Creative Deconstruction: Pottery and Life

Recently I have been exploring some of my creative inclinations, seeing if in any of them I have the talent I always hoped for. It's a bit sobering, testing the reality of what you imagine you could do given the opportunity.  Of the three activities I've tried so far: belly dancing, pottery (hand building, not wheel) and abstract drawing, I love pottery.

I love the clay: feeling it, shaping it, painting it.  I love that with clay you begin with something you can see, touch, and smell. In hand building, the magic lies in the opportunities you have to shape your creation. Opportunities which, in so many ways, mimic life.  In "pinching", when I use my thumb from the inside to shape and mold, my finger becomes my heart that throbs and hurts and sometimes soars. "Coiling" is using rope-shaped pieces for reinforcement, like I feel when my mom and big sis and girlfriends buttress me when I falter. "Scoring and slipping" involves using wet clay to connect, reconnect, alter and amend, and for me parallels my commitment to reflection, prayer and fresh starts.  

Gemini that I am, clay's pliability has made me consider the alternative; how, after and despite the most intense effort and redress, does one deconstruct creativity that has gone awry?  When that which was created is not good?  Or has turned ugly?    

In my dance class, I don't try the moves I can't do well. In painting, I (continuously, incessantly) cover up or wipe clean my work, sometimes tearing up the paper.  Yet in pottery, once I have shaped, painted and fired a piece of work, I have learned that you only have two choices: ignore it or break it. And if you break it, you must smash it up so well that its pieces retain no relation to what once was its whole.

We often go through the same steps when life isn't working the way we like. Many times we ignore what is not right. We try to fix ourselves and the circumstances. We act differently and we change or rewrite the rules. Yet, like pottery, in life there are some situations that, by certain points, at particular times, and in dysfunctional circumstances, must be broken to be fixed…shattered to be made whole.   

____________________________

A little about my fellow sculptors, all of whom have attended class together for several years:

The CDC employee, whose political ideology is likely far from my own, who lives in anxiety amidst chaotic, nonsensical political squabbling that threatens her home and livelihood. Who sculpts for her peace of mind and her five year old son…

The talented Argentinean engineer, a man of finite absolutes, who, despite his halting diction, is gregarious and comfortable in this place of abstracts, dust and colors. He recently returned from trip to his native county, checking on his sister who is undergoing her second bout of thyroid cancer…

The quiet, attractive redhead who vigorously "throws" all of her work, which is the process needed to create bowls, plates and large items. She uses unique materials and counsels the engineer comrade on how to support his sister-as she is a survivor herself for five years….

The instructor-a renowned southeast sculptor who has taught at this location for more than five years. Comfortable with herself and her craft, she laments the lack of opportunities for individual artists to grow their work and discipline.  Students from her four classes help her complete her first grant application for funding; as natural as she is in her craft, the art of Microsoft is foreign and frightening…

The restaurateur, who comes in weekly with woes of incompetent staff, facility mishaps and weak patronage. Her greatest pain, however, comes from the recent wedding of her only son to a woman for whom she has become clear about her dislike, who went so far as to select the dress she was to wear to the wedding…

The retired executive who wears his Georgia Tech tee shirt every week and can't stop himself from taking charge and knowing a little bit about everything—except when his pottery goes awry. Then he is reduced almost to tears and shuts up for fifteen minutes at a time…

The friendly, efficient soccer mom, who's keeps life going with her IPAD and phone in one hand and her paint brush in the other. She claims 50+ pieces of self-made pottery in her home (40+ in her attic), which she completes for the peace and surety it provides that her teens do not…

The wholesome, quiet girl-woman, in her first job, first apartment, who lives in north Fulton, works in Smyrna and has never been to Little Five points. She seeks positive ways to stay busy and worries what she'll do this summer since classes will be suspended.

Regular folk. Smart folk. Seeking solace. Living their lives. Playing with clay.

And me.

Creating.