Modalé Wares

My angel sis had a birthday recently, and we did a ceramics class. It was messy bliss, and I wrote the following in my afterwards.

It has long been accepted that being creative is a wonderful way to ease stress. It gets the mind to focus on something else aside from whatever it is that is worrying you or stressing you out. If we look closely at therapy for stress around the world, we notice that art therapy is widely used.

Pottery is a wonderful example of this approach in action. Your mind needs to focus on the task at hand; from creating the idea in your mind, preparing the clay, working & feeling the clay, and eventually bringing your idea to life.

When working with clay, you focus purely on what is in front of you and take in every aspect. You look at the clay, you think of the texture that it has in your hands. You look at your creation as it evolves and study it from various angles.

When you work with clay, you are going to make mistakes. You are also going to make a mess of the surrounding area. If you are producing a pot and it’s your first time, then there’s a very real chance that clay will be flying off the wheel and all over the place (my Mum was exemplary at this). As adults, we hardly ever allow ourselves to get really messy like we did as kids.

None of it matters. You learn that you can just start again.

Clay-making also forces you to slow down as the act of making cannot be rushed. By no means is there any instant gratification, something that we have come to expect in our fast-paced and technology-driven world.

Pottery is mindfulness in practice.