Me and a piece of clay

A note: Dear “A reader”, you asked a question in your last comment and I thought instead of writing couple of sentences in the comment box, I better tell you the whole story. I appreciate you and everyone that come and visit me here…I especially appreciate all of you that leave your footprints behind. Thank you!

Little boss picks up one of the biggest pieces of his wooden blocks and put it on his shoulder and tries to keep it there with the help of his neck and little chin. He looks at me and says: “Mamma look, I play Violin”….and then he starts tapping on the block with his tiny fingers and starts imitating with his mouth part of the tune from Mozart Violin Concerto 5 and then somehow switches to the tune of “in the jungle the mighty jungle the lions sleeps tonight”….

He does not know what he is doing. He is not even aware of the two tunes being separate pieces of art in technique. He just likes both of them. He heard the Violin concerto on mommy’s ipod (and is on the list of his favorite and that means we listen to it over and over) and the “jungle and lion” – as he calls it- somehow was sang to him as a silly song by mommy and daddy since he was a little baby. He looks at me all the time and I am sure he can see the absolute delight look on my face. I tell him: “Do you want mommy to accompany you with the Piano?”…his immediate response: “No mamma, do it with Maracas”…and give me his Maracas toy. Considering the fact that I played Piano since I was 5 years old, I am very good at carrying any rhythm with almost anything, but you have to admit it is little amusing to add the touch of south American native instrument to the famous Violin Concerto 5!

The game is over and he moves on to the next object of his desire and I….I move on to one of the many choirs of the day while I am deeply occupied with my thoughts about the concept of “hobby”….

Have you ever thought of how and when a person starts picking up something that can be called his hobby?
You can say a lot about someone’s personality by the hobby or hobbies that they have….but every time that I use this method and line of questioning during case taking in my practice, I also consider and keep in mind that when and how they chose their hobbies.

I mean was it really chosen by them or for them?

I play Piano almost all my life. I still can remember being in front of the Piano with my legs swinging on the bench and far away from the ground. But one thing that I am certain of, Piano is chosen for me. My mother loves the instrument and apparently was her favorite all through childhood and teenage years….so somewhere in that love affair it was only natural for her to want that for her daughter….

Well while according to every instructor that I had – and some of them were famous names- I was really good and talented at playing piano, I have to say I hated it….I hated it until I was in my late teenage years when I realized I did not hate the music and piano only the performance in front of every one or anyone. So one day in my very early 20’s I decided “that is the end of that” and I ONLY play for myself…I think it broke my mom’s heart but that was not something I was about to compromise.

So can playing Piano be considered as one of my hobbies? I highly doubt that.

The same is with down hill skiing. That was my father’s choice (he is really semi professional in that one) and I was only 4-5 years old. I am really good at it too and I did not mind doing it although I was not really passionate about the whole ordeal. Somehow couple of years ago I decided that I really don’t want to go for down hill skiing and maybe I start cross country…..

The list of the things that can be considered as my “hobby” can go on and on…and in front of each and every one of them the influence of my parents (either their direct choice despite my resistance or high influence the type that only a parent has on a child) can be obvious….until a few years ago…

A few years ago I went through a period of my life that was incredibly difficult, hellish and painful. Now that I look back I can see the whole ordeal like an alchemical chamber where under sever pressure and heat the metals go through purification…
Purify? I am not sure how much I became purified but I can say with absolute certainty that I learned so much about my true self, life and love. Some aspect of me as a being totally got destroyed and I rebuilt it brick by brick…..It was truly a “Saturn return” in my personal chart :)

During that time I started some new adventures - Mythology, Astrology and Alchemy was part of that. Interestingly no one was surprised by my new choices of “hobbies” and apparently they were along the same line of their “perception” of me…..Until I stumble upon sculpting with clay…

Well it is safe to say that apart from my better half and my homeopath everyone was shocked that I am working with clay! I still can remember the surprise in my parents voice when they heard of “the new thing”, they were extremely supportive but never the less surprised…my dad even told me that don’t I want to try the pottery wheel instead of sculpting? I was actually not surprised by his suggestions. Pottery wheel is more within a boundary, which fits his personality so much better.

I still can recall how everything started. I remember in those days I used to see patients from 8 am to 8 pm and there was really not that much else to do. One day in a conversation with a friend, she told me she was working on a piece of sculpture and she really wanted me to see it considering that she believed it was in the line of her therapeutic road. I asked her about it and she told me about this place that she goes to work with clay and makes sculpture and she started it couple of months ago following the whole ordeal of her breast cancer and all that she went through. We made a plan and I went with her mostly to see her work and still I can recall my first encounter with the place and its energy.

It was a studio in the basement of a building with no sign or flashy advertisement. You walk in and the immediate feeling is damp and earth…“the raw encounter with life”; I vividly remember that was what I thought.

