Enough for Today

My artistic practice feels like a mess right now. I've been thinking so much about what's next, how to get there, how to present it, how to pay for it, how to make up that cost...etc, that I've not spent much time just being in the present. 

Yesterday. though, I opened a kiln and had a moment of clarity. 

The mug on the left came from that kiln. It's a pot that I have now reglazed and fired three times. The tea bowl on the right is from the wood kiln at Honeyrock. For about three years now I have been on a quest to see if I could get the richness of what happens in the wood-kiln at Honeyrock to happen in the gas kiln I use at the college. At first I was trying to mimic the wood kiln, but I finally realized that if I succeeded the pots would be disingenuous. So I started to think about ways that the nature of the gas kiln could contribute to the aesthetic. 

After much trial and error, I think I finally have something that feels right. 

It's a small victory in a way. I haven't put tons of energy into this search for a while; it's become more of a side project while I've been pursuing more "serious" work. But now I'm not so sure which is the more serious work. What I love about these new pots is that they feel more organic, less forced, than some of the other work I've been making. They seem to know what they are, what they are about, and in little need of my justification. They are reminding me that what I need to focus on is what is right in front of me, right here, today, and not in the future.

​"Today's grace is enough for today," they tell me, "why don't you sit down and have some some tea?"