Be the change you want to see.

I've been looking at my face in the mirror lately, and, it's not like I don't like what I see! It's just that there are definitely signs of aging showing up, even beyond what I already knew about the wrinkles, and the bits of my face that are sagging, and the little dark hairs that started showing up on my chin about a decade ago and has since spread to my lower cheeks blow my cheekbones and under my chin and all kinds of places. The other thing that I've got going on right now is these little tiny rough patches of skin. They're mostly the same skin color as the rest of my skin which is to say mostly hail pink into light tan. The first one that showed up I asked the dermatologist about and he said it was a normal thing that some people just get and I didn't have to be worried about it. And they're rough and they don't go away when you pick at them.

Now I have an association of myself with my mom, and also with my grandma on the other side It's funny I remember my dad's mom better and in detail in a close-up kind of way, I don't think I saw my mom's mom in full sunlight very often Most of my memories of her have us staying at their mobile home in Aptos which is near Santa Cruz, and everybody sat in the house when we would visit and everybody would smoke all day when we would visit. So aside from Grandma and Nez being a little bit fuzzy around the face I don't really remember and I know she passed on when I was 17 or 18, so it's 30 plus years now. The funny thing is that Grandma Bert passed on when I was 11 or 12 and I just remember her whole look in much more detail. Anyway it's helping me a little bit to verbalize all of this, thank you speech to text! And just yeah thanks to any of you who are reading this I just needed to empty out my head for a minute.

His hands are strong, blunt and square.
He works in silence, for the most part, letting his actions do the instructing, with bare hints of where students should watch and learn.
From a rounded, spinning lump of clay he pulls a graceful mug shape, smooth and even with thin sides.

The Beginner's class gasps when, after separating the beautiful shape from the wheel, he deliberately slices it in half to show the walls of the mug in cross-section, so thin and even with beautiful lines. We exchange glances. It's so EASY for him, after thirty years of practicing his craft, and we know we will struggle to make items that don't either collapse or else have inch thick walls and bottoms.

Several weeks later, I have enough practice on the wheel to only feel mild envy instead of shock when he demonstrates a technique so far beyond my skills that it might as well be rocket science. Still, I watch in awe as he shapes the clay with skill and ease. I notice my mouth is hanging open in admiration and I just don't care.

Grace, skill, and subtle elegance. Clay worked into every fold of his fingers. I want to be able to do that. I will need many more classes and dozens of hours of practice.

Half-accidentally, I pull a beautiful bowl from a lump of clay. I'm not sure how it happened, because I wasn't thinking. Rather, I was living into the feel of the clay beneath my hands, utterly engaged in the slow and mesmerizing process as it changed and opened up.

Just for that moment, in the best possible way, I lost myself.

The second bowl is more of a struggle. The third bowl stretches and warps and collapses.

The following week we are meant to trim our pots, which means to carve away unnecessary thickness at the base and to shape the "foot", or the pedestal our bowls or mugs rest upon.
The first part of the process is upending our greenware and recentering them on the wheel, then we anchor the piece with evenly placed blobs of soft clay. Then, we start the wheel spinning, and carve away at the underside of the piece to form a pleasing and functional shape.

The first of two bowls that had survived the previous week, the bowl I had lost myself in making, trimmed up like a dream.
The second bowl first refused to center, then once I finally anchored it, spun out of control off the medium-speed wheel at the first touch of the carving tool. Of course this knocks a big ugly chip into the rim. Of course the clay is dense and too dry, and so was the anchor clay.

With help from a teacher, we re-center and re-anchor the bowl, and he lends me his own (properly sharp, with a lovely graceful line) trimming tool. What a difference proper tools make! I trim and smooth the base, until again I am looking glumly at the chipped rim.

My friend suggests I even the chip out so it looks intentional, and carve out more chips for a kind of flower edge. I try this, but I do not love the effect. It is part of the learning process, though, so I plan to take even this sad example through the glazing process.

A week later, I am glazing all my recent work. And now? The weird little too-hard wanna-be flower bowl has called for an experimental double-dip glaze with a drizzle of contrasting color across the overlap place.



