8.1 POTTERY: While I was a student at Auburn University I developed a keen interest in making pottery or as we call it "throwing pots". My last two years there I worked in the pottery lab which was then in the basement of the Home Ec building. Mrs. Jane Lorendo (Coach Lorendo's wife) was my teacher and dear friend. After graduation I stayed around Auburn and worked for a few years contracting construction work and recovering from my "education". During that time I continued to work in the pottery lab and earned some keep there by teaching a night course in pottery with the Continuing Education Department. I also taught a Yoga Relaxation and Exercise Class. Pottery was very relaxing and helped me to center my mind while finding a relatively quick way to find creative satisfaction. Throwing on the wheel takes a lot of effort, understanding, and patience, as well as timing in the process, but compared to architecture where the the time between first meetings with a client and the actual completion of the work can be years, pottery is very quick. The instantaneous connection between mind/heart/spirit and clay is VERY satisfying. Even if the creation fails and flops a satisfying connection is there and helps tremendously. I learned many valuable lessons in those long hours of pottery, too.
Pottery Lesson No. 1 - Wedging the Clay
Once the clay is mixed with water uniformly and ready
to use it must be "wedged". Wedging is the act of beating the mass
of clay upon a thick plaster block or other appropriate surface, cutting
it with a wire to check for air bubbles and impurities, and bending the
clay into a well aligned lump of clay ready for mastering on the wheel.
Betting the clay on plaster forces air bubbles to collapse and takes
extra moisture out of the clay mass. Cutting on a wire shows
the insides and helps in finding rocks and trash or other impurities inside
the clay. Wedge rolling bends the clay by a partial folding process
similar to kneading bread. This begins the spiral alignment of clay particles
continued in the mastering process.
Pottery Lesson No. 2 - Mastering the Clay:
The first part of the actual throwing process on a potter's
wheel (if one knows and does it), is called "Mastering". Mastering
the clay involves pressing the clay onto the wheel and as the wheel spins,
moistening it and pressing it down and out and then in and up. Over and
over again this pressure works the clay from outside to inside and twists
the connections of clay discs into spiraling layers of "aligned" clay.
This works out the air bubbles that could later explode in firing and destroy
the piece AND it strengthens the clay by alignment of granulations, PLUS
it smooths and centers the clay into a symmetrically aligned striated mass
on the potter's wheel...ready and "willing" to take the shape or shapes
given without unnecessary resistance or concern.
This of course is and always has been a great analogy to Christianity, where one gives up their own willfulness to Christ and allows God through Christ to remold them into a new and better person. In clay it's essential to avoid wasting time with clay that has destructive air bubbles or unruly inner alignments.
Pottery Lesson No. 3 - Throwing a Pot
Once the clay is wedged and mastered it is ready for
working. This is the most obvious part of the creative process and
the most frustrating and therefore also the most satisfying. There
are a number of tricks or insights useful here that I may elaborate upon
later. Primarily though this is a continuation of the mastering process
where instead of pressing and pulling the entire lump, you open the center
of the clay by pressing into it and begin working a wall. If you
take the wall out you begin a plate or wide bowl. If you take the
wall up straight you make narrow bowl or vase. And if you take the
sides back in you make a bottle or necked jug or pot. The speed and
uniformity of speed of the wheel is important here, but most important
is the skill of the potter. A good potter does not "force" the clay
but gently, yet firmly encourages the clay towards the desired shape.
The more the potter understands the strengths, character, and feel of the
clay the more he or she can do with the clay.
8.2 POETRY: Aside
from the fact that poetry uses the same letters as pottery (said humorously),
there are other similarities. Poetry too is a quickly creative process
that offers immediate results (unlike architecture as mentioned before).
It takes much less physical effort, and can usually be accomplished without
as messy cleanup. I have a small booklet of poems that my son Josh
helped me to put together last Christmas as a gift for family members.
It's called "The Gentleman Savage". Here's an example from that home
publication:
Atomic Spring
by J.Lewis Wesley
Atomic power comes with spring
When seeds seemed dead to life will bring
The delight of life with colors rare
As earth from bleakness becomes so fair.
Each year tastes death through coldest winter
When doors are closed so none may enter,
Yet rising from earth's grave each spring
The loves regrow and flowers bring.
No more the clamber of dark chains
No more the darkness of cold rains
The sun is hot and filled with passion
As all the land wears spring's new fashions.
So sing the praise of Easter ladies
When flowers rise and conquer Hades.
Let’s raise the maypole and dance to flutes
Open our voices and vanquish the mute.
The spring brings life and love, not sorrow
Let's sing and dance and live this morrow.
For planted deeply in the seed
Is life replentished and complete.
(c) December 1997
8.3 Prose:
The booklet we put together at Christmas has a couple
of short stories in it. I'm not sure if I'll put any of that on this web
page, but it's a possibility.