoy the more simple surfaces, especially because there was still a lot going on within just one glaze.

I remember the one pot that changed the whole trajectory of what I wanted to make. The studio had a big barrel of wood ash for students to play with. Most of them would use a sieve and sprinkle it inside bowls (since the ash would make the glazes run, so it was safer to use inside a piece), but I wanted to do something different. So I took a bisque fired vase I made, dipped it into the glaze, then grabbed a handful of ash and threw it against the pot before the glaze fully dried. I had no idea what it would do, so it went on a decent sized cookie. When it came out, some of the ash had melted but a lot of it just hardened into this thick rocky surface. I had this immediate, visceral reaction to it. I was obsessed. It had the perfect balance of form and function, simplicity and complexity. The color tones really spoke to me. To this day I wish I had kept it, but I was trying to run a business, and it was a strong piece, so I sold it. (If you bought it from me, I’m willing to buy it back from you!)

Pictured (L to R): The pot that changed my style trajectory described above; Bud vases with wood ash before firing; A mug with wood ash before firing; 4 teacups with wood ash after firing; a handbuilt flask with wood ash after firing.

In California I became homesick very quickly. I ended up leaving the first studio for another one that allowed members 24/7 access, letting me fill my time with pottery. I began making some mugs that had New England phrases on them. Things like “Masshole” over a cutout of the state, or words that were very regional. Things that made me feel closer to home and made me laugh. But while working on these, I was also beginning to shift my personal tastes and style into a far more simple, minimalistic, earth-toned direction. My pottery, my interior home decor, my clothes, everything was starting to become cohesive. I attribute this to three things: my current surroundings, my anxiety and need for calm, and social media influence.

By the summer of 2019, so a decade after beginning pottery, I was at what I would consider the beginning of finding my current style. I was being incredibly inspired by the landscape around me. I remember when I first saw dried up California Buckwheat and couldn’t get over the rusty red against the straw colored vines. I wanted to harness that plant and somehow make pots that evoked the way I felt when I saw it. I was making pottery using wood ash, crackle glazes, iron flecks, and a lot of earth tones and exposed raw clay. It was a very inspired time for me, and I could feel that something special was happening.

Work (and me) from 2019. The strongest body of work I had up to that point; the truest expression of me and who I was at that time.

Then the pandemic happened, and in a very short period of time all the life and energy from my work in 2019 shifted to a more subdued, quiet, soft expression of the same simplistic, minimalistic, and earthy work. My work became physically small: trinket dishes and cups, incense holders, “ceremony jars”, and teacups/small mugs. There were a lot more white clays and glazes, and less of everything else. It ended up being a very depressing time for me, as it did for many of us. And while I love the work I made that year, it feels very quiet, distanced, isolated, alone. I look back now and appreciate the snapshot in history that this represents. It was all made at home, photographed at home, while we all quarantined at home. 

Work from 2020. I was very into monotones, textures, and small works.

As the world began to move forward towards the end of 2020 and into 2021, I had began to find a positive spin on the work, and was gaining a bit of momentum. I felt that same excitement I did in 2019, a sense that I had tapped into something and I felt excitement for the first time in a while. I was trying some more interesting things; it felt a bit more artistic than my past work (all of which had felt like I was making work with the sole purpose pleasing others in order to sell it). But just as I felt I was getting somewhere, someone I really looked up to accused me of stealing their work. I remember crying and feeling so sick to my stomach, and scrolling through their social media and website trying to figure out what exactly I was being accused of stealing. I could find only one or two possibilities, both of which were a stretch. Regardless, my confidence took a hit, and to avoid the possibility of copying their work, I scrapped almost everything I was working on. Looking back, I wish I had kept going with it. I really believe there aren’t many completely new, original ideas out there. Every time I think I find something totally original, I often find an identical work soon after, made of a different material or maybe it’s an ancient piece. The chances that my work and this other person’s work would end up looking identical are miniscule. My voice vs their voice would result in completely different work, even if we had some overlapping elements.

