beginning of a love affair...

There is something incredibly soothing about the feel of wet clay against your hands. As the wheel spins, swirls, turns, your thoughts begin to slow their own spinning, swirling, turning. With your hands cupped around a small mass of wet gray clay, the world fades into the background. The teacher’s instructors to keep “centering” take hold, not only of your hands upon the silky texture of the clay, but of the internal chaos as well. The tumbling of thoughts ebbs, breathing slows, and in that moment, you become one with your creation. As the clay becomes centered, you can feel your own self becoming centered. The worries, the anxieties, everything else ceases to matter as you become immersed in an act of love between the strength of your hands and the fragility of the clay. You find strength where you didn’t know it existed. The typical shakiness of your hands vanishes and they hold steady, strong, molding and shaping and centering. The rain beats down heavily outside the door to the studio and you can literally feel the cleansing of the earth. Your own hands immersed in water, bathing the clay. Your hands become the rain, the clay becomes the earth. With each motion, you are cleansing, you are being cleansed, the world is being washed anew. As my skin and spirit became immersed in the act of creation, so began my love affair with clay and wheels and kilns…my initiation into the world of pottery.