My life is about finding inner and outer harmony whilst helping those around me to the best of my ability. So much of my early life has been angst and turmoil that I had to find a way to discover what it was all about. We’re so locked into our traumas and thought patterns that meditation allows one to understand that commentator we all have. I wouldn’t say the harmony I seek is about avoidance of those situations but rather about self discovery and looking into the human experience we all share. To understand why we revere pleasure and avoid pain.
Ceramics is an extension of this way of living. I find potters are often quiet people, slightly separated from the busyness of cities. Doing ceramics requires a lot of time to tinker and fix problems that arise so it almost demands higher degrees of solitude. Then there’s the actual making. Throwing or making ceramic vessels requires patience and forbearance. So many things go wrong along the way and you can’t rush the process of making. You have to give clay its time to get ready. Whether that is being supple enough for throwing or dry enough for firing. It becomes this total way of living. Nothing is outside of it.
There is also the studio I’m in, The Forge, which is this collaborative space where everything from music events to yoga to pottery to constellation workshops happen. It’s kind of magical. One doesn’t realize that what we do in the spaces we live impacts on the actual space. A bit like when we walk into a building and something can feel off. I really believe we’re inbuilt with this natural sense for the order of the universe. It just depends whether we know how to listen or not and what marks we seek to imprint.