Pondering pinch pots

 "The artist is to sing up the earth"*

A new year, new ideas, a blank slate.

Tomorrow I start teaching at Holyoke Community College. I am thankful for this opportunity for a number of different reasons. Teaching clay infuses my life with creative energy that comes from giving and learning from others. I have loved the time that I have to work alone in the studio these past few years, but am interested to see what lessons this new challenge brings to my work. As I research ideas for projects, looking at historical and contemporary ceramics, I am finding new and older inspiration to share with my students, write about in my blog, and feed into new ideas and techniques in the studio.

*Paulus Berensohn

Sitting in the sun with cats, books, and computer, thinking about pinch pot projects to teach at HCC, I started looking at Paulus Berensohn. Paulus Berensohn is clay artist and writer whose words often speak to the nurturing, spiritual, and poetic aspects of creating. I stumbled on to this interview from YouTube by  Paulus called Why we create.
*" It isn't to make a career. It isn't to be famous. It's to sing up the earth." I think that we can and have to consider the financial logistics of making a living as an artist. It is impossible not to. What strikes me when I hear Paulus Berensohn's words is continually to remember that beautiful awkward fleshy feeling that we all had when we fell in love with clay for the first time. I guess this can relate to all aspects of our lives.