Pottery

Pottery is magic.

Take actual dust, add water and align the particles to their new form. Heat it until it glows red like the heart of a mountain and remembers what it was to be stone. Coat it in different dust, and heat it all again until that dust learns to be glass.

Pottery is the only art form I have experienced with no false modesty from its creatives. If you tell a potter “Wow, that mug turned out amazing!” their response is generally “I know, right?” – because they understand how much of the process was actually out of their control. They are proud, but it is the kind of pride that comes with collaboration. We did it. The pot comes alive.

Once you create ceramics, they can be broken, but they cannot be destroyed. They are immune to decay. From dust, with your hands, you create something that stretches on past you into the unknowable future, in a process human beings have practiced for over 30,000 years. Hundreds of small decisions crystallized in each piece, preserved for eternity.

And yet – creating a pot carries the risk of failure at every turn. Moisture, airflow, compression, firing temperatures, random chance, human clumsiness, and so many other factors can cause something to go wrong, creating pieces that crack, shatter, melt, leak or crumble. Despite the permanence of ceramics, the process of creating it teaches non-attachment. Hours or days of work can be, and frequently is, lost in a moment. We learn to love the process, the act of making. We honor our mistakes as teachers.