Voice memo, Thursday, October 8, 2026. Transcript, not edited.

Okay, recording. Um. Robin here. I keep telling myself I'll write this down properly, so this is the messy version.

So what I'm actually working toward is the portfolio for the Lantern Hollow Spring Juried Show. Twelve pieces, photographed, plus a one page statement about my work. The jury wants all of it by Friday, November 20. Right now I have seven pieces I would stand behind. Four more are bisque fired and sitting on my shelf at the community studio, waiting for glaze and a second firing. The twelfth I haven't even thrown yet. The photos I haven't touched. The statement is one sentence and it's a bad sentence.

And here's the thing I keep avoiding, and I know it. I keep saying yes. Everybody else's weekend becomes my weekend. I have helped people move three times this year. Dana in March, Priya in June, Teo in August. Every time it's, oh, it's just one Saturday. It is never one Saturday. It's the Saturday, and then I'm useless Sunday, and the studio hours I had planned just evaporate. I can't fire anything at home, I don't have a kiln, so I depend on the studio's open kiln days, and those are mostly Saturdays. So when I say yes to a move I'm basically saying no to a firing. I know that. I say yes anyway.

Limits. My back complains if I lift heavy things, stairs and couches especially, and then I'm slow for two days. Money is tight. I mean really tight, I can spend maybe forty dollars a month on clay and glaze and that's it, so I can't pay someone to fire for me or hire a photographer. I have a day job, and I'm tired when I get home, so weeknights are not where the big work happens.

How to talk to me. Short. Blunt. Don't cushion it. If I'm dodging, tell me I'm dodging. I don't need a pep talk, I need somebody to say the true thing in two sentences and then let me go do it. Long lists make me close the window.

What else. I don't know. I haven't told anybody about the show, actually. Not Dana, not anybody. Maybe that's part of it. I haven't decided whether that matters. Okay, I think that's it. I'm going to stop recording before I start rambling about glazes.
