View of circle vases covered in plastic to slow drying and let moisture in the clay equalize. Courtesy photo

By Father Theophan Mackey
Rector
Saint Job of Pochaiv Orthodox Church

Happy new year to you all!

It has been an exciting year in the last two weeks. While taking a month-long hiatus from teaching pottery at the Arts Council, I was selected (read: volunteered) to teach “The Theology of the Icon” to our seminary’s MDiv students this Spring semester. We celebrated Christmas on January 6th and 7th, because we are on the Old Calendar (Julian) and thirteen days behind everyone else. And we are now getting ready for Theophany and the Great Blessing of the Waters (Ashley Pond has been blessed many times over now.) It’s all good, nothing unexpected, and we’ll do it all again next year.

But that’s life, isn’t it?

We’ve just started the first iteration of “Intermediate Throwing” at the Arts Council on Tuesday evenings. We made goblets the first night. Which, although challenging for some of the students, was not that far out of their comfort zone. Really, when one throws a goblet in one piece, it’s just a cup with an exceptionally tall foot.

So, this week, last night, we made circle vases. Three pieces thrown separately and attached by scoring the clay and adding slip (liquid clay) to the joints. The top and the bottom pieces are simple enough to make. Two little cups, one tapered upward and the other downward, without solid bottoms. The center doughnut shape is thrown horizontally, essentially a double walled vessel, with the inner and the outer rim joined to trap a chamber of air inside. Then each of the three pieces must be dried to the point that they can be trimmed and rigid enough to hold their shape before they are stacked.

It was an ambitious ask for the two-hour class. It required the heavy use of a heat gun and propane torch.

One hour in and I was deeply concerned that we would not finish, and that I had asked too much of the students. Nothing was dry enough. Nothing was built.

Right now, it seems like that is where we all are.

Everything is in pieces. We’re running out of time. Nothing seems to be going as planned.

Maybe we just expected too much from people. Maybe we expected too much from life.

But we are not finished. There is no finish line, really. The universe may have an end, a purpose, a telos, to which it is hurtling (I believe there is). But most of our lives are cyclical. We do generally the same things, over and over. Just take a look at the laundry or the dishes. But in a larger way, the seasons, the years, the generations. We mark time. We strut and fret our hour upon the stage.

I kept my misgivings to myself last night. The students worked diligently. Somehow, everything started coming together in the last 15 minutes. And as the clock struck eight (okay, there isn’t really a tolling), the finishing touches were made to the last circle vase. They were covered in plastic to slow their drying and let the moisture in the clay equalize.

They had done it. They had risen to the challenge and conquered it with flying colors.

We need to have high expectations. People will rise to them.

It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. We need to exalt in small victories.

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” –Julian of Norwich.

“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” –John Lennon