Planting Ideas: Using Clay to Capture a Year of Reading
Author’s note: What started as a brief introduction to my latest data physicalization project quickly became a much longer retrospective on the ebbs and flows of my relationship with reading over the years. I won’t feel bad if you want to skip ahead to where I start talking about the actual data project. I know what it feels like to want a recipe and instead find yourself reading through the poster’s entire life story.
Once upon a time, there was a girl who liked to read…
I have been an avid reader since, well, I learned how to read. My parents sometimes recall how I would correct them if they skipped a sentence or page as they read to me before bedtime. Summer holidays were marked by the boxes of books I would insist we pack for our lengthy camping trips. Scholastic Book Fairs were a time to stock up on all the latest middle-grade and young adult series (as well as some cool posters and pens).
Reading was my main form of entertainment throughout my adolescence. I read about wizards and clans of wild cats and magical treehouses and clay dragons that come to life and a magical wardrobe. Even in high school, when many kids get burnt out from mandatory readings, I kept my love of reading going strong. Most notably, I managed to make my way through the entirety of George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones series in the tenth and eleventh grades (yes, of course I am anxiously waiting for The Winds of Winter).
Then came university. I didn’t necessarily stop reading, but what I was reading certainly shifted. My shelves slowly started to populate with information design, graphic design, and typography books, as well as quite a few autobiographies from my favourite actors and creators (Amy Poehler’s Yes Please, Hannah Hart’s Buffering, and Tyler Oakley’s Binge all come to mind). My time for reading fiction began to shrink.
In my second year, I took an English class that focused entirely on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, because I knew that given my recent reading habits, I would never read these incredible classics if not for the push to get a good grade (I just checked my transcript, and yes, I managed to get an A- in this class).
Towards the end of my undergraduate degree, I started to make my way through Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. Considering how I flew through A Game of Thrones back in high school, I thought I would get through Outlander with ease. Not so much. It took months to get through the first book — not because it was bad or difficult, but my mind was just no longer attuned to lengthy bouts of reading fiction.
Looking back, the lowest point in my reading journey was undoubtedly my stint in Toronto for the first part of my grad school program. That program was so stressful and demanding, I rarely had time to do much of anything besides schoolwork. When I look at my bookshelf now, I can only pick out a handful of books that I recall reading during that time — notably, I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella, which I vividly remember buying in the Eaton Centre and starting to read in the food court.
Luckily, the second half of my grad school program was a bit more relaxed, and I experienced an unprecedented rise in my fiction-reading. When I set out for my four-month spell in Ireland, the only books I brought with me were Voyager by Diana Gabaldon (yes, three years into reading the series and I was only on book three), and The Subversive Stitch by Rozsika Parker — the former intended as my downtime reading, and the latter intended as research for my Master’s thesis.
However, I found myself filling my suitcase with over a dozen books to bring home — some for my research, but many simply because I fell in love with Irish authors: Emer McLysaght, Sarah Breen, Caroline O’Donoghue, Sarah Maria Griffin, Naoise Dolan, and of course, the two Irish GOATs, James Joyce and Sally Rooney. This “reading Renaissance” that I found myself in was exactly what I needed to get me through the last stretch of my Master’s degree.
Upon returning home with a shiny new degree in hand, I was ready to catch up with friends and start my post-academic life. Until a pandemic very forcefully put a stop to that.
When the government tells you to stay home to protect your loved ones, you do just that. And if you were like me, you turned to your bookshelves for comfort. Throughout 2020, I found myself rediscovering the characters and authors of my teenage and university years, and my TBR finally began to dwindle.
With nothing else to do but stay home, lest I contract the virus or unwittingly spread it, I read. I discovered new authors, new series, new tropes. I caught up on all the series that had released new books while I’d been academically occupied. My bookshelves exploded, yet on I read.
And now, we’ve reached the point where my favourite local bookstore recognizes me and places my online order on the counter long before I make it to the till.
Then, on a cold night in January…
if you’re reading this, you’re probably already familiar with my previous work in the world of data physicalization. If you’re unfamiliar, take a moment to read through my previous articles, then pop back here. We’ll be waiting.
After finishing a major data physicalization project in August 2023, my creative juices slowed down. How do you top a project that was nearly 3 years in the making? My brain needed some time to percolate on what my next data physicalization project would entail.
Despite my fascination with data visualization, I’m not one for self-tracking and the quantification of one’s life. I’m not interested in tracking my steps or meals or sleep habits. I’d much rather explore existing data sets in my work. However, if I could find an aspect of my life that would be relatively simple, noninvasive, and interesting, I would be open to exploring that.
Cut to December 31st, 2023. I was staying up late finishing my last book of the year — Death Valley by Melissa Broder, if you’re curious. Once the clock struck midnight and January 1st, 2024 began, I started a new book — Good Material by Dolly Alderton. As this new year started, I decided that for the first time in my life, I was going to keep track of the books I read.
The rule I set for myself was simple: the moment I finished a book, I had to take a photo of it. The metadata of the image would capture the date and time for me, and as an added measure of accountability, I decided to share these images on my Instagram story.
I also decided that I didn’t care about when I started a book, or how long it took me to read it. I didn’t want to track the length of my reading sessions, or otherwise quantify my reading habits beyond finished books. All I cared about was, one, the book I read, and two, when I finished it. These decisions kept me from becoming overwhelmed by this project.
Another stipulation was that this project could not influence my reading habits. A few times throughout the year, I caught myself thinking things such as, “I just have to read a little longer to have this one done before the end of the month,” or, “I should try and squeeze in another book this week.” But ultimately, these thoughts didn’t end up swaying the project or my reading habits.
