Thinking and being

I am waking up each morning, now, thinking about what to blog. At this point, very few people are reading this blog, but I am still writing here everyday. I am cautioned by friends not to advertise my committment to write daily, in case I miss a day, but I am drawn to this new medium. I used to write a column for a local arts publication, but since my core daily activity is making pottery, I have to choose where to publish. For now, I have chosen to publish here. It is a far more fluid place to publish my thoughts and I can do it everyday, if I choose. So far it is a forgiving place to place my words, partly because it isn't being critiqued, yet, but I am forever hopeful. I have a feeling this new medium is similar to the invention of the printing press. Similar in its advancement of human thought, but this new medium is exponential, viral. It will catch on and impact the world far more quickly than the printing press did.

Yes, I hope these entries will allow me to sell more pottery, since I don't like packing up my work, hauling it in my van to various locations, set it up and get dressed up to stand in a booth and talk to a lot of people anymore. But more than that, this form of communication is giving me the opportunity to express my thoughts and hone my thinking about my work and about being.

I live in a rural environment, wildness exists outside my door. I spend my days making work that people will use. Work that contains, through the extreme temperature of the kiln, a sense of my being and the place where I work. Many mornings as I walk to the studio, I see a hawk circling in the sky seeking her next meal or just flying for the joy of it. It gives me a thrill to be in a place that supports that kind of life.

It is still dark out as I write this. It is still and quiet. My day ahead will be anything but, because I am going to New York today. But I will return here tonight, and wake up tomorrow in the stillness that is a part of my life now. A stillness which gives me pause for thought and lets me be, embuing my work with a sense of both.