In the spring of 2021, we moved from our city apartment to a house on the outskirts of LA. I was still struggling to find a new path, but inspiration was all around me in the rocky canyon landscape surrounding my new home. The colors and textures of a desert canyon, the lines of the massive rock formations, and the way the sun illuminated or cast in shadow the entire area found its way into my work slowly but surely. It’s not difficult to evoke nature when your materials are literally dug from the earth, but I found out quickly that it’s almost impossible to replicate nature. The ease and effortlessness of a natural object often looks affected and forced when replicated. It took a lot of sketching and trial and error to find ways to evoke my surroundings without trying to mirror them.

Snapshots from walks and hikes around my home

I also drew a lot of inspiration from trips I took to Joshua Tree. There was something about being there that made my soul light up. I was already on a path to finding my style when I first visited in 2021, but the colors and landscape, the mood, and the way I felt when I was there, really pushed my work in the right direction. I knew something important was happening. The next time I went a year later in 2022, I brought with me works that I had made that were inspired by the desert and my own rocky canyon home. I photographed them in our rented house and outside in the landscape, and everything just made sense. I want to go back as soon as I can, to see what else I can wring out of my creative mind when I am in that space.

Also in 2021, I began to suffer from a lot of back pain. I learned it was caused by deteriorating disc cushioning in my spine, and it was made more painful by sitting at the wheel. At the end of teaching a class, I couldn’t even pick up my water bucket. I could barely bend over to clean my wheel. So while I was working with a physical therapist to help with the pain, I began handbuilding instead. This was a huge blessing in disguise. I had no interest in handbuilding for my own work, but at the time I was also extremely bored of wheelthrowing. I was bored of the repetition I was seeing online, as well as in my own work. So when I started handbuilding and found I loved it, I was pleasantly surprised. It came at a perfect time too, as I was exploring more natural forms around me and trying to find ways to translate that into clay. I played with abstraction in a way that I wasn’t able to on the wheel, and made sculptures that ended up being some of my favorite pieces (hello snakes!). Prior to this, I would have considered myself solely a wheelthrower. Now my work includes both handbuilt and wheelthrown pieces, and I feel I’ve become a stronger potter because of this.

A sampling of my most recent works from 2021-2022.

In May 2023, I gave birth to my daughter Louisa, and I know deep down in my soul that my days living here in California are numbered. Patrick and I both have wanted to move back home to Massachusetts for a while now, but its just not feasible right now. However we know we want Louisa to grow up surrounded by her family, so we hope to be back there soon. I bring this up because I know my style will change when we move back. I’m incredibly influenced by my surroundings, and I can’t imagine the work I am making now to survive the change of location. It just won’t make sense anymore. But I do know that the work will have very similar qualities, and it will still feel like me. I just don’t know how yet.

So this brings me to the part of this journal entry where I summarize my story into bullet points that can hopefully help you find your style too.

  • Copy with a purpose: If you are just beginning, or you’re in a rut and stuck for what to do next, try copying others’ work. Do not steal their ideas and try to pass them off as your own. Do not steal their designs and begin selling it as a competitor. Do use their work to help you learn new forms and techniques, and to get inspired to try your own new and unique ideas.

  • Find the middle of your Venn Diagram: Find the intersection of what you’re good at, what you enjoy doing, and what the world needs.

  • Pay attention to moments that bring you intense emotion: Maybe you make something, or see something, or go somewhere, and from somewhere deep within you, you feel this energy. A vibration, or strong emotion, or a physical reaction. You might not know exactly what to do with it, but find a way to capture and remember it (write about it, photograph it, do sketches, write a poem/music…) For me, going to Joshua Tree has always had this energy for me and I always leave with a bunch of new ideas.

  • Work towards it: This might sound like a “duh” thing to add to this list, but a lot of the things I’m talking about here are somewhat passive ways to find your style. You might want to try actively developing your style with intention. Look around you - what does your home look like? What do your clothes look like? What places in the world would you/do you love to visit? Can you take those and distill them into a body of work? There’s a reason you like what you like, and a reason you always seem to come back to the same things (colors, patterns, songs, shows, fabrics, hairstyles…) Because it’s you, and your work is you too. You can bet your bottom that what I wear and surround myself with is very similar to what I make out of clay.

  • Go have a life outside your art: If you spend all your time working on your art, then it will begin to lack life. Go out and live, see things, experience the world. It will make you a better artist and give more to draw upon when trying to find your style.

