clay: centering

Ceramics contains metaphors for life. Centering for example. Being centered in psychology means that you have a reference point or a place to come back to when life’s challenges and emotions push you off balance. The center is the place that you know you have to come back to, and I really need to. I woke up from a crazy, vivid dream this morning. In my weird reverie, I was the instructor of these young male military recruits. And they were assigned a performance task of which I was in charge of assessing, only I didn't know much about what they were supposed to accomplish, but somehow I got it into my head to find rubrics for their instructional goals and managed to reproduce copies of their two performance tasks. I could only make 2 complete rubrics, and so I divided them into teams and said they had to read the scoring guide as a team to complete the tasks and that really what I was assessing was their ability to work as a team. And then one of the dumb ass young men ATE the rubric. While cursing and upbraiding the young man and really all of them rubes, I woke up hearing myself lecturing aloud. My heart was racing, and I was frustrated, angry, and anxious. I tried to do a guided meditation and process and think through my numbness yesterday followed by my fury this morning. All the events in the news—Uvalde, Roe v. Wade, Chicago, more Supreme Court bullshit…I need to put my hands on mud today and maybe create something. At this past Saturday in the ceramics studio, I glazed probably 8 pots and then wedged two giant balls of reclaimed speckled buff for the next Saturday session. And planned to make another Rooftop Garden planter next Saturday. I also gave Meral her birthday present—the Dia de Los Muertos quilt I embroidered and machine sewed. And didn’t take any pictures except for this gorgeous mug that she made.          

Meral wedged Mason stain into Bmix and then it looks like she wedged that blue clay into some scrap clay of red and speckled buff and a bit of Frost porcelain before probably pinch potting (she so good at pinch potting)into this mug. She said she used one of her commercial blue glazes on the interior and the handle and burnished outside and left it unglazed.

 

Fucking gorgeous. I want one. I should commission one from her though yeah let me try to make one myself, which will look like a hot mess, but yeah whatever. I know I have some pink mason stain somewhere in my glaze box.