Last week, I had the joy of spending an afternoon with ceramic artist Antra Sinha. What I expected to be a casual visit and light conversation about clay unfolded into something far more personal and enlightening. Through shared stories, quiet pauses, and even a few tears, I realized the most valuable lessons weren’t about glaze recipes or advanced techniques but about the quiet habits and mindsets that make a creative life sustainable. I found myself taking mental notes, not of technical shortcuts, but of reminders I didn’t know I needed. These lessons weren’t abstract theories about art; they were practical, human reminders about how to live and create with intention.

Here’s what I took away, and maybe it’s something you can carry into your own rhythm too:

Pause every 20 to 30 minutes.
When you are absorbed in making, time slips away. Hours can pass before you even notice the tension in your shoulders or the dryness in your throat. Pausing is not a break from the work, it is part of the work. Standing, stretching, or drinking water protects the body that carries the practice. It also gives your mind a chance to reset, so you return to the piece with fresher eyes and steadier hands. Since that conversation, I have started to honor these pauses as small rituals rather than interruptions. I even set an alarm to remind myself to take a stretch or sip of water, a gentle cue that sustaining creativity also means sustaining myself.

Make space for two creative hours each day.
One of the simplest yet most challenging pieces of advice she gave me was to set aside a two-hour window for creative work every single day. At first it felt impossible. Life always finds ways to fill the hours with tasks, distractions, or fatigue. But the reminder was clear: creativity will not wait until the perfect moment arrives. By making space for a small, dedicated window in the morning or at night, you shift from waiting for time to appear to creating time yourself. Since then, I have started to treat those two hours as a standing appointment. Some days I make real progress, other days I just show up and do something creative like sketching ideas, working on the website, or simply photographing the work. Either way, those hours are slowly transforming my practice from occasional effort into steady rhythm.

Give yourself some grace.
This was the lesson that resonated the deepest. It is easy to measure yourself against impossible standards: how much work you think you should be producing, how quickly you believe progress should happen, or how perfectly each piece should turn out. But clay does not always cooperate, and neither does life. There will be days when inspiration does not strike, when your hands feel heavy, or when life feels overwhelming. Instead of letting those moments define failure, she reminded me to give myself some grace and be kind to myself. Since then, I have been softening my own expectations and acknowledging that showing up, even imperfectly, still matters. Progress is rarely linear, and giving yourself grace is what allows you to keep going in both life and art.

Spending that afternoon in conversation reminded me that wisdom often comes in the simplest forms. Pausing to care for the body, making space for creativity each day, and giving yourself grace in the process may not sound extraordinary, yet together they create a rhythm that sustains both art and life. These lessons are reminders I now carry with me daily, and I hope they offer something meaningful for you as well—whether you are working with your hands, nurturing a creative practice, or simply finding ways to move through the world with more patience and intention.

I am deeply grateful to Antra for welcoming me into such a heartfelt conversation and for sharing not only her wisdom and space, but also wonderful food.

Conversations in Clay: with Antra Sinha

Tsuchi Aji: The Taste of Earth and the Beauty of Becoming