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Womb/Pottery and Chaos
Nov. 30th, 2023 08:54 pmI'm writing from home. Lately most of my posts have been from work where I have some distance from myself. Today, though, it was dark when I left town and the snow forced low-beam headlights to carve only a small private space on the highway. I travelled here with the electric sound of ceramic clattering gently with every irregularity on the road.
When I got home, in the dark, I unloaded four boxes of my pottery from my truck while animals swirled around inside and out. I also had milk, salad greens, a chainsaw, and winter boots to bring in. You know that feeling of warm light coming out of a home doorway? And walking back and forth, carrying armloads of things, while underfoot everything seeks your attention and love?
I don't know how to describe the next part. At some point I needed to put groceries away, make food, eat, add wood to the woodstove. Solly came indoors and was growling and warning the cats, so I worked on some conditioning by having a joyful cheese party every time she looked at or interacted with the cats. She's very smart and had some rough nervous system stuff recently and I'd unthinkingly gave her some intense "no" for going after a cat yesterday, so she was very guardy around them. We're back to a much better place now but it took lots of attention on my part to jump up and give her a cheese party all the time. Then she woud only drink water from the cat bowl, which is about a cup of water, so I had to keep refilling it so the cats had water whereupon she would drink it again.
I finally gave her a bunch of chicken broth in her own water bowl, which solved that problem, but then Bear decided he would only drink flavoured drinks by tipping over my cups and water bottles. That meant all sorts of things all over the couch, and while I was handling that a full strip of flypaper full of dead flies got tangled in my hair, the cats were asking for dinner, Solly still wanted attention, there was a chainsaw in the middle of the floor and also Solly but she'd also just grabbed one of my winter boots to chew...
And in the midst of that I was unloading my pottery, piece by piece, from the newspaper nests in those four boxes. Here's the thing.
You don't know what pottery will look like until after it's fired. Glazes are not like paints, roughly the same colour as they'll be when done. Glazes are like cake batter, or a kitten's eyes: the final result only comes after you've waited through the necessary rituals. Glazes are red and grey and pale green, almost all of them, and depending on how you applied them they'll turn a huge range of colours. One of our glazes at the studio is green, but sometimes purple, and can be made to turn yellow. That's chemistry.
But also, here's the thing. Pottery, or really three dimensional objects, require attention and time. The glaze on my cups, when it works just right, is different inside and outside and all the way around. When you look into it there are depths, not just patterning but also movement under a translucent surface. The clay itself is textured, from smooth white or dark brown that feels almost manufacturedly smooth under the fingertips to sandy reds that reach out with friction to pull at your skin. There's a balance of weight in the hand. Looking at them is one thing but handling them is quite something else.
But also, they respond to the light. Whatever the light is in the kiln room at the pottery studio it makes everything look terrible. Sunlight is amazing, but even the lights in my house - daylight LEDs, warm white LEDs, or white grow lights - give them a totally different character.
I wanted to take pictures so through the chaos I was unloading them, piece by piece, onto a shelf I'd cleared. Piece by piece, on at a time, I lifted them. I held them. I tried to sort them into categories. The whole time there was this very familiar intensity, the feeling of being internally obliterated by the strength of something I didn't have time to attend to. I fed the dog cheese. I moved cups and wiped the couch. I picked sticky flies out of my hair. I tried to corrall newspaper packing scraps into the chainsaw box. And I felt something.
By the time I finally made dinner and came downstairs I was on autopilot. In hindsight I'm so grateful for a home where I can autopilot through my needs and not be broken out of the habits by roommates etc, sort of ironically the animals don't count. I turned on one low, warm lamp and turned the other lights off. The flames danced in the woodstove. I ate salad and chicken rice and drank water and chai hot chocolate and fended the kitten off my food.
