Years ago, I took a beginners pottery course.
I've wanted to return to it ever since, but as life tends to do, it got away from me. One day it was "I'll sign up next month," and somehow the next thing I knew, several years had passed and I was the proud owner of ten white hairs. Mmmmmmmmmhm.
I still remember how connected I felt to the clay as it spun beneath my hands. The silky texture. The way it yielded to the pressure of my palms. How a single finger and a little patience could open the center into something beautiful. It was one of those rare experiences that demanded my full attention. There was no room to think about yesterday or tomorrow. Only the clay in front of me.
Maybe that's why so many people fall in love with pottery. It refuses to let you rush. It invites you into the present.
Since moving to the property, I've been fascinated by the idea of collecting and working with wild clay. Like most of my adventures, I dove in headfirst without realizing what I was signing up for.
Primitive pottery has a failure rate of around 40%.
Forty percent.
Then there's figuring out clay-to-temper ratios, painfully slow drying times, shrinkage, cracks, explosions if you fire it incorrectly, and the wonderfully humbling challenge of throwing on a wheel.
And somehow...I love every bit of it.
I love the uncertainty. The risk. The mess. The fact that this isn't something you can force. Wild clay has a personality of its own, and you quickly learn that you're working with it, not simply shaping it into whatever you want.
This next part might make me sound a little hippie-dippie, but I've always had a deep respect for the natural world and the creatures that call it home. Working with wild clay has only deepened that respect.
There's something almost sacred about it.
This clay has existed long before me, and with a little luck, it will outlive me too. Every handful carries a history I'll never fully know.
If you know me, you know I love stories and connection. So as my hands move across this wild earth, I can't help but wonder...
What has this clay witnessed?
Did dinosaurs once cross over it?
Did Indigenous families sit beneath a sky full of stars with this very earth beneath them?
How many spring floods has it endured? How many wildfires? How many winters?
If clay could speak, what stories would it tell?
Working with wild things brings me a kind of peace that almost feels holy.
Most days you'll find me outside with no shoes, no bra, and not a single worry worth carrying. My hands are covered in mud while birds chatter overhead. Something rustles in the trees. Maybe a squirrel, maybe a moose...hopefully not a bear. The breeze brushes against my skin while the sun warms my face.
In those moments, I don't feel like I'm escaping life.
I feel like I'm returning to it.
I'm deeply grateful for this earth and the quiet kindness it offers me. So I try to return that kindness by listening instead of controlling.
Instead of deciding what the clay should become, I ask it what it wants to become.
Anyone remember the movie Accepted? There's that scene where Razorhead says, "WHAT ARE YOU?" while holding up an experimental snack he made.
That is, without question, me.
So, here I go on another wild adventure in which I have no clue what I'm doing most of the time.
But isn't that where the fun lies ;)
