Dear Reader,
How do you create? In art? In life? What is your process? The obvious answer is that there are many different ways to create, depending on the creator and what is being created. I would like to share one way among many with you today.
But first, a story.
When I was in graduate school, back in the mid-Nineties, I was desperately trying to finish my thesis. I was earning my Masters degree in dance education, and the focus of my thesis was the creative process in dance.
If you’re thinking that sounds like a big topic – you’re right. I researched and wrote, and researched and wrote, for a year and a half, while the project grew bigger and bigger. I kept discovering more, researching more, writing more… it was endless.
Actually, I loved what I was learning. I was trying to bring different cultural perspectives to the creative process, which I felt was dominated in the literature by Western white male researchers. I particularly loved the perspective of Native American pottery makers of the Southwest, because they didn’t consider creativity a solitary act. Most often, pottery making was a family activity, from the little children to the grandparents. All were involved in the process.
I became so interested in the hand building process of pottery-making that I signed up for a class at Ghost Ranch Retreat Center in Northern New Mexico. The class was scheduled at the time I needed to make my final push to finish my thesis, but I wasn’t worried. I jumped on a plane and headed from New York City to New Mexico.
It ended up being one of the most magical experiences of my life, in more ways than I can relate in one blog post. Let’s just say that I was amazed by the land, the people I met, the retreat center itself – and the pottery making. The teacher was terrific. His method was to get us started and let us, as much as possible, find our own way.
Which meant that much of the time, I didn’t know what I was doing. Thank God.
The emphasis was on discovery, so we didn’t start with a clear idea of the finished product in mind. We might only know that we wanted to build something small, or really big. We would start with a base of the beautiful, rich red micaceous clay local to the area and build hand rolled coils of the stuff upward from the base.
I remember having no idea what I was making, struggling with the clay, trying to get my coils to fit together…
Until the magical moment when the pot came to life. I had read about it in my research, so far away in New York – the point in the process of finding the breath in the clay. The breath. The life of the thing being created. Amazing.
Once I found the breath, the pot began to tell me what it was. I just followed it’s lead until it felt complete. Oh, and every now and then the teacher would stroll past and comment “That’s pretty good. Now, you know what you could add if you want to?”
This, dear reader, is one way of creating. Go forward into the unknown, doing your best with the materials at hand, trusting your intuition as best you can until you find the breath in your artwork, your project, your business endeavor – and it speaks to you. It tells you what to do next, if you will listen.
Sounds like life, doesn’t it?
Sometimes, of course, we create very differently. We start with the end in mind, envision what we want to create, and find a way to get there. More often, though, I think it happens the other way.
When you are creating this way, dear reader, it is important to allow yourself to not know where you are going at first. You have a desire inside to create, maybe you have some materials, and you start. Clarity will come later, as you listen, feel, and have faith that something will speak to you when the time is right.
In case you are wondering, I learned a lot during that class. A group of wiccans took me out into the land for my first full moon circle. I went for a hike at night in the mesas under a moon so bright it felt like fairy light. I gained some key final insights for my thesis. And I discovered through casual conversation that one of the women in my class, who accompanied me on my moonlit hike, was the very writer whose interview with a local potter I had used as a key part of my early research!
You never know what will happen when you look for the breath.
I honor your loving heart,
John
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