Greenstorm's Journal

It's been awhile since I did this kind of magic. Then again, I'm getting very used to channeling this kind of magic.

First was the time in the forest and the river. That wasn't magic. It was just me, being myself in a space with humans. It had been a very long time. I didn't have to watch myself, to do anything right. This doesn't only mean I could wear clothes or not as I chose, but also that I could bathe in the river whenever I wanted, even if there was no one else doing it; I could behave as I needed during ritual without the requirement of conformity; I could talk about sciency forest management and being spiritually wedded to the land in the same breath; and when I couldn't stand up during ritual I could participate as I wanted without anyone breaking the space with undesired concern or assistance or excluding me.

I walked around and people fed me. That's how I feel loved.

I could have an intense discussion about the character and connection to my land with someone else similarly bound, learning through contrast and similarity and most importantly never feeling like an alien in that space though other people were behaving very differently at that time.

I could watch Tucker inhabit his space and we could come and go from each other with love and admiration without being bound by emotional responsibility for each other.

I could see friends I haven't seen in too, too long and remember they are friends.
That was one half.

The second half involved going to Sidhehaven and making objects. The first couple were mundane, warm-ups but shortly thereafter it was muse or magic, take your pick. I had gone to learn from Sherry, who's been a professional potter for over a decade now. I had also gone to make use of her tools -- she has the most amazing collection of pottery tools -- and to be in a dedicated space that wasn't limited to a couple hours every week except maybe it wouldn't happen because someone didn't have a key or something. Don't get me wrong, I like Sherry, but I was able to immerse fully in what I was doing.

I continued to sleep outside, more-or-less; instead of camping there was a little shed with one outlet, no heat, and a metal roof that sang when it rained. Benefits of being outside for me in the pacific northwest are that I don't have to handle folks' scents and that my body likes the arc of temperature variation. It's generally within a range I can handle.

Sherry cooked a couple times, made fresh bread, had figs and apples ripe around the property, and had a fridge full of food I could plunder. She showed me some things, was around to chat a little, kept me clued in to her schedule, but otherwise left me to my own devices in the studio. I could wake up and go make things before breakfast, before anyone was up. I could work late if I wanted. I could nap when I wanted, taking runs of 2-4 hours of intense concentration and channeling and then collapsing with some tea or a fig into a nap.

My plan had been to replace my plates and bowls I'd made when I did much the same thing in 2014, and to learn to throw taller cylinders. Those plates had been each imprinted with a single plant, inscribed with the latin name, and I'd thought I'd do something similar. The first day I did a circuit of the property with a notebook writing down which plants had available material and which ones I also felt an affinity for.
An hour or two later I was pushing clay against the deep crags of douglas fir bark and getting it hopelessly stuck instead of taking imprints. Another hour and I was draping clay over abalone shells. Twelve hours later I was layering cast-aside clay trimmings and texture mats and rollers and draping them over all sorts of objects. Twenty four hours later I was carrying a big rock into the studio to use as a form for bowls. Thirty hours later I was imprinting poetry, letter by letter, in incantations into the objects.

Thing about clay is it imposes pacing on the potter. It's generally used wet, in a paste or dough consistency where it can't necessarily support itself. Then it dries and as it does so it becomes more able to hold a form but also more likely to break getting into it. If it dries too quickly it cracks. If it's not try enough it can't be taken off a form, or even really handled in many ways.

It's only once clay is very, very dry that it can be put into a kiln and fired to a fairly low temperature. This sets it up so it will hold its shape and survive moisture instead of melting but leaves it porous. The porosity is important because then it's generallly glazed: covered in ground glass and minerals that are absorbed into it. Then it goes into the kiln again, much hotter this time, hot enough to not only melt the glaze into a layer of glass over the object but also to vitrify the underlying clay and make it non-porous to some functional (if not statistically certain) level.

I was at Sidehaven from Sunday evening to Wednesday evening. Nothing was perfectly dry when I left, let alone dry, fired, glazed, and refired. Sherry was loading the kiln for the first fire when I left. She was going to do a candle, basically running the kiln as a super low heating pad overnight to dry everything out before doing the first fire.

Clay changes colour when it fires. The physicality of it changes completely. I left heavy, damp objects. Because I was somehow working with porcelain I will return to smaller, bright white, light objects with much less heft. I won't make it back for months but when I do it'll be to apply the colours and textures of glaze to these objects: objects I haven't even handled yet. And if you think clay changes a lot when it's fired you should see glazes! They're usually a dull grey or red thick liquid when they go onto the piece. When fired they completely alchemize into colours: bright or dark, shiny or dull, speckled or swirled or depthlessly clear. Depending on how many layers are put on the piece, how porous it was after the first fire, what temperature it gets to, how quickly it gets to temperature and how long it stays there and how slowly it cools, it can look very different.

I have ideas right now, developed as the objects formed under my hands, but when I go back I won't even remember what they look like. I took pictures, but still. I was carried by my interaction with the clay so completely in the past couple days. I can only hope it comes back when I return. I made a lot of objects: ridiculous serving platters, big plates, small plates, nearly a dozen cups, some large bowls and some larger bowls and a couple sauce dishes. Enough to populate a kitchen with, really. It's hard to leave; it's good to know I can go back.

I write this on the train that connects Sidhehaven to the city, to Vancouver. The train is cheap, civilized, it runs every day, it doesn't get delayed forever like airplanes. I'm grateful, and a repeat feels achievable. Things want to be finished.

That is to say it's been an excellent vacation so far. The highway home is closed and rerouted due to a fire that's been burning on it for days. I'm not heading up for another couple days but I'm hoping the highway is open by then; if not we go around. Then home, to hopefully collapse into a pile of dogs and cats and just absorb for a little while. That or run around the garden to see how it is: my neighbours got a frost on the 20th but mom says my garden is fine.

Note: train was delayed by a police incident and ran a couple hours late. Apparently this is "not normal" and I am just cursed with transportation.