Let's Make Something Ugly

Great expectations? Meh. Plus, a programming announcement!

Photo by Amauri Mejia

I took a pottery wheel class a few years ago, just for fun.

I loved the feel of the cold, wet clay in my hands, the sensation immediately relaxing every fiber in my body, a kind of youthful muscle memory from blistering summer days at sleepaway camp, when the shade of the Arts and Crafts hut was a happy respite from the midday Texas sun. I made the ugliest pottery at camp. I had a blast doing it.

Maybe this is why I could mold my most recent ceramics with no expectation for the outcome; a rarity for me. My final bowls looked like nothing of the sort, two lumpy ashtray-sized dishes my only take-home treasures. It’s honestly a miracle I didn’t care they were bad.

I say this because I remember vividly the self-assessments from my classmates, adult women all, with only two of us who had ever thrown clay on a wheel. They liked the class, thought it was fun, but nearly all of them declared they’d never do it again.

I’m so terrible at this. Look how bad my bowl looks. I’m messing this up.

I totally understood the women who said they’d never bother throwing another pot. It was a typical, if not normal response to the pressure that’s always there—

The constant, sometimes motivating, but often suffocating pressure to be good.

I don’t mean “good” in the moral sense, but in that one should produce excellent things. And for me, a creative person working in creative fields—and pottery aside!—the pressure is typically pretty acute. I’ve long operated under the assumption that all my output should be excellent; if it’s not, it says something about me, my choices, my value, and therefore how my entire future will work out.

Lately, I’ve been thinking: in this pressure cooker of my own making, whether with clay or with art or with words or literally anything, what is the impact of the stories I’m telling myself? What happens if the pressure becomes so great, it causes paralysis?

Earlier in December, I stumbled across this video about making ugly things from artist and teacher Marie-Noëlle Wurm. I decided I’d try the exercises as a way to observe the “hurdles” my brain erects during the process of making something 100% low no stakes. Though the exercise is about art and illustration, it felt like it would be applicable for writing, and honestly, anything:

If you can’t watch the full thing, here’s the tl;dw:

1. First, spend a few minutes simply doodling. Make your marks as ugly and incoherent as possible. Just go with it.

2. Next, on a separate page, write down a list of common expectations you have with regards to the things you make, and/or the expectations you have in that very moment.

3. Finally, make “intuitive” art that represents each of those expectations. Sit back and observe the places you mind goes, how it renders pressure and judgement.

Marie-Noëlle’s example expectations were:

Still from “The Power of Ugly Art”

• “I’m a professional artist and illustrator and so that means the art I make and share online needs to be beautiful.”

• “My ugly art means I’m a bad artist.”

• “I need to create something lovely and appealing to look at.”

• “My art has to reflect everything I’m capable of.”

And her intuitive art sketches—layered on top of one another—looked like this:

Still from “The Power of Ugly Art”

Here’s my first doodle painting:

And, here are some expectations I wrote down, the things that came to mind first. Let the record show: Y I K E S , am I hard on myself…

• Things I make should have meaning.

• What I make should be the absolute best it can be at that particular time.

• If the things I make don’t have meaning and aren’t the best they can be, people will realize I suck.

• Everything I make should be in service of larger creative goals.

Okay, wow. This part of the exercise was illuminating. I hadn’t even realized I was walking around with all these harsh, mean, and frankly limiting thoughts about what I make.

Where did this come from? Well, I suspect part of my neuroses stems from having worked as a graphic designer for so long. Design’s purpose is of course functional; that it has a purpose makes it design, not art. Blogging, too—from the outset, as that industry grew, I would make things for aesthetic consumption, to attract new readers, to grow. Making as a means to an end, or at least, a path elsewhere.

So what else should I expect when I spent ten, fifteen years building creative musculature by lifting dumbbells heavy with purpose? Of course it feels normal to judge my work based on whether it solves a problem. It’s either valuable or not; good or bad.

I wonder if you find yourself passing these same judgements on your work, or perhaps even your various hobbies and endeavors and dreams. Like the clay gals, how often do we admonish ourselves for being bad at something new, versus letting it be what it is, measuring only our enjoyment of the thing? Because if we do this with low stakes things, what becomes of the bigger things? If we daydream about career change, about life change, what are the expectations we place upon ourselves before we even try?

I say this to myself as much as to anyone who has found themselves with similarly destructive self-expectations: Designation of our art or output as “bad” is ultimately a false, broad-stroke judgement of ourselves. It is kindling for our fears. It is evidence, literally on a page in this case, of the insane stories we tell ourselves about the type of life we can live, the type of person we can be. I mean, look at the expectations I penned: the supposed “badness” of the art brought out all of my deepest, darkest worries about myself and the future, when of course, badness is part of any process. The messy middle.

One of my 2025 wishes was to make art “just because,”¹ and I think I wrote that because I am looking for more fun with and less judgement of myself. Ample grace. Making and its outcomes can mean absolutely nothing. They can just be. More important, I know they are necessary mile markers on the way to the bigger, soul-satisfying things I want for myself.

Perhaps I’ll make it a thread series this year! Regular bad art. I post mine, you post yours. The goal for one and all: Let’s not be so goddamn hard on ourselves.

In the vein of making more things, this year I’m planning to write a Substack letter weekly, with Souvenirs published twice monthly on Fridays. As a freelance designer and writer on the side, I’m hoping to build another revenue stream, even if small, especially given the time and love spent on each post.

With that in mind, starting today most posts will be paywalled two weeks after they go live, with select essays available for paid subscribers only.

This is a new thing for me, ye blogger of Internet olde, who has been around long enough to remember how much she charged for a sidebar ad. But it’s a brave new(sletter) world, and despite wringing my hands furiously with this change, I’m going for it and trying it out.

Subscriptions are priced at $5/month or $36/year, which is a 40% discount. While affiliate links may get sprinkled in here and there, I don’t plan to ever accept other sponsorship for this newsletter.

If you have been a long time reader, I would be humbled and honored if you opt to support my work. And if you’re new around here or simply aren’t up for the commitment, no worries: the vast majority of new posts will be available for fourteen days, so stop by on the reg and get while the getting is good.

Regardless, thank you for being here and reading!!

1. Three of you commented or told me in person that you thought I wrote “make out just because,” which…lol.