I re-found my first love. We broke up a long time ago and the reconciliation has been awkward.
Re-examining all the reasons we broke up in the first place… Dissecting my original disenchantment. Rethinking my trust issues. Wondering about the longevity of my love and presence.
What made me ‘fall out’ of love to begin with?—> The fastest answer is probably the Urn.
I had been asked to make an Urn. And I was struggling with how to contain something so immense. A human life; Memories, accomplishments, and a legacy.
(It was my mothers request, for my fathers ashes.)
Containing something so big, with something that I created with my hands, and mud, while using a wheel didn’t seem to work. Historically it makes sense— Clay lasts. Doesn’t disintegrate. Doesn’t degrade... Seems perfect. But Clay was my method for discovery. I was expanding my ideas through sculpting mud. I couldn’t create something so definite like containing my father. So I made it out of wood.
I stopped throwing seriously sometime in 2008.
Why I fell in love in the first place :)
1. Clay is always there. In the cabinets, on the side board, deep in the ground, at the edge of a stream, the tile below your feet.
2. The touch, the feel, smell and taste. Things taste better eaten off of a hand turned object.
3. Ceramics is based in community and sharing.
4. Mud has a legacy that is sustained by teaching and applied applications
5. It's an Underdog
6. fire, water, wind, and Ice. A direct relationship with the elements.
7. The peoples pottery. I was steeped in the ideas of Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada-> Pots are born, not made.
8. Centering the clay- is not about pushing it into conformity. It only happen when you push it past the center, out of its comfort. And on the rebound, if you allow the clay, it will settle itself.
9. A way to self-sooth.
10.
Why did we break-up?
1. I thought that the mud was limiting me
2. I didn't want to be regulated to the craft table.
3. After the Contemplation Cups were born, where else could I go? How else could I rebel?
4. The surface? I was more intrigued w the form & function and didn't know how to marry the form/surface/function without being….
5. The urn.
6. In the end, I wanted the wheel and the time on the wheel for myself. I didn't want to have to share the byproduct. But I love to teach it….?
7. Maybe it was all about my self-soothing?
8.
How do we reconcile?
1. After 10 years, as they say ‘it was like riding a bike’. At first the pace was slow.
2. I started throwing again a year and 1/2 ago- the rhythm weaved it’s way back into my heart.
3. When I started throwing again it was only a flirtation on Sundays. I would throw and listen to funk, and punk. The beat helped me push the clay.
4. On Tuesdays I would trim and let the forms reveal themselves—-> tempo: Folk.
5. Then BOOM pANDEMIC, and all I wanted to do is throw.
6. Then the questions started again.
1. How do I marry the surface w the function?
2. Can I contain more than the known Ounces of the vessel?
3. How do I learn to appreciate the lessons of relinquishing control?
4. Carbon trap? ( can ceramics investigate the relationship between carbon and oxygen through an atmosphere of reduction?)
5. Who has the right to commemorate?
6. How should I refer to the ‘wares’? It? She? Them?
7. How do they function in the world and who do they function for?
6. Can I/ Should I apologize and make amends?
7. Is it all about my own self-soothing or can it be useful to others?
8.
*** THIS LIST EBBS AND FLOWS***
