"Reunion"

There was this thing. At the art center.

They called it a reunion but it wasn't really, it was just an invitation to come and make art with other people. And eat pizza. And ice cream. And it was brilliant.

I was the first one there and then this other girl came and we were talking and laughing with the teachers. We made a plan for what we were going to do on the giant canvas that was provided. Then we started to paint and some other kids arrived. I went downstairs to see my friends from ceramics since I wasn't attending this week. We ate pizza and ice cream and went on painting.

I did not feel at all emotionally attached to the painting that I was doing with the second girl who arrived. The other people were also doing a giant one. It was amazing not to give a damn at all and just go wild with color. Ours ended up as a real explosion of hues, and quite abstract too. The canvas was absolutely enormous. I've never done something so large-scale.

So. Much. Fun.

I talked with the girl about middle school and high school and social things and it was kind of fun because we had the same opinions on a lot of things even though she's a "popular kid" and I'm a "book/YouTube nerd." It's amazing how fundamentally similar humans are.

When I signed my name at the end of the evening, I looked at our work and kind of liked it. It definitely wasn't my favorite thing I ever made but it wasn't bad. Creating it was almost like letting go, just letting everything out, with vast brush strokes across the enormous space.

It feels good not to be attached, almost like floating, like being on a ship in the open sea. You choose what ports to enter, which ones you want to explore, and where you want to stay. "I can see...perfectly in this cracked darkness." ~ Paper Towns by John Green

Throwin'

I always feel the need to clarify this. In ceramics, the term "throwing pots" does not mean we're all chucking vases at the walls; it means we're making clay pots on the pottery wheel. Just making sure everyone knows.

This week I'm attending Afternoon Ceramics at the art center nearby. I skipped it on Monday in favor of a day at the beach with my friend but yesterday I arrived for class in clothes made for turning brown with clay stains.

I have attended something at the art center for at least one summer or vacation per year since fourth grade, except for last summer, when I did a five-week intensive dance program instead. But in any case, the teachers know me.

So I arrived about ten minutes early to find one of my former teachers digging in the recycled clay bin and slopping it onto boards to make it dry into clay that's fit for working with instead of just muddy slip. I offered to help because I love getting dirty in this way, and I needed to get my clean clothes flecked with clay already. "You grew a lot," she says.

While doing that I realized that someone who had been with me in the pottery classes I'd attended two years ago was in my class again. We reacquainted ourselves with each other and remembered our jokes. Since we've both been to Israel it was mostly about the messed-up-ness of security and terrorists in airports and trying to drag pottery wheels into the airport. It's probably the best time I've had in an organized class in a while.

I'd really forgotten how much fun it is to go somewhere with the intention of making art, to come with a group of people and get your hands so very dirty. I don't know if anybody else does this, but my friend and I start talking to the clay in the middle of conversations. Like, one minute we're talking about depression and then he says to the mug he's making, "Don't flop over, I'll kill you if you do," and we're talking about television. That doesn't happen without the occasional lunatic talking to random objects.

Today I'll go back and throw a few more pots. Ah, pottery. The most fun I've had in a while.