The clay came from the earth. Its story is long. The story of the clay is the story of the earth, unfolding in earth time. Slowly. My friend dug it out of a riverbank just north of where we live. He dried it, mixed it with clays from other riverbanks, and wet it with water until it was soft and pliable. One day, he left a bucket of it in my studio. It was beautiful, cool, and responsive. I liked the feel of it. I wedged and kneaded it and spent the afternoon at the wheel centering, opening, and shaping it into jars, bottles, cups, and bowls.
The wet clay was a deep blue-gray. As the pieces dried, they grew lighter. When they were fully dry and no longer cool to the touch, only a hint of darkness remained. They were fired unglazed in a traditional wood-fired kiln. The firing took four days. The transformation was remarkable. The pots we placed in the kiln were fragile and in various shades of gray and earthen brown. Those we removed were no longer fragile, gray, or brown.
Much of that collection of pottery has been given away. A few pieces remain. One sits on the shelf above my desk. It is a footed yunomi: a non-ceremonial Japanese teacup. It too came out of the kiln changed. Once gray, it is now a warm nutbrown that glistens golden in the sunlight. Starlight appears to have been present in the alchemy of the kiln, for one side has a dusting of crystalline glass that sparkles in the light. Inside, the browns are lighter, and on one side, a creamy white has appeared.
The shape of the cup also changed, gently, as if the fire had coaxed it into the shape it deserved. The foot, the curves of the bowl, the slight irregularity of the rim seem in perfect balance; they belong one to another. Together they are beautiful.
The beauty of the interplay of form and color with which this cup returned from the fire lies beyond the craftsman’s wisdom that lives in my hands. Yet without the craftsman, this moment of transformative grace would have no seed through which it might blossom. Each time I return to the wheel, I do so in the hope that what I am able to shape might be found worthy of such grace, for I know that it always lies just beyond the limits of what I have become.
As pilgrims, hope and humility walk side by side. When the path becomes treacherous, each reaches out a hand to the other. When hope falters, humility takes her under his arm. And when one is led astray by the promise of light, the other brings them back to earth.
That is what they told me, I think, when I met them in the forest one day early in the springtime. Hope seemed most at home there. She was smiling and bent often to greet a newly opened seedling or to gently welcome a burgeoning bud. Many seasons have passed. Now, as the world descends into a troubled winter, I wonder where they might be. Are there those who will recognize them and grant them hospitality? Let them warm themselves in the glow of their hearts? I’ll return to the wheel this afternoon. Perhaps I will shape yunomis. And do so in the hope that one will return from the fire graced with beauty.
Illustration Gilda Bartel
