Each one tells the same story:
She started off on the wheel. I threw her and shaped her and she felt great. She was coming along just fine.
Then I painted her and she was thrilled: color...the faint hint of brushstrokes....
Then I put her handle on and she was so pleased to have been made and she delighted in her own shape.
Then, I added bumps. Flower-shaped bits of clay. She wasn't that thrilled. She had liked being smooth and she vaguely resent being "bumped."
Then I left her to dry a bit, and she thought the hardest part was over.
Then I took her out of the drying tent and use a diamond-tipped stylus to carve away lots of her beautiful color. I imagine this was painful--to be subject to the scraping away, to have that lovely sweep of underglaze removed...
But when I took her out of the kiln and glazed her and then re-fired her at even higher temperatures and took her out again, she looked at herself and saw the glossy, shining flowers that remained through--and because of--all the scraping.
She was thankful.
And this, I think, is a picture of joy.
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