I have my fingers crossed, because these pieces haven't been fired yet, but I think in the end this may turn out to be my favorite piece from taking this six week class.
Not because it was easy, but because it was part of the process.
Making one, I was in the zone; making two, I struggled, then I failed in the making of the third.
With this specific piece? At first I didn't love it, then I was actively angry at it, then I tried to redeem it, then I found a means whereby it could possibly be beautiful.

Working to transform raw or broken things into beauty is what I've strived for my whole life.
Starting with myself.

I don't claim to understand the concept of shibusa (2) or how to determine if something is shibumi (3) or not.

But the older I get, and the more often I try new ways of making things, the more I come to appreciate the beauty in the process, in the struggle, to create. I'm coming to appreciate subtle and nuanced, where once I envied bold and blatant. And I also have come to understand there can be beauty in the imperfections. The creative process, the struggle to find meaning, my life itself are filled with little things gone wrong (and right). What we expect to happen can turn out to be something totally different instead, that may also be wonderful. This is true in life as well as in art.

Redemption, transformation, metamorphosis, and growth come both in big gestures and in small details.
I am not my teacher, with his steady hands, his years of experience, and his refined technique. Still, in my state of Beginner's Mind, I can create something unexpectedly beautiful, or beautifully unexpected.

(1) from http://www.mkdkarate.com/senseis-blog/what-is-shibumi-shibusa-shibui
(2) from http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibui
(3) from http://www.studiokotokoto.com/2013/06/18/shibusa-and-shibui-a-severe-exquisiteness/


This has been my reentry to therealljidol for week 25 (hello again!), and the topic I chose was "shibusa."

I've been reading a lot lately about beauty. Cultural ideals, expansion of the idea of beauty (Northernsun.com has a t-shirt saying "If the ideal of beauty gets any thinner, soon no one will fit" with the T squeezing out of the block... and also a bumper sticker with a Venus of Willendorf line drawing and the slogan "Change how you see, not how you look".

I've read a good bit in the sassy web-zine FAT!SO? and in other blogs - (hee, "blog" is in the spellchecker now) like BABble, Joy Nash's blog, and found Lesson plans on tolerance.org for fat acceptance. I've emailed the director of BigMoves (thanks for the idea, kineticphoenix!) to find out more about possibly joining them in dancing for all sizes.

I'm fat. It is what it is.
I usually still think I am pretty, gorgeous, sexy, whatever... I rarely doubt my own intelligence (*shakes fist* Damn you, Mercury Retrograde!!!) but I've had self-acceptance issues around my body since I was young, thin, and klutzy. *shrug* I've rarely been fit or strong, so I want to bring that into the realm of self-image once again. I miss dancing, I miss feeling strong, and I want to go back.

Here's one website I really love and find inspirational: YouAreBeautiful. I know I found it thru another one of those meta-link days, so I can't credit who pointed me there. Another blog I can't remember suggested making yourself a sign for over your mirror: "This is what BEAUTIFUL looks like."

I've done that. I made a sign that I think itself is beautiful, and Jeff humored me when I taped it up at the top of the mirror. *smile*

I don't always see it, in that way that familiar things fade into the background, but when I notice it, I try to look at myself and see myself, even just for that moment, or even when I am brushing my teeth, as beautiful.

Here's another idea I found somewhere, it's a bit like some of the things Flylady says.

If I were beautiful... (and finish that sentence to express things you would allow yourself to do or have or want or be, _IF_ you believed you were beautiful.)

Almost makes me cry.

so here goes.

If I were beautiful... I'd take better care of my skin, hair and teeth.

If I were beautiful... I'd make sure I exercised and stretched everyday.

If I were beautiful... I would only own clothes that made me feel lovely and confident.

If I were beautiful... I would praise myself more often; I'd appreciate myself.

If I were beautiful... I would smell good, every day, with lotion or perfume.

If I were beautiful... I'd rid myself of all possessions that have unhappy memories.

If I were beautiful... I'd be more confident and ask more often for things I really want.

_________________

I think I will be doing this exercise for other areas of insecurity. (I think "competent" is the next adjective.)

Ladies, feel free to gank this and try it yourselves, and Gentlemen, if you like, you could substitute "attractive" or "handsome" if those are preferred words.

I'm going to open this post. Feel free to point people here if you think they'd like to try this meme.