all you need is POT(s)

Tea bowl

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.