  • Be ready to let go of some things: Imagine a restaurant with a menu pages and pages long that just serves too many different options. Their menu has sushi, pasta, burgers, salads, tacos, fish and chips, steak, stir fry, vegan options, gluten free options, and on and on. You think, what is this restaurant trying to be? There’s no way they can be doing all of this well... Think of your work and your style like a menu of sorts. Your style cannot be everything. Choose the forms, techniques, colors, textures, etc., that will help you find your true style, and let go of the things that don’t serve you (even if you love them). How do you know which ones to choose? See the other bullet points before this.

  • Always be evolving: Remember that style doesn’t stop once you’ve “found it”. It would be naïve to think you found your style and now you’re done. Plus, how boring it must be to make the exact same thing over and over, year after year. Change is beautiful, and interesting for you and your customers/followers/fans. Once you feel like you’ve found your style, and you’re confident in your voice and your work, even new work will feel like it’s part of the whole. Think about a famous painter like Jackson Pollock or Frida Kahlo - no matter what they paint, you know it’s theirs.

I want to say that when you find your style, you’ll know. But maybe it will take a while for you to realize you’re on the right track. But I believe that when you are creating the work you’re mean to make, it will all click into place. It will feel good and right. You will have energy to make it and those around you will respond to it. They’ll see you in your work.

 

Answering Your questions

  • No, and I don’t think these two things are mutually exclusive. Once you feel you’ve settled into your style, and you know who you are as an artist/maker, your voice will come through with each new endeavor. Think about a wheel thrown mug. Maybe one of the most common ceramic forms, and yet there are endless designs out there. You will find a way to put your personal touch on everything you create, and if you allow yourself to grow and evolve as an artist, you’ll always be trying new things.

  • Unfortunately there’s no step-by-step guide. Some artists know deep down what they want to make from the beginning, and their style emerges in everything they do. Some take longer to develop their style. Both are completely valid. “Just keep working and working” is certainly one way to do it, but if you have been doing this for a long time and haven’t gotten anywhere, you should stop and ask yourself why? Are you just not noticing the things that bring you the most joy? Are you slugging away at work you hate (maybe making pieces that sell really well but don’t feel like you, but hey we all need to make a living!)

    My advice would be to start paying attention. When you make something, try to notice how you feel about it as objectively as you can. Maybe even write down your thoughts. If you are making the same things over and over, and you realize you don’t actually enjoy it, it might be time to try something completely different. Maybe try on someone else’s style for a change - I promise you it won’t be a carbon copy and that it’ll come through in your own way.

  • If you are making things that people ask for, you’re probably making their style, not yours. So it’s no wonder you’re feeling as if your own style is underdeveloped. I hate to say it, but take a break making things for people, and make things for yourself. When you have a better sense of your own style, open up your custom orders again, but this time give options to your customer that help you retain your voice. It might look like this: “I’m so happy to make you a mug, since that’s one of the things I already make! You can see some of my work on my instagram to get a sense of what I make. Let me know if there’s anything you like there and we can chat more about what you’re looking for and how I can make it for you using my clays, glazes, and designs.”

    A word of advice though: if someone comes to you with photos of other artists’ work and asks if you can make it, 99% of the time you should say no. Because they aren’t coming to you for your work, they’re probably coming to you as either the only potter they know who takes custom orders, or they like your prices or something else unrelated to your style. (This will not help you find your style at all; plus it might be me, but I find it kind of insulting!) The only exception is if someone is sending you work that is very similar to your own, and they're sending the photos as inspiration for you, not asking you to copy exactly.

  • It sounds like you’re still in your experimental phase then. You might not be ready to have a style yet. You should absolutely try all the things you want to try, and experiment with different looks. Through this practice and play, you’ll learn a lot - about yourself and your art, about your skills and interests, and of course the technical side of learning. Ideally, over time your style will develop as you try things and check them off your list. You’ll want to keep doing some things and not others, and you’ll be drawn to some looks more than others. Lean into those things that feel right, even if you’re not sure why.

    To be honest, you might always feel this way. You should always keep the curiosity and desire to try new things. And while you might like many looks, I think you’ll eventually narrow it down to what is essentially you. When you feel the need to try an new look, that might be a sign that your style is no longer serving you and it’s time to evolve and grow. Then it’s back to the drawing board of experimenting and playing until you develop the new you (it will feel right!).

Nicole Dacey
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