Thursday 4 June 2009

Vanished

I spent hours last night writing an entry to create a word picture for you. It described my day in fine detail from the rising of the sun to laying down my head to rest. I hit the publish button and it vanished as completely as if it had never been. Only the first paragraph remained, truncated. I decided it was late and I would do best to sleep and rework it in the morning. It did make me laugh though.

We live our lives like that, we experience the world and engrave it in our hearts. No one can see the world as we do, feel our feelings or know all the moments of our souls. When the day, the hour, the instant is gone it remains only in our minds eye.

When I make pots, I give form to my feelings about those moments. I try to share the joy that I feel in living by creating vessels that will enrich other peoples moments. Long after my day is gone, those pots will continue to touch peoples lives and hopefully bring them happiness. I will not know. My own happiness is here today, every moment of my life. It is the sum of all that I have learned and have become through my experiences, and it is the gratitude I feel for the blessings that I have. It is not some distant destination, it is here and now for that is all any of us truly possess.

Wednesday 3 June 2009

Imagination

The exhibition continues, with many friends and customers, old and new, sparing the time to visit me here and enjoy the new works. Alas and alack, I find myself bereft of the appropriate software to download any photos. On top of that, most of the best work is walking out the door before I can photograph it anyway!
So, without visuals, I will try to paint you a picture.
The morning light filters softly through the paper shoji screens, and I wake to an unfamiliar ceiling. It is covered with a layer of fine bamboo, darkened by charcoal fumes, completely unlike the ceiling of my bedroom at home (undressed cedar with a screw missing). I turn my leaden head to take in the rest of my surroundings, a tea room, a shelf of my tea bowls, tea caddies, water vessels and vases. A sign above me says in Japanese characters "帰庵”, Ki An, a tea room to come home to. I realize suddenly where I am, just feet away from the busiest street in Tokyo, 150 km from home, from Mika and the children, but safe at another sort of home. For nine days every year, for the last sixteen years, this has been my home.