Creativebug I found pottery at a point in my life when I was completely burned out from a career in surface pattern design. Burned out from producing, from working with an agent, from constantly pushing art out into the world. It wasn’t just creative burnout—it was mental exhaustion. The kind that makes everything feel dull, even the things you used to love.
Clay Felt Like A Return.
A way back to something quieter. Something slower. There was something about getting my hands dirty again that brought me back. Using my creativity in a way that wasn’t performative or polished. Just tactile. Present. Real. I loved the way the clay slipped through my fingers as it spun on the wheel—soft, responsive. I loved carving it down slowly until it became perfectly thin, like driftwood smoothed by the ocean.
Pottery demands your attention. You can’t be somewhere else. You have to be fully there—aware of every movement, every shift in pressure. Each subtle touch has a response. Push too hard, it collapses. Ease up, it opens. There’s no rushing it.
Living with ADHD, my mind usually feels like a swarm of bees. Every thought buzzing, pulling me in a dozen directions at once. It’s exhausting trying to keep up with it all. But pottery quieted that noise. Not gently—it required it. And in that, something in me softened. The noise hushed. For a while, there was just the wheel, my hands, and the rhythm of staying.
It grounded me in a way I didn’t realize I needed. Earthy, organic—like something alive in my hands—it bent to my will, but it also asked me to pay attention. To stay. Like walking barefoot in the grass—simple, steady, real.
And somewhere in that, something shifted. It brought life back into me. Into my work. It didn’t pull me away from design—it gave me the space to return to it differently. With more curiosity. Less pressure. I found myself falling back in love with creating again, not as something I had to constantly produce or prove, but something I could return to. Something that meets me where I am.
Then Everything Changed.
My husband left abruptly, and I was on the ground in confusion and pain. A carefully built life, just… gone. Through the divorce, I didn’t just lose a relationship. I lost a whole way of living—the farm life that had brought our family joy with our horses and chickens, my art and pottery studio, the future I thought I was building.
I walked into a life I didn’t recognize. Like I had been dropped into someone else’s story. Like I was in witness protection, trying to figure out who I was supposed to be now.
I had been freelancing most of my career, but suddenly I needed stability. Something real. Something that could hold me up. I found a job as an artist at Central Market, a specialty grocery store, and somehow, it was exactly what I needed. I could still make things. Still be creative. Even when everything inside of me felt completely lost.
There were days I felt out of my body—floating, untethered, disconnected from myself. But even then, something steady was there underneath it all. I didn’t realize it at the time, but art wasn’t just something I was doing—it was how I was staying connected to myself.
Even in the smallest ways, it kept pulling me back. Back into my body, back into the present, back into something that still felt like mine.
Even When I Didn’t Know Who I Was, My Creative Soul Did.
Art knows who I am. Every choice, every stroke, every mark is mine.
My art practice is bringing me back to myself. It knew who I was all along. It’s been my quiet co-pilot through all of this. I’m not done healing. I’m still processing. But I trust myself now. I trust that when I let my creative spirit lead, it will keep me grounded. It will keep me honest.
It will keep bringing me back.
Cindy Willingham is a painter, designer, and illustrator, finding joy in all things creative. She is based in Caddo Mills, TX.