What a difference a break makes…
What a difference a day makes… a celebration of Slow
The ceramics process is a slow conveyor belt. Once you start a body of work then it has many stages and it takes weeks to see your results.
When you times that by our 50 or so regular students and other one off sessions that its one big ol'freight train moving along.
Interestingly I have always rather enjoyed the pauses that the academic world works to. I also love the fresh start of a new year providing a pause and a checking to see I am steering in the right direction. Now that we are up to maximum capacity I feel it is essential to stop completely in the studio. For us its necessary to to jobs cleaning, clearing and repairing and even us all sitting together for a meeting.
Three times a year we stop, clear the decks, assess and breath. Its such a contrast to term time. I will never try and convince you it is stressful jobs but it does feel like a huge commitment when you have all those excited students working on their he-ART projects. There is a pressure to deliver and we take massive pride in providing a really quality and caring service. Term time feels like we are leaning in and pushing a big boulder but and it s now a lot more fun with such a wonderful team, I cannot imagine it could get better than what we have now.
I am very grateful for all the help I get from staff and volunteers. There’s so much to be done from endless cleaning, tedious admin, kiln packing, materials preparing and magic in our little garden.
I just did a quick calculation and I believe it takes nearly 100 woman hours to deliver our 21 hours of classes each week… no wonder it is so good! ; )
Anyway, I am a massive believer in the pause. It is so important to stop and step back, I know my team enjoy the change too and I believe it opens up space to allow us to be creative. There space for ideas to show up, re-alignment and I always get a fresh application of my job. Like many Brits I used to have the stoic attitude of being seen to work constantly, and to battle through a cold; but I ve totally 360 my out look. A cold is a sign to ease off and compact working hours are efficient. Last year I read 'A year of living Danishly' by Helen Russell is an interesting read. The Danes believe in down time as a right and the frown on over-working believing you are failing to manage your time properly. According to Helen Russell they work an average of 18.5 days a month, 37 hours a week, and do 8am-4pm and a half day on a Friday!
57% of Danes said they would carry on working if they won the lottery and I think I would too : )
If you know us, you'll know how busy we have become, and several people have asked me why don’t I open for more evenings, another branch or start a franchises. Here s my Answer…..
http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-businessman/