The Unintended Map

Beyond The Scale — What Bigger Taught Me

When I chose the word Bigger for the year, I thought I knew exactly what I was asking for.

It’s a practice I’ve returned to for years — using a single word to create focus, direction, and a container for growth over a year. My vision felt clear: bigger forms in porcelain, a more ambitious body of work, and a bolder commitment to my career. Bigger was about scale, output, and momentum.

I laid out a plan to acquire the technical skill to match that ambition. I scheduled time with master potters and prepared for a month-long trip to an environment where the making tradition is fierce and disciplined. I believed success would look like a decisive breakthrough — a moment where everything clicked and my skills finally matched my vision.

The journey didn’t unfold in the way I had expected.

When I look back on the year 2025 I chose Bigger, what stands out isn’t output. In fact, there was less to show and sell than I anticipated. The work of that year wasn’t about what came out of the studio, but about how I learned, how I understood, and how I changed internally.

(You can read more in depth about Bigger in this earlier Blog piece: Dreaming Bigger in 2025: My Creative Journey in Handmade Ceramics)

Slowing Down, Observing a Moonjar on Seoul Museum

Quiet Adjustments, Big Consequences

At the start of the year, I knew something was holding me back, but I couldn’t yet name it.

What I noticed instead were small things in the making. Tiny movements had disproportionate consequences. A slight tilt at the wrong moment, a nudge barely visible, and the whole form would shift out of centre or collapse. Porcelain demanded more than I realised. It required the whole body to be involved, not just the hands.

I assumed this was technical. I believed lessons would help me see and master the skill of throwing bigger. With enough planning and practice, I thought I could correct these faults and take a leap forward. What I underestimated was how long mastery would take. I understood repetition was required — but not how much.

Only later did I begin to understand that what I was meeting wasn’t just technical difficulty, but something internal as well. At the time, I simply knew I needed to stay with the work and learn what it was asking of me.

South Korean Buncheong Technique Practice Bowls made in Jeonju with Hwasimdoyo Studio

Bigger Was Not About More

Bigger, I can now see, asked for something very different than I intended. Not more output, but more attention. Not momentum, but patience. Not expansion for its own sake, but a willingness to stay with the work long enough for it to change me.

The journey asked me to let go of the idea of a breakthrough moment. Progress came quietly — through repetition, small layers, and incremental change. I learned that mastery grows slowly, not through intensity, but through consistency and attention. Staying with the same questions long enough allowed them to deepen rather than resolve quickly.

Earlier in the year, as I worked on the Lumen collection, I began to distil my forms and use mark-making and slip more intentionally. I found myself looking repeatedly to the sky — from sunrise to sunset — searching for a feeling I couldn’t yet name. There was an inner meaning I was reaching for without fully understanding it. Looking back now, I can see that the journey had already begun, even though I didn’t realise it at the time

Lumen Collection - showing evolution of layers and use of Slip Marking

Embodiment as Central

I had to listen to a different kind of signal. In South Korea, I was encouraged daily in practice to use my body and match the pace of the wheel — to feel rather than analyse. I began to recognise that my body often understood before my mind did, and that listening to those signals was a form of trust.

Imagination revealed itself as something physical — a muscle that needs care. I began to see how my health, wellbeing, and creativity were inseparable.

In Jeju Island, South Korea - Learning to throw a 10kg MoonJar in two halves with Tamlayo Studio

Staying Open

Before travelling to South Korea, I chose to attend an art residency in Devon. There, I began to recognise a fear that had blocked my creativity for a long time. What followed was a journey over several months — learning to understand, let go, accept, and trust again. Creativity began to flow.

I stayed open to the direction I was being shown, trusting the path and allowing it to unfold.

By the end of the year, that fear no longer held the same power. I stopped making from a place of protection. I began allowing space — for pauses, for uncertainty, for quieter forms of confidence.

Trust became something lived, not decided.

Closing

Listening to Nature and the inspiration it provides

Looking back, I can see that the journey I thought was about Bigger was quietly pointing me somewhere else. What I needed wasn’t more output or faster results, but a longer commitment — to practice, to repetition, and to staying with what didn’t resolve quickly. Quiet confidence didn’t arrive all at once. It grew slowly, through attention and time.

By the end of the year, it was clear that at the heart of what I had been learning was trust. Trust in the body. Trust in process. Trust in the pace the work required. In many ways, the year I chose Bigger became the foundation for the year I chose Trust — not as an idea, but as something lived.

Invitation

There is more to tell from the journeys in 2025 that shaped this year 2026— from Devon to South Korea — and these reflections mark the beginning of a longer story that will gradually find its way into the work itself and new collection for 2026. You are welcome to stay with me over the months the story unfolds. I am still listening.

This post is part of an ongoing reflective series on ceramics, practice, and process, where story, emotion, and making are closely intertwined, shared slowly as the journey continues to unfold.