In the Fall of last year, Sven kicked off our thesis by asking us to do one thing; find joy. Seven months later, as I sit to write this piece, I wonder if I found joy at any point in this entire journey, and I realize that the answer is a big, fat, clayey, messy YES! If being happy about the work you’re doing was the only criteria for success, then I have nailed it.
I am not a potter nor an expert on ceramics. I am not exceptionally well equipped when it comes to computation either. So then why did I choose to do computational experiments in pottery? Maybe I wanted to jolt my soul, maybe I wanted to really use my hands to do something other than type on the keyboard or jiggle the mouse, but maybe, I just wanted to get my hands dirty. As a kid growing up to be an architect, I loved my mess; be it crayons, paints, cardboard walls or broken prototypes. It all gave me a sweet sleep. While my first year at DT was a rewarding learning experience, I felt disconnected from my fingers and the material world. In a way, I trained myself to forget the touch of various materials. I was clumsy with a paper cutter, I had to think hard before using a drill, and relied on 3D printers to make my models. The pandemic only aggravated this. I really wanted to do something that would make me use my hands. That was it; the entirety of my personal impetus in doing this project summed up in seven words – I wanted to get my hands dirty.
One of my initial attempts to throw a pot on the mini wheel ended calamitously, despite the high expectations and increasing confidence. I had the clay blob centered and pulled to a desired height, I successfully managed to make a hole in it (known as ‘opening’ the clay) and I started to give it some shape. Wanting the wheel to slow down, I turned the speed knob and ended up accelerating instead of breaking, driving at 150 mph in a 45 mph zone. The clay took charge of me and not the other way round. I was desperately trying to control the wobble but nothing worked–not my palms, not my fingers, nor my brain thought to turn the machine off. For 20 minutes the wild wobble on my wheel went from bad to worse until eventually the clay flew across the room, lodging itself in unreachable places on the walls, floors, under the bed and all over my clothes (thank god, I was wearing a raincoat – yeah, a raincoat!). Me and my flatmate, Mia, had such a hearty laugh. She managed to capture the whole thing on video and being able to look at the episode was so heartwarming. More than the disappointment of a failed experiment, my heart was happy for the accident and the laugh that came with it. Two hours later I was still cleaning up the walls and scraping clay from under my bed. That’s when a sense of calm washed over me. My shoulders were finally relaxed and my palms stopped shaking. My head was much more sorted than it had been a while ago.
That evening, the clay told me how I really felt, even if the message was that I am in a really bad place. The clay grounded me, telling me that at times, things are beyond control and it’s okay to let go as long as you clean up after yourself. Like right now, I am turning this into a philosophical spiel, but well, I don’t want to control my thoughts in the moment due to this unfounded necessity of being ‘publication worthy’. At the end of this semester, even if nothing fantastically mind blowing comes out or even if critics dislike my project, I can at least say that I found joy. And by that measure, I nailed my project and I feel proud.
Between me and clay, the love just is, and we just are.
