Over the past few weeks in art we have been making various things, including a Dragon, Bird and carved trinket box from clay.
Today whilst working on my trinket box I was getting frustrated as my pinch pots kept collapsing and when I put them together it was never the right shape either and so my anger and frustration at the situation, which by taking care in what I was doing instead of rushing could have been resolved, was instead ruined numerous times by myself accidentally putting a finger through or causing the shape to collapse.
After talking to my teacher about how I just couldn't do it he said to me "the clay is alive beneath your fingers, it is a part of the earth and so is alive and because it is alive it can feel when you don't love it and are not taking care with it. So if you are angry or upset, no matter how hard you try, the clay will never work for you. But if you are kind to the clay and if you love it, it will love you too".
I think this not only refers to art but life in general. We are all pinch pots. We all start out as a perfectly round and smooth ball of clay. Then we are prodded and pinched and are slowly moulded into shape throughout our lives and smoother until we are a "perfect" pinch pot. Even when we are the right shape though we still may have uneven amounts of clay and thin sections of clay and our insides may not be smooth but it's as perfect as we need the pinch pot to be.
In life though, whilst forming ourselves, the pinch pots, if we are angry or frustrated we ruin what we have created and so the moral of this I guess it that you must find patience and calm within yourself, an inner harmony of sorts before you can begin to mould yourself other wise it (life, or any situation) will turn into a shamozel. Love the clay and the clay will love you. Love life and life will live you. Love yourself and life will change from being a lump of clay into something beautiful.
