Friday, April 10, 2020

Someone Wrote Me A Kind Letter



Thank you so much for your order, but especially for your note. At this particular time, you have no idea how much your words mean to me. 

We potters have formed quite a community over the years. Our interdependence was only made easier as I find so many of our number to be such engaging, friendly, and interesting people.

On some level I think we potters are at least vaguely aware of the anachronistic nature of our craft/art . It's a dangerous game we play to have our livelihoods tied to the production of something that folks don't actually need to buy in order to survive.

Except that they do. They do need what we make. They do need beauty.
And we hold steadfastly (if foolishly) to the conviction that the human condition requires creative input that transcends the merely functional, the merely utilitarian.

We haven't been proven wrong yet, though with each wave of change, each demographic shift, each cultural transition that brings a different vision to the fore and marginalizes another in its wake, we have our fears.

Mostly, we know that come what may, we need to be creative. We need to make objects. In that human game of juggling our need for significance and our need for security -- ever striving to keep both aloft, we always drop a ball or two.

But we pick them back up again. It's who we seem to be.

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