d/evolving

This groundspring vessel I made with local & commercial clay dried just a little bit too fast during the hot weather last week and formed cracks along the top where you see the white lines. I was initially disheartened to see the cracks in the form and wrestled with my thoughts around perfection.

I wondered…do I reclaim it by re-wetting and reprocessing the clay to make it usable again or do I fire it and mend together the places where it fractured with a kintsugi approach? I wasn’t keen to reclaim the form because it is 13” in diameter and took quite some time to make so I waited…and then another option presented itself ~ an opportunity to try something new. 

I have just recently started working with paperclay and am discovering the dynamic, versatile, strong and pliant qualities of porcelain mixed with paper pulp.

It can be used to mend fractures in unfired greenware so I decided to try mending the fracture to see how it works. I quite like the lines that have been accentuated by this process and wonder how it will show up after being buried in sawdust and fired for 24 hours in a pit. 

This morning I pulled out my book, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets, and Philosophers by L. Koren, and am reminded of the Metaphysical Basis of Wabi-Sabi:

“Things are either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness.”

The author described it this way: “The devolving dynamic generally tends to manifest itself in things a little darker, more obscure, and quiet. Things evolving tend to be a little lighter and brighter, a bit clearer, and slightly more eye-arresting. And nothingness itself - instead of being empty space, as in the West - is alive with possibility.” 

Perhaps this is another way to understand cycles and shifts that happen in life and offers a non linear lens to view this groundspring series with. 

I am reassured to stay with discomfort that often appears in darker times of devolving, lean into obscurity and carve out quietude, which goes against socio-cultural norms, attitudes, and practices of modernity. Peering into the opening in these round belly vessels one can see into nothingness, which is alive with possibility, and through the lens of wabi-sabi, it becomes easier to trust in devolving/evolving movement patterns in life. This helps me appreciate the breadth and depth of lived experience and embrace the darker, more obscure, quiet times just that much more.