strolls. red thread. cheese.

Marianne and the Garonne

Little Red Man.

A Sunday afternoon, Marianne and I decided to take a stroll around Toulouse to see the beautiful river and check out some of the photography that was being displayed at the ‘Manifesto’ photography exhibition.

There were some bizarre thought provoking photos of people from Bucharest staring at you from a scene of decay, there were photographs of random people at the Toulouse swimming pool, there were some disturbing photographs taken by Les Krims of all the Krims and their neighbours … there were some clever photos of photos in the toaster and hanging on a washing line, and one that I particularly like was the set by Flore Gardner. Flore Gardner sews on top of found photographs and I enjoyed her board of photos with her addition of a ‘little red man’. You’d have never thought a stick man could be so adventurous and versatile … I like these images because the random red man has just been plopped onto the photos, like I’ve been plopped here in France. Although I think I am less noticeable than a red stick man. A girl in my dance class said that my ‘r’s are very good for an English person … I don’t know whether she was being polite or whether the English ‘r’s are just really really bad. I also find it impossible to say the word m’inscrire. The stick man is also very friendly and is consorting with all sorts of people so friendly, open and helpful… what an example this stick man is.  Got to “strive to be shining examples unto all mankind, and true reminders of the virtues of God amidst men” as advised in the Tablet of Wisdom (Revealed by Baha’u'llah). This is so important, if we change ourselves we can change the world around us, if we turn on a lamp it will shed light on the whole room…

Marianne doesn’t like art that tries to think. There was a lot of art that tried to think at the late night expo the other night of modern art in a gallery nearby. This included the ‘Tableaux Vivants’ which means ‘living paintings’ so it was basically people doing shoulder stands or holding a leg up and there was a dinner table with people sat around it eating … I ate ‘fromage vivant’ which is this cheese with micro spiders that live on the outside and apparently bring out the taste … it was nice … but you could see them moving…

Ceramic Magic

So I am walking past a notice board in the art block and see a notice of blue and white  printed with the words POTTERY PARTIES. I take a look and find out that it is about a workshop with a local potter to play with clay and glaze.

James pokes at a tile

So I gather some friends who may be interested in pottery, or may be interested in art, or may feel obliged to come, or that i forced to come to make numbers. We were five. One Two Five was easy enough to find. A building that looks like regular house in Bathford is in fact a beautiful and spacious gallery of ceramic and glass genius with the studios in the garden. We enter the house and after having a gander at the art on the walls and in the garden we make our way to the studio and Gary begins talking to us as we sip herbal tea from homemade mugs spun in that very studio.

We begin by pounding some clay into a slab, rolling it until it is smooth after which we make marks and textures using different sticks and random kitchen and haberdashery utensils. We were told that “The potters greatest tool is the hammer”. In other words don’t be too attached to your work. Practicing pottery is such a preperation for life. Being to attached to our work holds us back from exploring the visual limits that we could reach or cross with our ceramical creativity. Likewise, being attached to this transient world could hold us back from living life to the full and missing opportunities as well as achieving our potential and focusing on the less important aspects of life. In the Baha’i Writings, Baha’u'llah tells us …

“Free thyself from the fetters of this world, and loose thy soul from the prison of self. Seize thy chance, for it will come to thee no more.”

So detachment from the things of this world, from the appearance of our pot, or from our own self-image is in fact hugely liberating. Of course this doesn’t mean that we should completely discard our possessions or actually vandalise our studios and throw our pots out of the window. Detachment merely “consists in refraining from letting our possessions possess us.”

Fraction of a tile

We left our vases and tiles to be biscuit fired in the kiln and drove home wondering whether they would survive…

Several weeks later we returned to find our handiwork safely solid and ready to adorn. We were led back to the studio where we were given back our ceramics, a pot of paintbrushes and an array of jars filled with glaze. An hour of glazing and we are done, some opting for a subtle sheen of glaze and others pouring glaze over them with a bucket.

We blindly glaze not really knowing what each piece will turn out like. Again, detachment becomes of the utmost importance. Finally we are finished and the pieces are once more, thrown into the fire.

Not knowing what our work was going to look like, or even if it was going to survive the fire, we left it to the kiln. A week later. The result: weirdly attractive. The process transforming a lump of discoloured clay into a glistening piece of ceramic magic.

The Vase.