October 15, 2010
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Knowing several artists who specialize in pottery… I have come to understand that the human psyche is much like the clay with which they work.
Our early lives begin as a handful of wet, unshaped clay. Through our experiences the clay takes form. In childhood that shape is begun by our environment and by those with whom we directly interact… parents, teachers, etc.
As we grow older we transition into our own potters to a huge extent. We turn our own wheel. We consciously and subconsciously create our own shape, form and adornments based on the things we have learned thus far… the things which have brought us happiness… those which have brought enlightenment… as well as the things which have brought us pain.
If you know many artists, then you also know it is often the darkness which brings out the deepest creativity and the most passionate results of their art.
Unlike the clay with which my friends Jim and Paul work, however, the clay of the human psyche is never fully fired and firmed. We must remain pliable to some degree… or else we can not survive in this ever changing world.
As my own years have passed, I was under the incorrect assumption that with time I would harden and become immune to the wrongs of this world.
But I am not hardening. If anything, I am becoming more pliable as I grow older and learn to love life as I never did as a youth.
The beautiful thing which has become my life requires me to be passionate, open… and sometimes to hurt.
If I can’t hurt when my heart needs or demands it…
I can’t love.
For they are two sides of the same human spirit.
