"the first 30,000 [pots] are the hardest"

originally published 10/11/2013

This is a paraphrase from an article I read about Edmund Waal.  He has an exhibit at the Gagosian Gallery in NYC that ends on Oct. 19th.  Can't wait to see it.

In his book, "The Hare With Amber Eyes" he writes"  All this matters because my job is to make things.  How objects get handled, used and handed on is not just a mildly interesting question for me.  It is my question. I have made many, many thousands of pots.  I am very bad at names, I mumble and fudge, but I am good on pots.  I can remember the weight and the balance of a pot, and how its surface works with its volume.  I can read how an edge creates tension or loses it.  I can feel if it has been made at speed or with diligence.  If it has warmth.

I can see how it works with the objects that sit nearby.  How it displaces a small part of the world around it.

I can also remember if something invited touch with the whole hand or just the fingers, or was an object that asked you to stay away.  "

and then " But some objects do seem to retain the pulse of their making.  This pulse intrigues me.  There is a breath of hesitancy before touching or not touching, a strange moment."

Pretty exciting stuff.


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