Lastly, unlike many avid readers, I did not set a goal at the beginning of the year. However, as the year progressed and I began to get a sense of how much I was reading, I ended up setting a soft goal of 75 books at some point in the summer.
I managed to keep this up all year long — capturing a photo of each book immediately upon finishing it, and sharing that photo on my Instagram story. On December 31st, 2024, I finished my 79th book — Cold by Drew Hayden Taylor. As someone who enjoys round, even numbers, I am trying very hard to not let this uneven number bother me. I had to talk myself out of squeezing in a short novella at 11pm on December 31st. That final number had to be true to life.
“Wait! I can explain!”
I always knew that this project would end in a data physicalization, but figuring out its exact form took some time. My first thought was to cross-stitch pixelated versions of each cover, but this notion quickly grew daunting as my pile of finished books grew higher and higher. Also, defaulting to a blanket or wall hanging or cross stitch felt too easy — I wanted to “break out of my shell” and step away from the fibre arts for this project.
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During my Master’s thesis research, I came across Alice Thudt’s Life in Clay project. Clay is a fascinating medium for data physicalization because of its flexibility in shape, size, colour, texture, and purpose, so in seeking a final form for this project, Alice Thudt’s work once again inspired me.
However, I knew I’d have to make some adaptations due to one, my lack of experience with pottery, and two, my lack of access to materials, such as a pottery wheel and kiln. Addressing these limitations led me to the final concept: a pre-made plant pot with oven-bake clay accents down the sides, with each one representing a book.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Doesn’t something soft and cozy like a blanket or pillow make more sense as a physical representation of one’s reading journey? At least a blanket or pillow could be used while reading.
These thoughts all crossed my mind, but I decided to stick with my plan — a beautiful plant in a custom plant pot, placed in my living room where I do the majority of my reading, can be just as meaningful as a blanket or pillow. Plus, the newness of the medium intrigued me above all else.
Time to talk data. I toyed with capturing data like word count (unavailable for some books), page count (varies based on typeface selection and text arrangement), and genre (too subjective — should A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston be classified as magical realism or romance? Or perhaps magical realism romance? And what even is “literary fiction” anyways?!).
Shockingly, I’m also not too keen on rating the books I read. I either liked it, or I didn’t. Very rarely do I DNF a book. In 2024, I actually DNF’d a series that had been sitting on my TBR since 2022. There were, of course, some standouts that I read last year, but overall, including ratings in my data physicalization just didn’t resonate with me and how I like to read and enjoy books.
Instead, I settled on capturing data that I, personally, find interesting about my reading habits. What is my ratio of fiction to nonfiction? How many Doctor Who-related books make their way onto my TBR? Am I reading much from non-English-language authors? How often am I “shopping” from my own bookshelves? How many series am I currently keeping up with or starting from the beginning? Do I tend to finish more books in the evenings or on weekends? Which are my slower reading months or seasons?
After much deliberation, here is what I chose to encode, and how I chose to represent it in clay form:
The sharp contrast between the softness of the circle and the hard edges of the diamond makes shape an easy differentiator in clay form. The indented inner white border representing re-reads feels like a subtle nod to the “repeat” or “replay” icon of an arrow looping around on itself. And of course, what better colour to represent Doctor Who than a lovely TARDIS blue?
…and she lived happily ever after.
What followed was a series of experiments in clay to figure out the best method for achieving my vision. Three trips to Michael’s, one felt prototype, a failed attempt with air dry clay, a new tool at my disposal (it’s literally called a “clay pasta machine”), and several nights painting small clay tiles later, Planting Ideas started to become a reality.
The final piece of the physicalization puzzle was the plant pot itself. I commissioned a dodecagon (12-sided shape) plant pot from a friend-of-a-friend with a 3D printer. Each side of the dodecagon represents a month of the year, and the clay tiles cascade down accordingly.
So now here we are, making our way through the first couple months of 2025. Planting Ideas is finished, and I have read nearly 10 books so far this year — and yes, I’m tracking them again because who knows, maybe a second plant pot is in my future.
I’m proud of this project — not only because I was able to read 79 books, but also because I got to learn some new skills and try out a few different things along the way. This project also taught me to let go of my ever-present perfectionism. Those clay tiles are a little wonky, with a few air bubbles and dog hairs trapped inside, but honestly? I couldn’t be happier with how the whole project turned out.
Toddler-me who would correct her parents while they read to her, and middle-school-me who gave herself a Warrior Cats name, would be proud that decades later, I still find immense joy in reading. I love skimming my fingers along the spines of the books on my shelf, remembering their stories and characters, how I felt while reading them, and where I was in my own life while I enjoyed their tales. But nothing compares to the feeling of curling up on my couch in fresh pyjamas, a record softly playing and my dog at my side, with a new book full of possibilities.
Plant pot 3D printed by Taylor Hecker
Plant purchased at Plant
Special thanks to my parents for inspiring a lifelong love of reading, The Next Page for supplying me with a steady stream of books, and Taelynn Graham for being my data phys partner-in-crime.
Appendix: 2024 Reading Habits
What kind of books did I read?
67 fiction, 12 nonfiction
13 re-reads (all fiction)
10 Doctor Who books (8 fiction, 2 nonfiction)
5 complete series (all fiction)
4 translations (3 Japanese, 1 German)
When did I finish books?
Time: 21.5% in the morning between 7 and 11:59am, 61% in the evening between 7 and 10:59pm
Day: 31% on weekends
What is the shortest and longest gap between books?
Shortest: 2h32min
Longest: 23 days