On one side there are rows of pottery wheels and on the other side the spacious tables for making sculpture with hand and clay. Not that much order, lots of dust, huge sinks and heating chambers for the works….
There is no class for sculpting in the sense that class is being known to people – there were regular classes for pottery with wheel. But if one wants, there are few artists that work there regularly and you can go and start your work and ask them to teach you some essential techniques and sort of hiring them as your instructor per hour on the side line…but they only teach you techniques and the real work is what you do and what you wish….You purchase the clay each time and a fee for using the equipments and utility. The owner was not really into business aspect of the whole ordeal and the place was more for the gathering of already artists as oppose to “classes” and all….

That was one of the quickest decisions that I made in my life. I decided then and there that half a day every week I will go there and work with the clay. I was not really attracted to the pottery wheel and the concept of free work was so much more alluring for me. At the same time I did not even know what am I going to do…what am I going to expect….what does it really mean to work with a piece of clay and create a sculpture?

In all honesty the whole experience was a very cathartic one for me, a therapeutic experience in a very fragile time of my life, in a time that I was building myself and my life piece by piece. I believe NOTHING is by accident and things come to one's road just at the right moment for the right purpose…I call it divine timing and divine reason…who am I to understand when and why it happens exactly at that time?!

Well that is how my Wednesdays started to become... The first day there, I chose a nice lady that was working on her stuff to guide me when and where I needed it. She was a very interesting Korean lady and just by looking at her you could feel the presence of grief in her being. Later on I came to appreciate her extremely silent being and ultra respectful manner in the choices of her circle of students. She would teach few of us the essential technique or terminology that one needs – like any other art- but it was really the whole trial and error method. In order for me to understand those techniques the first day was mostly creating some ordinary stuff….the usual and basics. But even with those ordinary pieces of bowels and vases (which now are in my better half’s home office like extremely valuable Venetian pieces) I had an incredible feeling upon touching the clay.

After that session I chose what I wanted to make and she NEVER, not even once, told me that it is beyond my reach or I am not ready for it. She was actually very interested in my very mythological choices of topic. There were times – many times- that I did not even know where should I begin and she introduced me to the concept of sketching of the vision….she would give few suggestions of where one can begin and then would go to her own station and work. There was not that much talking in the studio. When you are working with clay, the whole conversation is between you and that beautiful piece of raw material.

A piece of clay has a sensational feeling under ones’ fingers and hands. There were times that it reminded me of a horse and the rest of the times, it just reminded me of nothing that I ever knew before. Horses also need tremendous respect. In their presence you better remember the respect that their dignified beings deserve or without the respect there will not be any cooperation.

A piece of clay might bend under your wet fingerers and palms, but there is spirit in it that is present at all time, a spirit that needs your respect and cooperation in order to listen to you to shape….and even while it is shaping to your vision and perception, there is always his / her soul present every step of the way.

It is very interesting for me that among everything else in this universe, in Islamic Irfan and mysticism (not Sufism but Irfan), there is the mythology of “God created Adam from a piece of clay and then blow his holy breathe in it and it came alive”. This simple myth says so much about the belief in general. It always created a sense of respect in me toward that particular spiritual path.

Since little boss was born, I rarely had a chance to go there. It is truly difficult to make a set schedule when one is a mother of a baby or a toddler for that matter (especially when there is no relative living where you live!)…and with sculpting you can not just go one week and then don’t go for few weeks. The work needs some kind of persistency, at least each work in the duration of creation. I miss it very much; I miss the energy of that silence, the power of clay and the voice of people’s creation. There are times that I feel I just drop by and see what is going on and interestingly always something comes up….that place is not for “just drop by”….

Above all a piece of unshaped clay showed me how to have patience…the fact that life is so unpredictable even when you plan everything and use all the techniques correctly…especially when you think you are in control that is the moment that all things go out of control.

The unshaped clay taught me that being in control sometimes is the worst thing for the flow of creation and therefore flow of life, that most of the time one needs to shut the mind and let the heart just be….that the respect for every THING in this world is an absolute must….that life is beautiful even when things go wrong….that there are times that you make everything “beautiful” and “perfect” but in the heat of the heating station the fragile piece of beauty can not last and will be broken to pieces and there is nothing you can do…after all that was the nature of that piece. You can mourn the loss and time and energy but ultimately you can only start from the scratch and do it again and again and again…and that is JUST LIFE.

It is truly an awe moment when the final work comes out of the heating station (and especially if you are lucky enough that the work is not broken or damaged). The initial reaction is always “not exactly turned out like my perception”, or “the glazing is so much different from what I saw in other pieces”… and then you look and “see” there are aspect of it that is not you and still is you…The creation can never be one way street. I do believe even God considered the spirit of the clay when he made Adam…don’t you think so?

After all we are not exactly the mirror image of him…..