2025, in only one month so far, has been the year of ~new hobbies~ for me. Mostly because I love trying new things (but also because I am desperate to have a distraction while being forced to live through “interesting times”).
So let’s talk about new hobbies!
As a little Christmas treat for myself, I signed up for pottery lessons at my local art center for my partner and I. I’ve been dying to try pottery for the longest time. I was a graphic design major in college, and while I did take what we called “foundational” courses (drawing, 2D art, 3D art) most of my course load was very design heavy. So, I never got to take ceramics. I’m also slightly intimidated by it because I struggle when it comes to translating an artistic vision into the third dimension. It’s not a skilled I’ve honed at all.
I’m particularly excited for pottery because I want to create more functional art—beautiful things that also help you accomplish a task. I’m not super tuned-in with my Appalachian roots, and that’s maybe a post for another day, but the importance of practical, pretty everyday items (like dinner bowls, baskets, even brooms) to mountain culture is an activity I’m hoping will help me feel a bit more connected to “home.” This is also a good time to remind myself to read The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman.
The first class went great! I don’t have much upper body strength (lol) but I managed to wedge my clay decently well. It’s a lot like kneading dough. Or, exactly like kneading a very thick dough. I’ve not baked much bread (I’m a hobby baker who prefers cakes/cookies!) but it was like that, with a lot more elbow grease. We went right to trying to center the clay on the wheel, which I’ve heard is notoriously difficult, but the whole class did pretty well at. The rest of class time was mostly spent doing that—testing the wheel speeds, learning how to steady your hand to shape the clay, and practicing centering by coning (building the clay up) and hockey-pucking (not a technical term, smooshing the clay back down, lol). I accidentally whittled my first lump of clay down to a nubbin on the wheel, and the majority of the clay was muddy water in the splash pan. On lump two, I was still shaky, but felt like I had the hang of it! Almost everyone managed to make a small project. I was really impressed at how quickly my partner picked it up. I had a feeling he’d take to it quicker than me! I did wind up making a small bowl and even put a small spiral design in the inside. Hopefully, my future projects are more impressive. I’m really looking forward to the next class!
My other hobby this month has been designing and coding my personal website (this one! Right here!). It has been an incredibly long time since I’ve coded; for the past several years, I’ve been exclusively on the design side of things. It’s felt pretty empowering to sketch a layout in Figma and jump into Notepad to make it real myself. I’ve also felt really disillusioned with current social media. All the fomo, pressure to post things that will net you “likes,” algorithms that mean you have to post or interact near 24/7 to get “engagement.” It feels icky. And I personally would much rather see friends’ direct posts instead of AI slop or curated-for-you, content-farm craft video #4683. Plus with the decay of one bird-themed social platform and another mega-conglomerate starting to capitulate to the highest bidder over the past months… I was ready to go.
There’s some stuff that I’m unsure about. I have a small pin business that I had wanted to begin marketing for again after I slowed it down for a personal event two years ago and moving last year. I want to do more word-of-mouth for it and sign up for art markets instead of focusing on digital platforms, but sooooo many art markets want you to advertise for them too, and will ask for your social media handles so they can review your stats. I’ve not figured out how to solve that yet. I’ve signed up for Bluesky (after quitting Twitter in 2016 after the first shit-show) and I’m looking forward to their image-sharing competitor they have in the works. Most of all, that social media-based dread has made me feel incredibly nostalgic for the internet from before. Making internet friends, participating in your silly little fandoms, sharing your art without worrying about the numbers, and most importantly: pre-corporatization. I’m excited to be a part of the small web again by having a Neocities site!
I’m hoping to keep up writing in this blog once a week. We’ll see—I’ve never been very good at it, haha. Bare minimum, I’ll be working on updating some of my pages. I’m especially excited to fill out the Trinket Museum!
Cheers,
Chey