It’s unbelievably cold outside this morning as I write this, even the sand at the beach had a light coat of frost on it… I wish I had thought to get a photo of it to show you. Ah, well, next time!
Some of you who have been a part of the pottery family for a while may have been wondering where Spiral Tide Pottery has been over the last few years… I closed the pottery back in 2016 when my previous studio was sold back to the council. Everything was packed away in the shed in our back garden for years, calling to me, but I was doing my best to ignore it because I couldn’t see a way to make it work. I couldn’t find an obvious solution so I ignored that part of myself screaming for expression… until my eye began to twitch and I became a not very nice person. I was trying so hard to be my best but I was so unhappy.
My wonderful, sainted, ever-so-patient Wife came up with a brilliant solution last spring and after a month of construction on the shed that was holding onto all the pottery equipment…Voila! I have a working studio that I adore. As of May 31st 2018 we’re back in business and I’m a nice person again, holla-lujiah!
One of the things the last few years without clay has taught me is to always – ALWAYS – do my very best to honor my creative spirit. It’s a constant companion and something that won’t be silenced. At the risk of sounding totally dramatic… I’ve learned that clay is something almost as important for my well-being as oxygen.
Because I tend to want to learn from my mistakes (and because I worry), I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what happens the next time I need a plan B for the studio and how to keep my hands in clay no matter what.
Even if I can’t see a way to fire the work I know now that I still need to be getting my hands dirty and making pots. The kicker of that lesson though, is that I already knew it… waaaay back in 1995 when I was getting ready to graduate from high school and didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do with my life, my Mom asked me “can you live a happy life without art, without making pots?”. My immediate answer was no and that led me to apply to art school, but 19 years later I had forgotten all of that. I had forgotten that I deserved to have my soul alight and I’d forgotten that the best way to be my best self is to get lost in my creativity as much as possible.
So, I urge you to have a think about the things that make your heart sing, the talents and special gifts that you can’t live happily without and then make damned sure you find a way to keep them alive for you in your daily life no matter what.
You’re so worth it.
Don’t forget that you deserve to have your soul lit up on a daily basis, k?
