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Somewhere between the hot flashes, the brain fog, and yet another pot collapsing on the wheel, it’s easy to feel like everyone else got a manual for this season of life that you somehow missed. What if the other side of perimenopause isn’t about finally feeling less like a failure, but about refusing to take those feelings so personally? Kelli Nina Perkins of Pottery Apocalypse, a retired librarian turned RV-park studio volunteer, shares how letting her unfiltered inner monologue into her videos (the doubts, the flops, the five-minutes-later reversals) has given other makers permission to stop chasing perfect. Her small artist trading card swap has also shown just how hungry potters are to find each other. Could waking up excited to try again, no matter what came out of yesterday’s kiln, be the most powerful thing we bring to our making and to the next chapter of our lives?

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Looking for support in building your own creative life? Come join over 100 other makers from around the world, having these very discussions, inside of The Community. Click here to learn more.

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For so many of us, perimenopause shows up quietly (and often years before we expect it), scrambling the energy, focus, and follow-through our creative businesses depend on, while the people around us either miss it entirely or chalk it up to us being “cranky.” What if this season isn’t your capacity breaking down, but an invitation to finally stop pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and start asking what you actually need?

In this special Kiln Me Now takeover, Community members Debi Stoliar and Nadine Winsor sit down with ceramic artist Lori Elling. Lori shares how brain fog left her one-woman business without a “manager,” and how loosening her grip led her toward a simpler, unexpectedly joyful body of work without compromising her voice.

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Looking for support in building your own creative life? Come join over 100 other makers from around the world, having these very discussions, inside of The Community. Click here to learn more.

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Some days the clay is calling and you still can't make yourself go down to the studio (and the story you tell yourself about why is rarely a kind one). For potters in perimenopause, that tug-of-war gets louder: bigger feelings, words that won't come, and fewer spoons to spend. It's easy to read all of that as proof you're falling apart. But what if this stretch isn't a slow decline at all, and is instead a kind of fermentation period where you're quietly becoming someone new? In this Kiln Me Now takeover, Community members Debi Stoliar and Nadine Winsor sit down with Taylor Swilley of Backyard Kiln to talk about how perimenopause collided with neurodivergence, why spoon theory changed the way they think about rest, and how caring less about outside opinions led Taylor to value their time and price their work like it matters. Could giving less flux be what finally makes room for your most meticulous, confident work yet?

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Looking for support in building your own creative life? Come join over 100 other makers from around the world, having these very discussions, inside of The Community. Click here to learn more.

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Love this podcast? Support an episode!

Follow The Maker's Playbook on Instagram @themakersplaybook