Turning around

I am back to my clay. The buff clay has gone a big too dry so it is in a bucket waiting for a few warm days to be left in the sun to dry out completely and then be reclaimed. Now I have some teracotta - it is a lovely dark brown color and smells deep and mysterious. But you have to be careful with it too - it has a grain in it which will tear you hands if you rest them down on the the wheel as it spins too heavily.

It is nice and plastic too (Amaco terracotta 77 if you care) - if seems to almost want to be potted and so I have a shelf of much better things than I have thrown for a long while. That feels good.

I think pretty hard whilst I am throwing and that is good too - I find it a good place to pray - hands occupied with the mud - they are thinking of shape and form and somehow my mind is led by that. Even the collapses don't matter - when I pull the clay further than it wants to go - further than it should go - and it curves and coils itself into a gnarled heap.

Many lessons to be learned. But always one at the center, I suppose and that is, that everything starts at the center, without a center, there is no hope of success.