Proud foot ( FEET!)
Noodle bowl
A vahze--a vase! A vahze.
I'm a mad bowl woman!
It's rather amazing this blending of earth and water with a human element to create a vessel that may not turn out once you subject it to the firey furnace!
Such a gamble...
You have to "quiet your soul" as Mom says. You're bending---laboring over the clay. Centering yourself and the muddy lump spinning infront of you.
Potters will sometimes tell you that they don't shape the clay--but that the clay tells them what to do. Sometimes it's a vase, other times it's a closed form raku, and still other times, it pinches, gets nasty air bubbles and laughs at what you thought you could make it do.
However, there are moments--after the pounding, and the wedging table---after the muscles in your arms are aching from the work--when you center in just moments, and open in a swift, fluid motion--when the clay is ready to move, and you are sitting in awe--trying not to break the spell.
Those moments are so precious.
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