dreaming a new dream

after ending up with several pieces in my last batch coming out with craze lines, i felt quite disheartened to begin creating again. i tend to throw myself into the things that i love, and the naive yet wonderful part of my heart that yearns to make all these dreams come true, often leads me into situations where i realize i may have bitten off more than i could chew.

and so when almost all the pieces i made with care and affection came out with craze lines, i had to pause and ask myself if i was doing this again. plunging into an unknown, dreaming of what realities could come out of it, and prancing around this dreamland without considering the parts that may not work out. or parts that may need trial and error, and embracing the fact that it is all part of the journey to learning and growing.

doing pottery has shown me so much about myself, and about my relationship with dreaming, working hard, and moving through periods when things don’t go as planned.

i was at michelle’s studio when i looked at all the pieces that came out, astonished by their beauty, i could hardly believe that i made them. but at the same time, let down that because of their craze lines, they weren’t functional. i felt that all my hard work went to waste, and even though i learnt a ton from this experience about what causes craze lines, and what i could do differently, and honestly realized that amaco underglazes fire very true to colour (i thought the orange underglaze would come out as cream, but now i know better), it still felt disheartening that i would have to start from what felt like scratch.

i told suzy at michelle’s studio how i felt, and she reminded me that it was all part of the process. that she herself had once spent months on a masterpiece, all for it to get shattered in the kiln. and then i asked myself, so what do we all do it for? am i allowed to continue embodying this creative aspect of myself that i’ve been often encouraged to do, if i can’t get it right?

a new friend recently told me, that being creative isn’t about getting it right, but rather about the desire to create and these words have stayed with me and have somehow encouraged me during this period, to not be so hard on myself. i realize that i had similar feelings when i moved to paris, tried to make it work although it wasn’t quite for me. it took me a while to gather myself and try a new dream. and in many ways, this is what living in england has been teaching me, the art of dreaming a new dream.

and this is what i did two nights ago. i dusted off my clay bags, made some slips and sliced up some clay to begin wedging. and then it came to me - we do it not only for the thrill of when it does work - that moment where our dreams are realized and it’s more beautiful than we could have imagined and in more unexpected ways than we could have imagined, but also for who we become in the process. what we learn about ourselves. how our capacity to receive grace and tenderness for ourselves increases. how more wonderful worlds that live within us that we never knew existed are revealed to us along the way. we do it to experience this endless marvellous process of becoming and perhaps this is very well what makes the ride worthwhile.

a corner of my home studio, it’s in dire need of organisation..

i made these pieces two nights ago, and it truly felt like a different energy took over. i couldn’t stop moving my hands, and once again all i had sketched out to make was thrown out the window and i somehow found myself with these pieces after. and it felt good. it felt really good :) i don’t know how these will turn out, and i’m starting to feel that that’s okay too. it’s okay to not always know how things will turn out. so we’ll see how this new dream goes, with these new babies and the ones i’m yet to create, and with this new life as well.

thank you for being here, thank you for reading my words.

stay dreaming,

onivie