It helps if you plan ahead

Welp!
Mark is off getting clay for us since we manage to throw every bit we had.
 Having both of us on our wheels means we can go through some clay pretty quickly.
We usually buy some clay at the end of our season and it will do us as we laze our way through January and stretched we can make it go through February as well.
But someone lit a fire under both of us and we are rocking out some pots.

Last year, and if you know me and this blog you know that the last few years have had a few bumps in them, it was all I could do to make pots. I was there and, yet, I was not there, I was not really there.
Oh, I know how to work and I can work even when I would rather pull the covers up and close off reality. But my head and heart were not really there. I was making the motions but the joy was gone.
I know you are thinking burn out.
It was not burn out but heartbreak that took away my joy.

I don't know if it was something that stuck in my head from someone else but I pulled out my sewing machine in November, dusted it off, bought some material and a few patterns and began to sew.
Pot by day- material by night.
The fabrics got me, I would sew and think about Jay and Lee and make something.
Then I made something else.
We have a roku- great item if you don't have one look them up.
I streamed all of Mad Men and I sewed, its a wonder I did not take up smoking.
I would hold the fabric and place one color against another and the ideas would run through my head.
I learned the terms again, I pinned and darted and cut lining and padding and I sewed.

I learned to sew from my grandmother and mother, but I never wanted to sew, I just knew how.
Working in clay taught me the patience to sew.
I cut out bags in multiplies, lining, padding for 4-6 bags at a time. I worked on the bags as I would production, sew, set aside, sew, set aside, rip out, set aside  finish, finish, finish.
As I finished those bags something sparked in my brain.
And it was joy.
I felt good about life, good about work, I laughed and it was real.
I looked at Mark on December 1st and said," I am ready to make pots".
I felt freed.

I had walked around for the past 18 months feeling that there were no rules, that things did not matter, that life was not fair.
Well, life is not fair.

And, I don't know what is next, but I do know that I can make pots and do it with some joy again.
The sewing?
I am planning to continue.
I always thought since I worked in an art that I did not have time for anything else.
I was wrong.
So where I am going on this.
I plan to get back to the work we have been doing for 30years and see what this year brings.
One of the things I have been doing is making shapes that need repeating.
Mugs, bowls, even spoon rest. This will not take me in to history as the end all of end all as a potter, but they slip through my fingers and I really feel them.
The rhythm of the production is there, not being forced out but flowing out, without thought as it should be. I was throwing the other day as the rain was coming down, as I was self absorbed I felt a ray of sunshine hitting my back. I thought it was the sun, that the rain had stopped and the sun was breaking through. I kept working, feeling this ray of sun. I looked up and out my window, no sun, all gray and rain. Made me think that the sibs were walking through, stopping in to see how I was doing.  It would be just like them to mess with me.

On that big fat vase Mark is working on here it is thrown in 2 pieces.
He did get the height he wanted, not as fat as it needs to be but well balanced.
About 14 inches by 16 inches, he was shooting for 18 inches.

Now to get some of those pots dry enough to bisque.
Cheers,
M