I sat down with my new pottery teacher/ mentor with expectation. I wanted each piece to be perfect, a shape in my mind, a clean line here and perfect line there. I sat down wanting it to be a certain way..
..and then as I worked my first piece the clay started to fall.
The clay started to fall and holes were forming and my shape was collapsing underneath my very hands.
I went to scoop the mess off and start again and my teacher gently said,
no,
wait,
stop.
It’s in the mistakes that art can be made, she told me. It’s not what happened to the clay, but it’s what you do with it now. Anyone can throw, she said, but it’s the art you bring to it that will make it yours. Keep going and work with what you have. Make it art.
How close to life this is. What we do with the holes, the cracks, the parts that fall down is how we shape and mold our own stories.
Making our lives our art.