Nobody Goes to a Party for a Hangover: an argument for reckless creativity

by Laurie Steer June 22, 2026

Yo Laurie,

How do you decide what is worth making?

Nga Mihi,

Rangimarie

Yo Rangimarie,

I think that everything is worth making. I think that you should make something because you feel like making something, and that should be the primary incentive and the first goal. Worth implies a gain or a loss. It suggests some future value that must be measured before we begin. Making something because it might be worth something in the future is commerce, not art. It’s usually repetition rather than conception. What is birth worth? Practise reckless, unprotected creativity. Hurry up. Less thinking, more doing. Bring forth the things you want to see in the world without hesitation and let the retailers and historians argue over their value later. Have your fun. Deciding whether something is worth making can become the biggest barrier to ever getting started. The need to decide can overwhelm the instinct to make. The end needn't dictate the beginning.

For me, making feels more like a necessity than a choice. It's like a lust or an itch, a sensual urgency. I feel excited or irritable and out of balance. Making things restores my equilibrium. I believe making is a bit like breathing for creative people. I don't think it's healthy to treat it as an optional activity. The perils of not making anything often exceed the risks of making something. Should we take action? Is it worth doing? I don't know. Is eating worth doing? Is sleeping or fucking worth doing? These things aren't really decisions. They're instincts. The urge to touch and play with earth is ancient, instinctual, and deeply natural.

Clay has extraordinarily low-waste qualities. By adjusting the water content it can be painted, pinched, coiled, slabbed, thrown or cast to make any shape imaginable. It retains the ability to exist in constant flux until you bake it and even then you can crush up a fired pot and add it back into your next mix. You can make a pot, squish it up and make another pot from the same clay almost indefinitely. There's no point at which it truly becomes waste unless you are intentionally wasteful.

So everything is worth making but not everything is worth keeping. I think that's an important distinction. There are endless opportunities throughout the making process to return your work to the slops bucket. No harm, no foul. Clay is abundant and recyclable, making it one of the least risky materials to play with. If failure carries such little cost, perhaps we worry too much about whether something is worth attempting. Most of the risks are either recoverable or insignificant. We are often far more afraid of failure than failure deserves. Maybe that's why people like shopping. It's easier to consume things than to create them. Creating asks something of us. It demands risk, vulnerability and the possibility of failure.

Making pots can aid deeper thinking, like walking, meditating, yoga or heavy drinking. Some people sleep on a problem. I make things. My mind unravels and resolves my ambitions and concerns while I’m at play. It's like keeping one part of my brain entertained so that another part can get on with other work. Perhaps that's why I like to talk about making in its purest form. Not making a bowl because one day you’ll eat noodles from it. Not making something for commercial gain. Just making for the sake of making. Making as understanding. This way you are extracting the value while you do it. The worth is revealing itself to you in the moment. Yo Rangimarie, quit your need for a predetermined outcome. We have machines for that. Imagine you're human. Embrace your wobbly, emotional, meat sack self and make something. Forgo the result in return for the ride. Nobody goes to a party for a hangover. Enjoy the dancing, drink the punch, let the night unfold. Make pots like you live in a river and don’t own a kiln.