Pottery Night in the Carolinas, Part II
Back to the pottery studio tonight.
The first time I tried this, it was a horror show. I barely remembered how to set myself up at the wheel. Centering clay was an adventure. Freshmen taking Pots for Jocks shot me pitying glances. You get the idea.
Tonight, I could center the clay. Lock the left arm, shape with the right hand. The flesh remembers, even after all these years. Fits and starts and shapes half-made falling back into clay, and by the end of the evening I'd made two or three things recognizable as "bowls" or perhaps "pots", or maybe "proof that primitive man had once dwelt on this spot, pursuing the mammoth and the great hoe-tusked mastodon".
I smashed them all down and saved the clay. With luck, the hands will remember more, and better, and one of these days I'll make something worth keeping.
Or maybe not. And that'll be fine, too.
The first time I tried this, it was a horror show. I barely remembered how to set myself up at the wheel. Centering clay was an adventure. Freshmen taking Pots for Jocks shot me pitying glances. You get the idea.
Tonight, I could center the clay. Lock the left arm, shape with the right hand. The flesh remembers, even after all these years. Fits and starts and shapes half-made falling back into clay, and by the end of the evening I'd made two or three things recognizable as "bowls" or perhaps "pots", or maybe "proof that primitive man had once dwelt on this spot, pursuing the mammoth and the great hoe-tusked mastodon".
I smashed them all down and saved the clay. With luck, the hands will remember more, and better, and one of these days I'll make something worth keeping.
Or maybe not. And that'll be fine, too.