There’s a time for big and ambitious, and there’s a time for small and humble. If I haven’t touched clay in a while, the sensible thing to do is to pinch a pot. Oh, but the excitement of soft, squishy mud in my hands, silence all around me. And before I know it, I’m forming one hundred mosaic tiles to attach to a two foot vase. Only, the vase is leaning like that tower in Pisa. And the squares are losing their shape like marshmallows to a flame. When I’ve taken a hiatus from pottery –– this one was a long one –– I return so full of enthusiasm only to be crushed by the reality that practice makes perfect (good). I can’t expect good work to come from unpracticed hands. The sensible thing to do is surrender wild ideas for simple pieces that remind the hands how to work with clay, simple pieces that yield the confidence to channel into the wilder ones. So, after a week of unsensible (is that a word?) I am going back to basics. Yet again. And again, with feeling. Don’t you sometimes feel that no matter how far you’ve come, you’re always at the beginning?
