100 Pounds of Pressure

An exploration of simplicity, texture, and the beauty found within limits.

One hundred vessels.
Each shaped from exactly one pound of charcoal clay.
Same material. Same weight. Same darkness.
Thrown again and again—within the same tight frame.

I began this work while feeling boxed in—emotionally, physically, creatively.
So I built a practice inside that feeling. Not to escape it, but to meet it.

No color. No flourish. No room to hide.
Just clay, pressure, and time.
Just me and the wheel, asking: Can I make something tender inside all this tension?

This is what emerged.

In the repetition, I found variation.
In the pressure, I found presence.
And in the boundaries, I found a strange kind of beauty—not despite the limitations, but because of them.

Each vessel holds its own story: a collapse, a breakthrough, a wobble, a moment of grace.
They are quiet things. Soft things.
Proof that even in stuckness, something can grow.
Even in shadow, you can shape light.