She likes to look good, which may well be a natural human drive, similar to male puffing out a mighty chest and looking fierce. Even when she changes into rougher clothes for an hour or two, she likes to look clean and neat. She descends into her pottery studio but before that, she needs to spread icing on a batch of cupcakes to be served at a meeting later in the day. She goes downstairs after that and wedges her heavy clay, a vigorous activity akin to kneading bread, which mixes the clay but more importantly, gets air bubbles out of it. A pocket of air trapped in the clay will heat up in the kiln and explode, shattering the piece and ruining her work. Then, she uses the wheel to pull a bowl from a spinning lump of clay. The bowl must be removed from the bat and allowed to dry but not too much. She has plans for further decoration and manipulation of the clay so it can't be too soft nor too hard.
When she finally climbs back up the stairs, she asks me to witness her previously clean clothes. True, she looks like she much be a cement worker. "These smears are clay from using the wheel but these here and here are icing from the cupcakes.", she says. I test them out and she is right: these here and even here (!) are sweet but the others feel squishy and ceramic.
--
Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
