Working with clay
This is something I didn’t anticipate when I began working with clay.
To feel. Softer. Gentler. Suppler.
To move. Lighter. Easier. Steadier.
To care. Deeper. Stronger. Wilder.
To have waves of tenderness crash through my body as I bring her dainty corners in together for a muddy kiss.
To have tears welling in my eyes as I use a feathery touch to smooth out her skin.
To think of those I love as I cut through her flesh to create lines and shapes.
Maybe in the days when we each handled the earth we treated one another better. When we knew what we felt like, smelt like, moved like.
Maybe in the times when we knew the exact place where we met — her body against our body — we understood our interconnectedness, our inability to live without each other.
As I massage her edges and stroke her sides, I sometimes wonder if I am re-caressing all of the women harmed by mishandling. All of the soil poisoned. All of the war casualties buried within her layers.
It is so primal the way my hands experience the clay. The way I pinch, roll, coil, shape, glaze. The way I sit around a long rectangular table with other women bringing the formless into form.
Sometimes I muse on why it took me so long to get here. To value this innate way of being, living, creating.
But I also know it was part of the process. To reject, then re-embrace. To go away, then come towards.
It is often only when we feel what’s wrong that we can feel what’s right.
This is something I didn’t anticipate when I began working with clay.
