Sunny, wispy clouds, slight breeze, clear over the Jemez Mtns. Temperature on outside kiln; 15 degrees.
Favorite songs to sing in the studio today; "Man in the Mirror"(James Morrison version) & "Lost Stars"( Adam Levine)
January is usually play-time, a month of going slower, a more experiential mode of making.... But I made these cups a few day ago and they need handles... And ceramics is about nothing at all if not about the details, and good fitting handles is a detail one cannot skip over. The right shape, the right size/proportion, the inside negative curve, one finger or two, thumb rest or no thumb rest...profile... these are all things I am thinking of as I roll out a half dozen handles.
And then there is the timing...
"Timing is everything" must first have been said about clay, one cannot really be a successful potter if one's timing is off. It's like the band is playing "The Girl From Ipanema" but you just can't get that bossanova rhythm down, it doesn't work. You have to be in sync...timing and phrasing are everything, same with clay. So I have to be patient, I have to wait for the right time to put those damn handles on and not push it one minute sooner. For I know if I do, they will fall off. Mug and handle have to be in the same state of readiness; the same dampness, the same stiffness, just this side of leatherhard, as a potter might describe it. But the timing changes from season to season. In the heat of summer it might take 20 minutes for all pieces to be ready, and in the chill of winter, well, those mugs have been happily waiting 3 days for me to settle down to handle making. I finally accomplish this one small chore this morning and here they are...
... however, I feel reluctant to fire them, clay is so much more sensuous, more alive, before being baked to death in the kiln... ah well, the point is to hold caffeine right? After putting them to bed wrapped in plastic so the darn things don't crack apart, I can finally move on...
.
To what? hmm... I'm not quite sure....I feel a need to "warm up my chops" as it were, I haven't thrown or made anything except these 6 small pieces for weeks. An extremely modest beginning I should say. But I sense before I can return to January's usual state-of-play I need to wake up my fingers. If I was the classical- guitarist- husband in his music studio across the house, I would be playing scales before getting out the Bach. Same concept, limber up, then dive in...!
So, ceramic scales it is; otherwise know as tumblers or cylinders. I hear in Japan that ceramic masters make their students throw 200 of these and then cut them open for inspection. Only until the 201st are they warmed up sufficiently and allowed to finish a piece. Well, my teachers ( Scott C. and Betty W., CU Boulder, class of '93) are not looking over my shoulder anymore so I can damn well do as I please. However, after more than 20 years their words haunt me more than I would like to admit, but in a good way really. They taught me a lot.
I finally decide to make a few tumblers and see where the clay takes me. Best to surrender to it instead of the other way around, after all clay has it's own memory, desires, preferences. Just try making tiles out of fine porcelain or fine tableware out of rough grog-y stoneware, you will encounter resistance. So I let the clay itself speak and wander around for a bit, hoping to get from here..............................................
......................to here......................
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