kiln dreaming

I have always loved pottery. I enjoy both throwing and hand building. I LOVE the sensation of clay oozing between my fingers and creating something from a heap of clay. I never know what I'm making until I get going, it seems with me the clay leads the way.

I've taken pottery classes before. Once I even took one with Ted. We were newly married and the Metro Parks District in Tacoma offered a night course on hand building. We signed up and had a blast! I will note, Ted did not care for hand building. The engineer in him yearns for symmetry and so the second week the instructor guided him to the wheel and there he found enjoyment. I was a tiny bit torn as I enjoyed hand building, but had always wanted to try the wheel. I didn't have the courage to ask the instructor, being an extreme rule follower, since after all the class was hand building. I later took a class on the wheel.

I made a lot of duds. That's the hard part about creating. You really do end up with a lot of "junk" that can leave the artist with a surplus of attempts. In writing, the "junk" fits nicely in a manila folder. Lots of written junk can fit into a manila folder. But pottery doesn't store away so easily. I threw away a couple bowls that were down right hideous. They were so heavily weighted that it was a work out to grab it from the cupboard for morning cereal. And then there was the adorable pear rattle. However, I had not wrapped the small balls inside in paper so they fired to the bottom. Thus, the result was a pear rattle with no rattle. I threw these things out and thought no more of them.

Sometime later, I visited Ted's office expanse, aka a tiny cubicle. Sitting on his top shelf were the bowls, "rattle" and other useless attempts I had done away with. I was flabbergasted. Apparently, he had dug them out of the garbage and wasn't fond of me throwing away such masterpieces. Ha! Yet, it blessed me then that he'd do such a thing and even more now that I reflect on it. This man is nuts about me and I about him. I am thankful for that.

So, finally, back to kiln dreaming. A few months back I saw an email for a free kiln and I jumped on it. To my surprise, I was the first responder. 2 weeks ago we brought it home and this summer I am going to work on firing it up. It's a little one, perfect for a beginner kiln owner like myself. In the meantime, I am dreaming of all the lovey's I can create with my kiddos.