My Misshapen Pottery Sets Are Perfect Even When They’re Not

How learning how to make bowls and plates gave me freedom to buy my own.

Graphic by me!! Isn’t that bowl sweet?

Few things bring me more joy than finely crafted tableware. Growing up, I never understood why my mother had a china cabinet stuffed with shiny plates we seldom used. But for the past few years, I’ve loved these beautiful objects from afar, gazing at storefronts that boasted handmade ceramic bowls and plates. I never felt like it was for me until I began making my own.

I first began thinking about the thrill of tableware when I thrifted my first set of dishes — which were IKEA plates with fossilized fork marks embedded in the white glaze — from the 14th Street Goodwill in Manhattan, after a long day of dorm shopping with my roommate. We couldn’t afford the playful, whimsical bowls from Anthropologie that evoked a sense of dinner party glamour and adulthood. Still, the IKEA plates were trusty and had a good heft to them. We never burned our hands on the edge of the plates after microwaving them, and we never broke a single one despite dropping them several times. I ended up gaining custody of the plate set when my roommate and I split ways two years later.

At my next place, I kept the plates in rotation, along with four beige porcelain bowls (two big, two small) that I…