Clay Therapy

Diva gave me the gift of clay. That may sound funny but it was sweet. While watching me making sculptures (references for my book) she said it was the happiest she’d ever seen me -- outside being with her, of course. She will be on vacation for a week and decided to give me weapons grade clay. Well, weapons of peace. Clay, my drawing and the book are very selfish acts. They are as much for myself as anyone else -- as any art really is. They bring me peace when my mind is at war.

How? Well, I was riding home on the bus the other day and felt so out of sorts. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t focus enough to write. I couldn’t pull myself together enough to draw. In the past I would have sat on the couch watching a documentary on Nazis and feeling pretty worthless.

Now I have another possibility, another way to play and find joy tucked away in unexpected places: sculpture. I think of nothing else as I work. Out of a lump of clay, I twist and pull into creation things that were once only in my unfathomable head. Like a fisherman trolling unknown depths, I often don‘t know what will break the surface. My imagination and my emotions seem to seep into it in ways that surprise even me. The clay has as much to do with the process as me. It so cold when I start, but the heat of my fingers (and all of my tugging) warms it. It flowers into something so happy. I look at what I have done and smirk -- I am myself again. On those days when my thoughts scatter like pigeons being chased by a dog in the park -- this, art, is my path back to myself.