Clay Bodies - The Second Workshop

I am surprised how sharp the fired clay has become. The welcome soft pink of the bisque firing is completely misleading. The rough hard edge of the ceramic draws my breath as it could possibly draw my blood. Mask on, my hands smoothing rough clay with a variety of rough papers. The physical effect of sanding is dull to me, though also somewhat addictive. I could have sanded these bowls to smoothness over many hours. I am glad the workshop allotted time just does not allow for that otherwise I may have sanded them to nothing. I feel drawn within, a sort of clamber inside myself, sitting now in a hollow space looking out through a narrow hole on the world. Full focus on my activity. Stopping every so often to feel the surface of the fired clay. Making decisions with touch. The bowl makes my hand ache. Its strange wavy shape makes it awkward to handle. It is heavy after a time.

Explanations of firing temperatures fly through my body and lodge at the points where my fingers join palm. Nestled under the skin of me as I smooth dust from the newly exfoliated skin of bowl. I am not sure yet what this vessel will hold other than the strange animal like, bird like, fish like sea monster, sun, moon, eye shapes I have drawn upon them. Permanent underglaze pencil tattoos. Ones that may be regretful years down the line should these skins survive that long.

Together we share memories, snapshots, and snippets of images. I share imaginings of crockery in my nana’s house. I remember studying their shapes and patterns as a child. This all returns to me now as I draw tentatively a new moon shape and a staring eye on the bottom of the bowl. What this vessel will hold, certainly not food, but I cannot rule this out entirely. Right now, it holds a memory of fingers and tools and the act of smoothing over. A caress, a sanding, a tough love roughness. A smoothing of and smoothing off, of the edges. Removing or softening the sharpness. Is this act similar to aging perhaps? Smoothing over corners to become more agreeable? I think that is my biggest problem sometimes, being so damn agreeable. Shifting into later memories we speak of anger in our twenties and acting out in teenage years. Underage smoking and drinking. Obliteration and paranoia. They were fun turbulent times. But perhaps less fun in some ways on reflection.

This making a thing to hold an other is a strange act of embodiment. Intention travelling through head, heart and hands to mould and move the earth body into another form to hold. Firing it to dry it out entirely, to harden, and then a rough friction to smooth it out. Smooth out the skin. Erasure? A harmless removal? A damaging act? The wordless capitulation of the clay body. It’s skin like quality drawing me further below the surface of my own skin. Wordless sounding, a repetitive attempt to resolve these disdainful edges. Why disdain I wonder? A strange word for a clay edge? Is it a cliff edge? Much smaller than that and without the gentle caress of the sea. Just my hands and fingers as they become slightly more careless as the sanding goes on.

Then it’s done as I am done with it. No more! The dissolving warm fluid feeling when dipping the brush into liquid glaze. A joyful rush of love as I apply the glaze to the pot. Gentle brushstrokes like the lapping of waves on the shore. The absolute wonder as the earthenware soaks it up. It’s a warm humid grey day so typical of this place that lives in a dip 40 minutes from the coast. Its own microclimate where clouds and rain get caught for days and days on end. This soaking of pink glaze into peach skin is terribly exciting though perhaps I am becoming terribly dull or even more excitable than usual. The visual reminder that this clay body is still of the earth. It absorbs. It has pores! Still! I have covered the slightly misshapen beaker in a fuchsia pink glaze. Dabbed over with a lime burst that appears white right now but will expand into a bright lichen lime green growth.

Who knows how it might react and shape to heat? That element of mystery is like catnip to me. So much of my being wishes to control but when it comes to making that element of surprise is just too tantalising, teasing, delightful to resist. I lust for it in my making. Allowing the material to express itself in whichever way – if only I could be this way more in daily life. Making is a wise act. Its wisdom is one of the body. Wisdom of the senses. A haptic enquiry of the material. An expression of who we are and where we are at in that moment.

I leave my clay expressions behind. Lathered and drawn upon. Held and turned and touched. Stroked and sponged down. Dried and gently wilted. Glistening with oozing glaze. Dripping and rolled and handled. Yes, an object, but one that is a skin, one that is porous. Intelligent in what it absorbs or rejects. The ache I feel in my wrists is the memory of the weight of these objects. I see and saw them from every angle. Eyes devouring surface. I made not just with hand and head and heart but in full bodied presence. A presence in which I can attend to each feeling as it comes. These little bowls await another firing to heat them and seal in those fingertip gestures.