Hockey Team warm up.
First thing I should tell you is that I know absolutely nothing about Hockey. I remember watching Hockey with my dad (back when fans were throwing squid on the ice, and players were trying to kill each other). I didn’t understand it then, but if you were quiet nobody noticed you were still up, and there was popcorn.
Here I am, sixty years later, and somehow committed to Friday Night Hockey and the Trenton Goldenhawks. This time I’m in it for the french fries. There are REALLY good french fries … and sometimes there’s kids there selling REALLY good chocolate bars. How else could I be persuaded? (Actually, part of the persuasion is that my husband LOVES it. Didn’t even know he liked until last year!)
So you’re probably wondering what in heck this has to do with pottery? Well, I was watching the game and I noticed a few things …
- You can make 20 minutes last an hour.
- If you get unruly there’s a penalty.
- If you talk back to the ref, you get another one
- You don’t need to know the rules to have a good time.
- When it’s over, it’s over. All of the drama, all of the yelling and screaming, finished with the last blast of the horn.
Pottery team!
How does this compare to working in clay? Well …
- You can make three hours seem like 20 minutes.
- If you get unruly, you can make some pretty funky pots. Or, you can make some magnificent reclaim.
- If you talk back to the teacher, you’re probably not paying attention. Why would you do that? You’re paying for the class!
- You don’t need to know everything there is to know about everything there is to know about clay to have one darn fine time. In fact, sometimes ignorance is bliss …
- It’s never over. Once you’ve been bitten by the pottery bug your brain starts to imagine pots … pots for pudding, pots for soup, casseroles, mugs, and so on, and so on. Then you start thinking about clay and decorating, and glazing, and so on, and so on. Before you know it, you’re counting down the hours until you can get back at it. All of your friends become potters, or all of your potters become friends (I can’t remember in which order that happened!) Your family starts to think you need remedial attention!
See, you can take the potter out to a hockey game, but the brain, the brain is still in the studio …
Hope you’re having a great day (or night, at this point!).
Susan McD
