When I was still in architecture school at Columbia University, I found this wooden object at a studio sale. I think it was a prototype. It was under a table and didn’t have a price tag, but I asked if I could buy it and they sold it to me for ten dollars. I’ve used it to hold flowers and candles, but mostly I just display it like a sculpture.

I have no idea why it was made, because I’ve never seen that studio produce anything similar—it might not have even become a product. If you look closely, you can see the rough edges of the compressed wood pulp, and there’s a small nail sticking out on the inside. To me, it’s simply a record of someone’s idea.

Now, almost ten years later, I understand this object so much better. I follow a process that produces that type of thing all the time in my ceramics studio. I just want to try out an idea, but often it doesn’t become anything at all, and then it sits on a shelf for years before I pick it up to see it through.

I’m a perfectionist, and now that I work in ceramics I want everything to be a straight line and precise—my architecture background made me extremely rigorous—but that’s really hard in clay. This process has made me accept that at the end of the day, the evidence of your hand will never go away. I’ve come to accept those character flaws in the work, and it doesn’t bother me that they go out into the universe.

Design is innate. There is natural talent, but there isn’t enough credit given to the work it takes to find your design voice. It takes practice. This prototype reminds me that it’s the process that produces the product, and more often than not, it’s a nonlinear journey to get there.

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