Egyptian jars with motifs of plants and water
Late Naqada II Date: ca. 3450–3300 BC

clay memory

Something I was told this week...

You have to use your entire body weight when you are rolling out clay slabs...unless you have a press...and it is important to move the clay around as you go so that you roll it out in different directions and also turn it around at different intervals so that you roll both sides; otherwise tensions might occur in the drying or firing process leading to cracks. It's like the clay has a memory for the shape it began in and it's always trying to get back to that form. 

Like us! We need to move and be moved in all different directions to prevent tensions.

“To Begin With, the Sweet Grass”

Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,
the dancer, the potter,
to make me a begging bowl
which I believe
my soul needs.

And if I come to you,
to the door of your comfortable house
with unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails,
will you put something into it?

I would like to take this chance.
I would like to give you this chance.

--“To Begin With, the Sweet Grass” by Mary Oliver from ‘Evidence’ © Beacon, 2009

Gabriel Orozco
'my hands are my heart'