Sunday, September 16, 2007

Posts & Pots

Paragraphs are back! (see previous post)

The solution is almost as big a mystery as was the problem. As the songwriter Jim White said: "Miracles abound, now more than ever."


Here's a bowl I made a while ago. The grey-blue glaze is called Acme because the Acme catalogue was Wile E. Coyote's favorite supplier. It's also an acronym for A Complete Mystery to Everyone because it's a mixture of about five old leftover unlabeled glazes from the Arts Guild studio. It's a very pretty semi-matte glaze that will never be duplicated, which adds to its attraction.


I hit something of a milestone as a potter recently when I realized that I could do again what I'd done before. If I want to make this bowl again, I'm pretty sure I could do it (until the Acme glaze runs out, of course). This is a good thing for a production potter (which I assuredly am not) and it's a good thing for an instructor (which I am intermittently), but it's not necessarily a good thing per se. Making pots (or poems) is a balance between serendipity (chance, dumb luck) and control. It's exciting to just see what happens (ooh! that turned out well) but it's also satisfying to have a particular end in mind and to get those results.

No comments:

Post a Comment

I treid comment moderation but it was clumsy. I still reserve the right to delete offensive comments, so be nice.