Fire and Earth, Water and Air

*ting*

*ting*  *ping*

*ting*

*tong**tink**ting*

*ting*

It sounded like a small windchime, these random but musical sounds dripping gently into the air of the pottery studio.  I wondered if the fans were blowing a chime, but none was in sight.  I walked over to the corner where the sounds seemed loudest.

The shelves in the studio are arranged so that each object moves from wetness to dryness, from dryness to heat, from fire-baked dryness to completion.  The sounds were loudest in the area where objects fresh from the glaze firing are stored.  Every time I enter the studio, I end up peering and peeking my way around these shelves, searching for things that I might have made.  It turns out that my memory for my own work is surprisingly poor, even when you take the transformation from unfired glaze to fired into account.  So I'm always tipping my head from side to side to peer around the pots in front, raising up on tiptoe to inspect the topmost shelves, crouching down to search among the children's artwork on the lower ones. 

*ping*

*ting*

*tunk*  *ping*

The sound seemed to be hovering mysteriously over the freshly fired pots.  I touched one, tentatively; it was as warm as skin.  I heard pings on another shelf.  I could see nothing, just pots sitting motionless, and yet this gentle music was present, like a fairy orchestra.  My mind was sure that this sound had something to do with the pots cooling, but I felt unsure, unconvinced, because the sound was just there, with nothing to indicate its source beyond a coincidence of location.  (It turns out that ears are good at locating sounds, but not that precisely.  Clearly the source of the sounds was the shelves.  Not so clearly was where, exactly, on the shelves it was coming from, or from what.)

It was a pleasantly mysterious way to begin the afternoon's work, a session that ended up with clay in my hair, and small grey freckles on my skin, which lingered, unnoticed, until evening.

(Later, one of the artists-in-residence confirmed that, indeed, the sound I'd heard was of pottery cooling.  Like me, she finds the sound soothing.  I am now hoping to be in the studio on days when the kilns are unloaded, just so I can hear their song, and, perhaps, cup the warmth of a chiming bowl in my hands.)

Comments

[Pilgrim/Heretic]

Oh, that's lovely. Some friends of ours are potters; I'll have to go listen to their music sometime. :)

[jo(e)]

What a wonderful post. It makes me want to go to a pottery studio ....

[Rana]

jo(e) - I bet you'd love it. There's something about clay that combines both serenity and wide-eyed enthusiasm. (Every potter I've ever known has been a warm, friendly, zenlike individual - perhaps because there is always the chance of the pot deciding to do its own thing.)

P/H - Good luck! :) (I'm crossing my fingers on getting the timing right a second time.)

[rose]

hi rana-
i have to tell you that when i read your comment on creek runnin' north about chris and how much of his head was in the point of his hat- i couldn't stop laughing!
and, hey- i like it here!
rose

[Stephanie]

I can almost imagine that sound exactly.

[Rana]

Hi, rose! Welcome. :)

And hi, Stephanie! It's good to "see" you again! (You have been insanely busy, I know!)