Let me take you down to a place by the river: my river, seen here in full spate in late spring, will sweep you away like a dry leaf, helpless and endangered. As the fury subsides, however, a much more mellow flow reveals the alluvial muds below, deposited in the lea of tree roots and assorted obstacles placed there by hand of man or by nature. In more clement times, the potter puts her wellies on, and thermals, dons woollen gloves inside the marigolds, ties up her hair, rolls up her sleeves and, floating down the path amid the limes and the celandine, archaeological trowel in hand, she approaches the river in the expectation of seducing it into yielding its treasure of clay. Ritual is important to potters. Something primeval tugs at them when they touch the wet plastic clay and they know that, if there is to be an act of creation, that will only be possible with the assent of the auguri. Well, whatever it may be; you could just get a digger, I suppose, and rape the countryside - it has been done! But Suzanna wears a bandana and treads lightly. Only a small amount of clay is needed, to make a kiln god. Reading Jim Malone on the need to appease the gods when firing touched a chord in me. Shamefacedly, I gave in to this deep sense of needing the making of pots to have some meaning outside just producing a flawed artefact, just because. It is not mystical, it is not spiritual, it is all of life and it is nothing. Creation myths have always existed, they seemingly are essential furniture for the mind of sensing man. Why would that be? I feel that the hypnotic need to make pots comes from the same root as the need to establish where you came from. There is a link there, perhaps because, prosaically, we in Judeo-Christian tradition, have this idea of the human being created from clay? Hitherto, we have always blamed someone for this evolving and gyrating world. Traditional religions have gods and superior beings sat up in heaven watching us and having a laugh... Scientists are now stripping away the mechanisms of Big Bang, its consequences and development, but have not come up with the answer to "Why the H--l? Who done this?" So you see, there you were thinking potters were just diligently shaping drying and cooking one form after another, according to the laws of useless activity, when all the time they are in fact the watchers of what cannot be explained; and they know - mostly - to have proper respect and pay proper attention, bandana and all.
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