I write my first every blog from Sheffield where I am rehearsing Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. I miss home, my pottery studio and Dylan the dog, but it is a privilege and a pleasure to work on such an incredible play with a great bunch of talented people.
One of the reasons I took up pottery was to have a creative outlet to balance the intermittent nature of life as a working actor. I am now starting to realise the two have similarities, mainly to do with putting yourself out there, to be judged.
As an actor from the first audition through the first day in rehearsal to press night, you are opening yourself up to be judged, although the most formidable judge is always yourself. Until you can put all this unhelpful judgement behind you, you can never really let go and head for the edges of your creativity. You will always stay safe, are unlikely to realise your potential by making brave and interesting choices.
With pots, for me, opening the kiln after a glaze firing is usually “managed disappointment”. I can deal with cracks. There is always a reason for them and you can learn from them. The judgement bit is the difference of was in my head and what I am now seeing. The way the glaze has, or hasn’t run. The way the texture worked. The actual colour of the fired glaze. I have to live with my pot and learn to love it for what it is rather than what I imagined it would be. I was on the verge of comparing this transition to having kids but then I realised just how much such a comment was open to ridicule.
So what’s the moral of the story. The last acting review I read said “Andrew Macbean was simply weird”. I was playing the title role in Killer Joe, a cowboy contract killer. I’m not sure the reviewer meant it like this but I took it as a positive. I am just launching my pottery website where I will be offering my pots for sale. I have also just committed to doing my first ever craft fair at Waterperry Gardens. The website requires me to say loud and clear “I made this and I’m proud of it”. The craft fair requires me to put my pots out on a table, stand behind it and welcome people to take a look. Just writing this down makes my heart beat a little faster.
So it's not that I don’t want feedback, be it positive or negative. I do. But it is also time to dig deep and make some decisions about what I feel about my work rather than let that reviewer from the Bristol Evening Post decide for me.