Large Pot
12” x 12” x 15”
When working within a large healthcare organization, I had the opportunity to travel to Tanzania on several occasions. While at home in cities, I was terribly unsettled when on the plains and in the spartan villages of the Tanzanian people. I knew how to live with the hubbub of our cities but not the earthiness of their country. Said another way, they were at home with the earth in a way that I was not.
Today I live in Santa Fe, an area of the country in which its peoples have long been at home with earthiness. Here, pots have been fashioned from the soil for centuries. I have often wondered if fashioning pots from clay would yield some of the secrets known to Native Americans as well as the Tanzanian people.
The answer is yes. In Africa, I learned about having grown apart from the earth. In the Southwest I learned about having grown apart from the spirit. Making pots slows you down. You cannot easily run from thinking about yourself, your ways, others, their ways. and ultimately the Other.
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