Remember when we were kids and we would go outside and make mud pies with our siblings and friends? Or when we would just run our hands through the dirt and love the feeling of the grit against our hands? Not worrying about work or class or relationships, just being in tune with our Mother Earth? Really being able to contemplate while being outside and getting to know yourself while getting to know the earth we inhabit? Yeah? So do I. That’s why I’ve decided to make that my career. I play with dirt every day for work and plan on continuing to do so once I leave Berea College.
You may be asking yourself right about now what the heck I am talking about, and that’s okay. It’s not for everyone. It takes a very specific person to take mud pies to a whole new level-and that’s alright. I know for some of you, you were grossed out reading the previous paragraph. But, I bet you still appreciate the art that we make. The art of pottery.
I am a potter. I make mugs and bowls and vases and sculptures all from clay-which is just mud that is made in a mixer. I am an extremely tactile and visual person and playing with clay for me fulfills a lifelong dream that I didn’t even know I had until I met my middle school art teacher, Angela Engle. She is the absolute most wonderful person in the entire world, so thank you Mrs. Engle for bringing out my love of clay.
Unlike any other art medium, clay is something that I believe to be the most ephemeral of all the mediums I can think of-drawing, painting, sculpting, woodworking, metal working, fibers, or weaving. And while they are all also ephemeral themselves as they too can deteriorate and weather away, I think that clay is one of the only things that truly is. If you don’t like something you’ve created, you literally just smash it away. You’re mad? Take it out on your clay. You’re happy? Sad? Overjoyed? Take it all out on your clay-and it’s okay if you don’t like it because it will be gone forever if you allow it to be. It’s okay to make mistakes and take away and build back from the body. It is okay, and that is something that I have had to learn-if it’s not good, throw it away.
Now that I have probably bored you to death with why I #liketoplaywithdirt I will leave you with a video of myself fulfilling my passion along with some pictures of my work. Thank you to all of my teachers and professors who have helped make my passion come true. #gofindyours
