Finding the Center

Jan 14, 2007 21:11

Tomorrow Imagine and I have our second class with the ex-Krishna potter Steve Martin at the hawaii potter's guild downtown. This is a big deal for us to both be up and ready to leave the house by 7:30 in order to get to Honolulu by 9-ish. But soooooo worth it now that I've quit being a wimp about the morning rush hour and just got us down there. The guild is this open air studio all organized but with a cool boulder garden filled with old pottery and cactus and tropicals. Half the studio runs up under an old off ramp from H1 (the main interstate in Hawaii--big joke is how can it be an interstate...) and so the plumbing is only water in-- no drains. When we clean up there is the ritual of bucketing standing water over the the boulder garden and pouring it down the deep crack beneath the main boulder where it is naturally filtered and soaked back into the earth and garden.

Last week I spent a good hour and half trying to find my center. My first time throwing a pot on the wheel was something of a slimy mess. Getting the clay in the middle and pulling it up and down to wedge it makes one want to use water and more water. Imagine and I both ruined our first lump of clay this way. By hour three we both had our first creation..though mine got cut in half to see how thick the walls of it were. Steve: "We're all yogi's here...not attached to the creation." My first pot on my first day of using the wheel...comitted to the void.
Previous post Next post
Up