A lot of people have bucket lists, but I don't. I do have a running list of things I want to do, accomplish, create, or become, but I don't like to think of it as things I want to do someday. They are things I just want.
Some of those things have been put off, and for many reasons. Sometimes, it is because I am too scared or too settled (hello? I never actually DID apply to the Peace Corps), a few things because I find myself too proud to admit I need change, and a sadly, couple things are simply because I just don't have the time. After all, it's hard to hike the Appalachian Trail from start to finish when you have a mortgage and full time job, right? Recently I've decided that fear and pride are not appropriate reasons not to do something. Time, energy and money aren't reasons either. Make time, find the energy, save the money --- and then get it done.
Since I was a little kid, one of the things I Just Wanted was a pottery studio of my very own. Some of it is because my mom's older brother has one and I always looked up to him. He makes such beautiful pieces of work, and finds peace, joy and solitude in his space. I remember walking through his basement studio with wide, excited eyes as I looked over his wheel, his clay, his kiln, his glazes. I remember the few times he let me throw with him, and I felt something I could never explain to anyone. I just understood it. It made sense to me.
When I picked it up again my senior year of high school, I was determined to be good; actually, I was a little too determined. I fought the clay, I pushed it, and I tried to manage it. I hit a wall after a few weeks and never could get much better. I over thought it. I couldn't find the center - not of the wheel and not in myself. Sure, I liked it, and it still made sense to me, but I was lost in the mechanics of it. It frustrated me.
I half heartedly believed I would someday have my own space so that I could find the art instead of learning the science, and I often talked about creating one. Instead I bought a house and got caught up in 60 hour work weeks. I stayed in a long relationship and fought instead of finding peace. I ignored most of what I wanted so I could be protected from my failures. If I never built a place to work, I wouldn't need to be apologetic for needing my own time, or make excuses for a poorly centered vase. I could just dream about putting on some abstract bucket list that would never be completed.
Something changed. I admit, I found myself with a lot of time in my day when I was off from work recovering from some dead guy's achilles being surgically sewn into my bones, but to be really true, the change happened before that. I started researching and reading. I found a wheel and mapped out a space. I faced the fact that in order to find the things that make me centered, I'd need to put some work into it. And I had $424 to buy a wheel right at the minute I found it, but I made a decision to scrimp and save my pennies, for nine entire months, so I could feel the burden and pressure of making sacrifices. Not for a relationship gone sour. Not for my family or my friends. Not for my parents. But for me. I think it may have been the very first time I made a plan and followed it through from start to finish without any help. I didn't even ask advice from my beloved uncle. Building a studio became my entire mission in life.
I don't think there were many people who thought I'd really do it. I could see people thinking: "Yeah yeah, the Mushroom has been talking about that since high school. She won't DO it. She never does ANYTHING." There were some people who didn't even know I wanted a studio, because I stopped talking about it when I mistakenly believed it wasn't something I could or would ever really do. Pepper believed me and I knew it when he bought me a certificate to clayworld for Christmas, but even he started to lose faith whenever he asked if I was building it, and I absent mindly said "I'm not ready yet." Besides the time, effort, and money, I needed something to happen for me to be ready. At some point in the month of April, that something, whatever it was, finally occurred. And so begins my new adventure.
I've learned a few things so far. Outside of logistics like my table needs to be lower, and I need an extra wedging board, I've realized that a lot of clay work is like learning who you are. There isn't a design to follow or a specific way to do it. You can't manage it. You can't force it. You can't make it be anything it's not meant to be. And if you don't find the center, you'll never create anything worth saving.
More importantly, it's the times the clay gets knocked out of whack that really teaches me things. I find ways to gently nudge it back on course. The tiniest push makes the biggest impacts. If I can make something work only 25% of the time I am throwing, I've succeeded. I find joy in my lousy creations because it makes my imperfect work worth looking at. My work may never be in a show, and it most certainly won't be famous. I probably won't ever be as good as my uncle is, but making something worth loving is a process that I adore investing in.
Maybe this is a trite little entry; in fact, I know that it is, but I can't even begin to explain the ways in which the world of clay makes sense to me. It's tangible, pliable, moldable. It's FIXABLE, even if it's too wet or too dry, too off center, too small a piece or too large. It's flexible, wonderful, and forgiving.
