At the beginning of 2026, I made a bingo card. (Yes, a literal bingo card. Yes, for my own life. And yes, I do it every year.) Read about it HERE)
One of the boxes on my card? Make more art.
Not “think about making art.” Not “save 47 videos of other people making art on Instagram and feel vaguely inspired.” Actually do it.
So I signed up for a pottery class. I’ve been wanting to take classes at Hand / Thrown — the ceramics studio tucked into Northside on Brookland Park Boulevard — for a couple of years now. It just kept getting pushed to the “eventually” pile, the way things do. And when I realized it was once again, the first thing I put on that bingo card, I thought: if not now, when?
My friend Meghan, who has been taking classes there for a while, gave me one piece of advice before my first class last Friday: the wheel will humble you.
She was, it turns out, completely correct.
What Actually Happened at My First Class
Here is what I always expect when I try something new: to be at least a bit of a natural. I may not be GREAT, but I can usually pick up things like this enough that I’m quickly at least “okay.” But who knows? Maybe this is my hidden talent, waiting to be discovered.
Here is what actually happened: my clay did not cooperate. It got too wet. It started disappearing. Then it went lopsided. Then it shrunk and went lopsided, which is apparently a skill unto itself.
But here’s the thing — I loved it anyway. Not in a “this is fine, I’m fine, everything is fine” way. In a genuine, something-shifted-in-me way.
When you are trying to center clay on a wheel, you cannot be thinking about your email. You cannot be running through your to-do list. You cannot be half-present, which is, if we’re honest, the way most of us move through most of our days. The wheel demands your full attention. It doesn’t negotiate.
That’s the thing nobody tells you about creative pursuits: they don’t just make something. They make you stop. And stopping, it turns out, is deeply underrated.
Hand / Thrown is the perfect place to do it, by the way. They opened in 2018 with the goal of making ceramic arts accessible to everyone, from total beginners to experienced artists, and they’ve built exactly that kind of community. It doesn’t feel intimidating. It feels like a place where it’s okay to make a lopsided bowl (or a really, really thick and chunky cup) and laugh about it. Which, as it happens, is exactly what I needed.
The Other Things on the Creativity Square
Pottery isn’t the only square I’m working on.
I’ve also been drawing every day — nothing fancy, nothing that’s going to end up in a gallery. Just a sketchbook and a pen and ten or fifteen minutes of making marks on paper. It’s the consistency that matters, not the output. (I say this to myself regularly, on the days when what I’ve drawn looks like something a very tired child produced.)
And last weekend, I hosted a little “crafternoon” gathering. Just a group of some of my favorite women, tables covered in supplies, making things and being together. No phones out, no super structured activity, no pressure to produce anything worth keeping (and I didn’t even take pictures!). Just hands busy and conversation easy and an afternoon that felt, like much needed like medicine.
These things — the pottery, the drawing, the crafternoon — they don’t feel like self-care in the way that word usually gets used. They feel like something more than that. More for me, in a deeper way. More transformative than a manicure, where I always feel anxious to move or escape. And for me, much more restorative than a glass of wine on the couch. Not that those things don’t have their place. They absolutely do. But this is different. This is the kind of thing that makes you feel like yourself again.
A Few Ideas If You’re Ready to Try Something
You don’t need a bingo card (though I highly recommend one). You just need to decide that your creative thing is worth an hour or two.
A few starting points, in case you need them:
If you want to try pottery: Hand / Thrown offers one-day intro classes — no commitment, no experience needed, just show up and see if the wheel speaks to you. (Fair warning: it may humble you. That’s part of it.) Find them at 123 W Brookland Park Blvd in Northside, right down the street from Ruby Scoops, if you need a post-class treat incentive. You’re welcome.
If you want to draw but feel like you “can’t”: You can. Get a cheap sketchbook and just start. Draw your coffee cup. Draw your dog looking at you judgmentally. Draw something badly and don’t throw it away. Ten minutes a day is enough to start rewiring your brain’s relationship with making things.
If you want community around it: Host your own crafternoon. Seriously. Just text four people, tell them to bring whatever they’re working on (or nothing at all, you’ll have supplies), put some snacks out, and see what happens. The bar is lower than you think and the payoff is much higher.
If you want something completely different: Richmond is genuinely full of options — painting classes, printmaking, bookbinding, textile arts, music lessons, writing groups. The Visual Arts Center of Richmond (VisArts) alone has more classes than you could take in a year. There is a creative thing with your name on it. You just have to say yes to it.
The Point
Here’s what I keep coming back to: we spend a lot of time doing things for other people, or for a goal, or for a result. The pottery isn’t for a goal. The drawing isn’t for a result. The crafternoon wasn’t for anyone’s Instagram (I mean, it might have been good there, but again- no pictures. I was crafting!)
These things are just for me. And somewhere along the way, I think a lot of us forgot to have those.
So if there’s something you’ve been putting on the “eventually” list — a class, a hobby, a skill, a Sunday morning with a sketchbook and no agenda — I’d gently suggest that eventually is now.
The wheel (or whatever) may humble you. But that’s kind of the whole point.
