After years of working to impossibly tight cake deadlines, I thought a whole year to prepare for an exhibition would feel easy. It turns out, clay has its own sense of timing — and I’m still learning

Rethinking Deadlines

For most of my working life, I’ve lived by deadlines. Cake orders, weddings, celebrations — every week came with a fixed date, a clear expectation, and a sense that everything I made was part of someone else’s moment. I got very good at it: planning backwards, working late, pulling things together under pressure. There was no room for hesitation. Things had to be ready, perfect, and delivered on time.

Now, my deadlines look very different — and I’m realising how strange that feels.

This year I’ve had an exhibition on the horizon for months, and somehow I’m still racing to finish everything in time. It’s not that I’ve been idle — quite the opposite — but the rhythm of making ceramics is nothing like baking. Clay has its own calendar: it dries when it’s ready, it cracks when it’s pushed, it teaches patience in ways I’m still learning.

I thought having a whole year to prepare would feel spacious, even luxurious. Instead, I find myself caught between the old urgency of my cake-making past and the slower, less predictable pace of clay. There’s no adrenaline rush in the final week — just a quiet reckoning with what’s been done, what hasn’t, and what I can reasonably finish before the kiln fires one last time.

But maybe that’s the point.

These new deadlines are gentler, but they demand a different kind of discipline — one that’s less about efficiency and more about attention. In ceramics, rushing doesn’t get you ahead; it usually sets you back. The work asks for time, and for trust.

I’m learning that creativity has seasons. Some are productive and fast-moving; others are quieter and more contemplative. The key is to accept both — to recognise that slower progress doesn’t mean stagnation, and that a year spent exploring, testing, and refining is still time well used.

As the exhibition approaches, I’m trying to replace panic with perspective. Not everything needs to be finished to prove I’ve been working — the work itself is evidence of that. The important thing is that what I make feels honest, grounded, and alive.

And if I’m still figuring out how to meet these new kinds of deadlines — well, maybe that’s part of the practice too.