It's everything I have always wanted to be.
Some of those things have been put off, and for many reasons. Sometimes, it is because I am too scared or too settled (hello? I never actually DID apply to the Peace Corps), a few things because I find myself too proud to admit I need change, and a sadly, couple things are simply because I just don't have the time. After all, it's hard to hike the Appalachian Trail from start to finish when you have a mortgage and full time job, right? Recently I've decided that fear and pride are not appropriate reasons not to do something. Time, energy and money aren't reasons either. Make time, find the energy, save the money --- and then get it done.
Since I was a little kid, one of the things I Just Wanted was a pottery studio of my very own. Some of it is because my mom's older brother has one and I always looked up to him. He makes such beautiful pieces of work, and finds peace, joy and solitude in his space. I remember walking through his basement studio with wide, excited eyes as I looked over his wheel, his clay, his kiln, his glazes. I remember the few times he let me throw with him, and I felt something I could never explain to anyone. I just understood it. It made sense to me.
When I picked it up again my senior year of high school, I was determined to be good; actually, I was a little too determined. I fought the clay, I pushed it, and I tried to manage it. I hit a wall after a few weeks and never could get much better. I over thought it. I couldn't find the center - not of the wheel and not in myself. Sure, I liked it, and it still made sense to me, but I was lost in the mechanics of it. It frustrated me.
I half heartedly believed I would someday have my own space so that I could find the art instead of learning the science, and I often talked about creating one. Instead I bought a house and got caught up in 60 hour work weeks. I stayed in a long relationship and fought instead of finding peace. I ignored most of what I wanted so I could be protected from my failures. If I never built a place to work, I wouldn't need to be apologetic for needing my own time, or make excuses for a poorly centered vase. I could just dream about putting on some abstract bucket list that would never be completed.
Something changed. I admit, I found myself with a lot of time in my day when I was off from work recovering from some dead guy's achilles being surgically sewn into my bones, but to be really true, the change happened before that. I started researching and reading. I found a wheel and mapped out a space. I faced the fact that in order to find the things that make me centered, I'd need to put some work into it. And I had $424 to buy a wheel right at the minute I found it, but I made a decision to scrimp and save my pennies, for nine entire months, so I could feel the burden and pressure of making sacrifices. Not for a relationship gone sour. Not for my family or my friends. Not for my parents. But for me. I think it may have been the very first time I made a plan and followed it through from start to finish without any help. I didn't even ask advice from my beloved uncle. Building a studio became my entire mission in life.
I don't think there were many people who thought I'd really do it. I could see people thinking: "Yeah yeah, the Mushroom has been talking about that since high school. She won't DO it. She never does ANYTHING." There were some people who didn't even know I wanted a studio, because I stopped talking about it when I mistakenly believed it wasn't something I could or would ever really do. Pepper believed me and I knew it when he bought me a certificate to clayworld for Christmas, but even he started to lose faith whenever he asked if I was building it, and I absent mindly said "I'm not ready yet." Besides the time, effort, and money, I needed something to happen for me to be ready. At some point in the month of April, that something, whatever it was, finally occurred. And so begins my new adventure.
I've learned a few things so far. Outside of logistics like my table needs to be lower, and I need an extra wedging board, I've realized that a lot of clay work is like learning who you are. There isn't a design to follow or a specific way to do it. You can't manage it. You can't force it. You can't make it be anything it's not meant to be. And if you don't find the center, you'll never create anything worth saving.
More importantly, it's the times the clay gets knocked out of whack that really teaches me things. I find ways to gently nudge it back on course. The tiniest push makes the biggest impacts. If I can make something work only 25% of the time I am throwing, I've succeeded. I find joy in my lousy creations because it makes my imperfect work worth looking at. My work may never be in a show, and it most certainly won't be famous. I probably won't ever be as good as my uncle is, but making something worth loving is a process that I adore investing in.
Maybe this is a trite little entry; in fact, I know that it is, but I can't even begin to explain the ways in which the world of clay makes sense to me. It's tangible, pliable, moldable. It's FIXABLE, even if it's too wet or too dry, too off center, too small a piece or too large. It's flexible, wonderful, and forgiving.
It's everything I have always wanted to be.
