My Pottery Masterpiece

Last summer while visiting my 78-year-old cousin, Norman, I bugged him to teach me how to make something from clay on his pottery wheel. Norman was a master potter, and I admired all of the lovely pieces that he had sitting around his house. I wanted to learn how to do the same thing. He finally caved in to my begging, and pulled out a blob of clay, placed it on the wheel, and asked me what I wanted to make. A vase would be nice, I suggested, one that I could use and display in a variety of ways to show off my new skill. Norman smiled, probably knowing what lay ahead.

Norman began demonstrating the technique of forming the clay from a sticky gray lump into a lovely shape. He talked as he worked, telling me how to hold my hands and fingers and the importance of keeping a constant pressure on the clay to keep it from collapsing onto itself. It looked easy, and I was ready to try. He knocked down the shape he had formed and once again it was a blob. Trading places at the wheel, I was ready to begin.

As the wheel turned and I clumsily fashioned my vase, Norman coached me, encouraged me, and corrected me, always with a sparkle in his eye. The end result – my lovely vase collapsed! Now what? Maybe it could be a bowl, I ventured. Norman showed me how to cut the rim down, and a bowl began to emerge from the former vase. It wasn’t a pretty bowl – in fact it was asymmetrical and lumpy, thick in some places and dangerously thin in others. It was pretty pathetic looking! Norman finally called a halt to my creative efforts and proclaimed the bowl completed. He also gently advised me that I might want to try hand formed pottery rather than the wheel-turned kind! We laughed about my crazy little bowl and how at the very least, it was unique. I left Norman’s house the following morning with his promise that he’d save my bowl for me – the clay had to dry – and on my next visit I could pick it up.

My next visit to Norman’s house was this past March. Norman had died of a massive heart attack, and I was there for his funeral. Before he died, he told my sister, Molly, who was at his home at the time, about my bowl and asked her to make sure I got it. When I went into the guest bedroom where I was to spend the night, it was on the dresser, waiting for me.

I recognized my little bowl immediately by its funky shape. Indeed, it was unique. But, except for the shape it was not the same bowl I had left drying on Norman’s pottery wheel last summer. Norman had etched a beautiful design on the outside of my bowl and then had glazed and fired it. It was a light green-blue color, shiny and lovely. I held it tenderly in my hands, running my fingers over its imperfections that had skillfully been preserved and enhanced by the master potter for me. Norman was now gone from his house and from my life, but he left me with a gift I’ll hold close to my heart as long as I live. He took my ugly, misshapen attempt of a vase, now a bowl, and transformed it into a work of art.

I miss Norman. But he’ll always be as near to me as my little pottery bowl, and I’ll never forget him.

(Norman, Molly, and me)