Now I'm done, nursing my hot chocolate in the cup I get to keep because it has a small crack on the inner rim. I made the cup-- it's a tall straight cylinder of dark red clay with fine horizinal textured striations in the middle 2/3. The bottom quarter is raw clay, the next quarter up is dark blue that pools in between the striations, and the half above that is swirling fluid blue with white wavelet patterns and drips moving through it.It's beautiful, and I made it, and I know where my emotion is from.
Last time I made beautiful things was in high school. My art teacher gave me, not just free rein, but support in doing what I wanted. I made beautiful things: paintings of what it felt like to stare into my own eyes, sculptures of what love felt like, bowls on the wheel that engaged my body. I made art that was banned from being shown in public at the school, and art they displayed front and center. I externalized parts of my experience so that people could see and experience with me. I integrated my inner self into the world where it could be seen. People said nice things about it.
That was the last year in high school. Right afterwards, in the summer, we moved to the city from the 4000 square foot house and 5 acres I mostly grew up on. We moved to the city, to a 42' boat where three of us would live. I slept on the folding couch in the livingroom, my brother had the front v-berth, mom had the back room.
We had to get rid of a lot a lot a lot of things to make the move and I packed up my most cherished and important things in one crate and set it beside the car on that last day. I kept it separate, apart from everything, so no mistakes would be made. It contained my art, my american passport, my notebook that was the predecessor to this journal, and my love letters with Kynnin.
It was thrown out.
I haven't made physical art since then. Functional things that are incidentally beautiful, sure, but not--
Sometimes I exist in words and writing. That's when I make poetry.
Sometimes I exist in space. That's when I make physical art. So much can't be communicated any other way.
I didn't do that for so long, and here I am with so many beautiful objects. I didn't trust I could still do that, could still evoke that heart-feeling from materials the earth gave to my hands. I don't know how to handle having those objects, them existing where I can access them, having a home that is mine with then inside.
This has never happened before and I have feelings about it.
And now that I'm safe in the warm barely-lit room with a fireplace and a shell of wood and shingle and outside that snow and dogs and fence protecting me I can almost entertain the idea that I could do this again: make another beautiful thing and another, and keep them or let them flow from me as I choose.
Almost.
It's been so long.
When I got home, in the dark, I unloaded four boxes of my pottery from my truck while animals swirled around inside and out. I also had milk, salad greens, a chainsaw, and winter boots to bring in. You know that feeling of warm light coming out of a home doorway? And walking back and forth, carrying armloads of things, while underfoot everything seeks your attention and love?
I don't know how to describe the next part. At some point I needed to put groceries away, make food, eat, add wood to the woodstove. Solly came indoors and was growling and warning the cats, so I worked on some conditioning by having a joyful cheese party every time she looked at or interacted with the cats. She's very smart and had some rough nervous system stuff recently and I'd unthinkingly gave her some intense "no" for going after a cat yesterday, so she was very guardy around them. We're back to a much better place now but it took lots of attention on my part to jump up and give her a cheese party all the time. Then she woud only drink water from the cat bowl, which is about a cup of water, so I had to keep refilling it so the cats had water whereupon she would drink it again.
I finally gave her a bunch of chicken broth in her own water bowl, which solved that problem, but then Bear decided he would only drink flavoured drinks by tipping over my cups and water bottles. That meant all sorts of things all over the couch, and while I was handling that a full strip of flypaper full of dead flies got tangled in my hair, the cats were asking for dinner, Solly still wanted attention, there was a chainsaw in the middle of the floor and also Solly but she'd also just grabbed one of my winter boots to chew...
And in the midst of that I was unloading my pottery, piece by piece, from the newspaper nests in those four boxes. Here's the thing.
You don't know what pottery will look like until after it's fired. Glazes are not like paints, roughly the same colour as they'll be when done. Glazes are like cake batter, or a kitten's eyes: the final result only comes after you've waited through the necessary rituals. Glazes are red and grey and pale green, almost all of them, and depending on how you applied them they'll turn a huge range of colours. One of our glazes at the studio is green, but sometimes purple, and can be made to turn yellow. That's chemistry.
