around in a circle

"The dawn is steel grey as I wake, the sun a pale smudge behind the clouds. Somehow the wind finds its way through every crack in this old house. I get up and light the wood stoves in the kitchen and studio. It will take a while for the house to warm up, so I let Mika and the children sleep on for a little while. Down in the studio I open the sliding door to the damp room and check the pots which I threw yesterday. Row upon row of bowls fill the shelves, the regular pattern of circle and curve, light and shadow beautiful in the diffused morning light. I touch their surface, applying gentle pressure to check how firm the clay has become overnight. Despite my efforts to seal this room from drafts in an attempt to control the drying of my work, this wind has nonetheless breached my defenses. The bowls I made yesterday morning are drying very fast. They are perfect for trimming now, the rest will be ideal by this afternoon. I cover the pots with sheets of plastic before I go to prepare breakfast."



These evocative words are from Australian born Japanese based potter Euan Craig. Euan has been deeply involved with creating pots for Japanese food and for the last few years has been working in collaboration with Japanese chef Touru Hashimoto from Toyoda in Nihombashi. Together they have created these beautiful dishes where the food and pots are in harmony , each enhancing the other. Euan has a great blog and a beautiful website (you'll have to get to it through Google I can't get the link to work. Sorry!) which includes some of his other essays, they are insightful and interesting. What I love most about Euan's style of writing (and the insight he gives into his domestic and creative life) is the link between being creative and having a family and all the love, eating, making, potting, firing, friends, eating, love, potting going around and around in a circle. It is a real privilege to be given such an eloquent insight into the intimate, creative process.