Page 33 of Beneath Pearly Irish Skies
“I have the perfect amount—you’ll want about a half inch. Wait. For you that’s a little over one centimeter. I’m still learning the whole metric system.”
Frankly it drove her nuts sometimes, especially in cooking.
Stay focused, Megan.
“When you’re new, you might have a little more, which you can trim off. Only don’t go less because you won’t have enough clay to take your pot off with the metal cutter. Also, a thin floor cracks easily. Not good. A leather-hard pot shrinks about ten percent when it’s fired. Okay, enough of that. Let’s make the walls of this mug.”
She started the wheel again and pulled them up firmly but gently, pressing down on the rim.
“That move I just did keeps your rim—and your pot—centered.”
She took a breath as it started to wobble.No, please stay.
“When you start to create your walls, the centrifugal force can throw things off center.” She pressed on the rim, bringing it back in line. “You want to keep things straight and tight.”
She heard a few snickers and found it eased some of her tension. As she knew—heck, everyone who ever took pottery knew—the language could be fairly salty.
“You think that’s funny,” she decided to say, “wait until you learn how to pull a handle for your mug.”
Liam barked out a laugh. “It’s pretty naughty, let me tell you.”
Lisa Ann started fanning herself, much like Megan had the first time she’d seen handle pulling, which pretty much resembled making a male appendage before smoothing it flat. Even Kade’s mouth was twitching.
“Pottery is an earthy art.”
And it had a mind of its own. When she went to finish the mug, it wouldn’t cooperate. Its mouth was too small, and her walls weren’t wanting to stay wide. She decided not to fight it.
“You’re about ready to see why pottery is an art,” she said with a laugh. “This piece of clay—every piece—knows what it wants to be. It’s telling me now that it would rather be a vase.”
She stopped trying to force it and let go. The vase formed beautifully before her eyes, another lesson. Don’t force something to be something it doesn’t want to be.
“That’s incredible,” Hollie said, leaning forward on her heels to see.
“Good job, cousin,” Liam said. “That will be one fine vase.”
Staring at it, she felt emotion rush into her throat. Her first demo hadn’t been perfect, but it had worked. She looked over to see Kade’s reaction, and his smile stole her heart.
“So now we’re going to use the wire to cut under the vase, and then I’ll grab a bat and we’ll do one of the most dangerous things in pottery. Take your piece off the wheel.”
The irony was rich to her. You could have your center and make something beautiful, only to have a horrible moment and lose it all. It felt like an appropriate metaphor for her life, except she was coming to realize that what she’d had wasn’t as beautiful as what she might yet have.
She walked to the shelf for a drying bat and held up the disc, forcing away her barbed thoughts.
“As you can see, this has absorptive material to help the pot dry. You’re going to put plastic over it once you have the pot on it and then let it dry until it’s leather-hard. Then you’ll trim it next week.”
She dipped her sponge in her bucket and dribbled water around the outside of the pot on the wheel.
“Now I’m going to grab my cutting tool and run water under the pot with the tool.”
She demonstrated with aplomb and wanted to shout for joy.
“All right, on to the last step.”
She cupped the sides gently and lifted it off and onto the drying bat.
“And there you have it, friends.”
Kade started to clap and the others joined in. She turned a little pink but found herself smiling. She’d done it!