But also, here's the thing. Pottery, or really three dimensional objects, require attention and time. The glaze on my cups, when it works just right, is different inside and outside and all the way around. When you look into it there are depths, not just patterning but also movement under a translucent surface. The clay itself is textured, from smooth white or dark brown that feels almost manufacturedly smooth under the fingertips to sandy reds that reach out with friction to pull at your skin. There's a balance of weight in the hand. Looking at them is one thing but handling them is quite something else.
But also, they respond to the light. Whatever the light is in the kiln room at the pottery studio it makes everything look terrible. Sunlight is amazing, but even the lights in my house - daylight LEDs, warm white LEDs, or white grow lights - give them a totally different character.
I wanted to take pictures so through the chaos I was unloading them, piece by piece, onto a shelf I'd cleared. Piece by piece, on at a time, I lifted them. I held them. I tried to sort them into categories. The whole time there was this very familiar intensity, the feeling of being internally obliterated by the strength of something I didn't have time to attend to. I fed the dog cheese. I moved cups and wiped the couch. I picked sticky flies out of my hair. I tried to corrall newspaper packing scraps into the chainsaw box. And I felt something.
By the time I finally made dinner and came downstairs I was on autopilot. In hindsight I'm so grateful for a home where I can autopilot through my needs and not be broken out of the habits by roommates etc, sort of ironically the animals don't count. I turned on one low, warm lamp and turned the other lights off. The flames danced in the woodstove. I ate salad and chicken rice and drank water and chai hot chocolate and fended the kitten off my food.
Now I'm done, nursing my hot chocolate in the cup I get to keep because it has a small crack on the inner rim. I made the cup-- it's a tall straight cylinder of dark red clay with fine horizinal textured striations in the middle 2/3. The bottom quarter is raw clay, the next quarter up is dark blue that pools in between the striations, and the half above that is swirling fluid blue with white wavelet patterns and drips moving through it.It's beautiful, and I made it, and I know where my emotion is from.
Last time I made beautiful things was in high school. My art teacher gave me, not just free rein, but support in doing what I wanted. I made beautiful things: paintings of what it felt like to stare into my own eyes, sculptures of what love felt like, bowls on the wheel that engaged my body. I made art that was banned from being shown in public at the school, and art they displayed front and center. I externalized parts of my experience so that people could see and experience with me. I integrated my inner self into the world where it could be seen. People said nice things about it.
That was the last year in high school. Right afterwards, in the summer, we moved to the city from the 4000 square foot house and 5 acres I mostly grew up on. We moved to the city, to a 42' boat where three of us would live. I slept on the folding couch in the livingroom, my brother had the front v-berth, mom had the back room.
We had to get rid of a lot a lot a lot of things to make the move and I packed up my most cherished and important things in one crate and set it beside the car on that last day. I kept it separate, apart from everything, so no mistakes would be made. It contained my art, my american passport, my notebook that was the predecessor to this journal, and my love letters with Kynnin.
It was thrown out.
I haven't made physical art since then. Functional things that are incidentally beautiful, sure, but not--
Sometimes I exist in words and writing. That's when I make poetry.
Sometimes I exist in space. That's when I make physical art. So much can't be communicated any other way.
I didn't do that for so long, and here I am with so many beautiful objects. I didn't trust I could still do that, could still evoke that heart-feeling from materials the earth gave to my hands. I don't know how to handle having those objects, them existing where I can access them, having a home that is mine with then inside.
This has never happened before and I have feelings about it.
And now that I'm safe in the warm barely-lit room with a fireplace and a shell of wood and shingle and outside that snow and dogs and fence protecting me I can almost entertain the idea that I could do this again: make another beautiful thing and another, and keep them or let them flow from me as I choose.
Almost.
It's been so long.
