Begin Again....

Day; 3. Sunny, windy, cold. A clear view to the west of the Jemez Mountains and Los Alamos Lab.  Temperature on outside kiln; 15 degrees.

This morning Davie takes the  dog sled team for a walk in the Galisteo Basin, I however opt to stay home in front of the wood stove.  It is so quiet without 4 huskies and my guitarist husband that I have to admit I cherish my time alone. I breathe deeply, queue up music on my Ipod and try to summon some creative energy. I walk outside for yet ANOTHER   load of firewood and look west to the Jemez Mountains. As I turn around this is what I see, my cute little studio waiting for me ( sounds like a song?!)


But where oh where should I start? Anywhere at all, is the answer of 25 years experience,  just get your butt in there Maggie Mae and make something, inertia will be defeated! So I decide to start at the very beginning, mixing clay. Not my favorite point of departure, but it will do. In fact it is a necessity today, the boxed clay I bought two weeks ago is so hard and unworkable it could double as  adobe bricks. I think it must also be half-frozen after the single digit temperatures we have had in Santa Fe over the holidays. Anyway,  I have nothing else to work with so I must get out Big Orange Monster, my beloved pugmill.  He looks like this..

I admit it, I have a crush on my pugmill, in fact I wish I had started a relationship with him long before I did.  But no, I waited 20 years for him, laboriously wedging clay by hand until double wrist surgery was unavoidable.  But he's here now and that's what counts. Not handsome I know, but practical to a fault.  All my hard scraps and dribs and drabs of recycled clay go into him and out comes the softest, most luxurious white stoneware  any girl  (potter) could ever want. Why aren't all relationships this easy?

After two hours of  the messiest of the ceramic messes, ( my poor poor Virgo husband) I Begin Again where I usually do, making mugs.  It's such a safe bet, I don't have to think too much, and someone somewhere will covet and purchase them.  But  what is it about cups and mugs? I could make them exclusively for the next 30 years and still not have enough, where do they all go?  People, are you purposely throwing them on the ground in  order to justify buying  more?! Is there a cup and mug black hole/alternate universe  I don't know about where they all end up? Or rather, is it just the pleasure of porcelain against lips, the feeling of something warm cradled  in your palms, steam rising up into your face?
There is an intimacy to handmade objects that mass-produced wares can never attain.  The not-quite-perfect feel of them lets you know  a human being was involved in the production and that right there is becoming so rare as to be almost profound. I believe this is why  my handmade mugs satisfy so,  they simply feel good.  Not just physically, but dare I say it ( well, I do live in Santa Fe, so I get to...), energetically.  They seem to remind the buyer of the maker, almost containing  a little seed of myself that goes along for the ride to wherever they end up. My spirit, my joy in making them, my mood that day even, seems to translate itself through the clay to the user. How many times over the years has a customer remarked " Maggie, I have coffee every morning in one of your cups and I always think of you!" I  don't know how many times, countless really...What a touching  and incredible  way to be remembered! I am one lucky dog.
But here is another, back from her walk and all ready to help in the studio...