Work as Balance

I don’t know how many times I have been told I work too hard and that my life needs balance. I should play golf, tennis, or go ballroom dancing.

 One definition of the noun “balance” is an even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady. Sometimes I need to correct my posture because of a life stooped over the potter’s wheel but other than that I stand tall and steady.

In my defense I will suggest that my work gives me balance. At times when everything in my life is tipsy turvey I find sanctuary in my work. When I feel great I crank up the tunes as I work. I am blessed that my passion has become my career. I don’t need to escape it and do something else. I love my work, my home, my friends and it all seems to evolve around my passion for clay.

My young friend potter Emma Smith came for lunch yesterday and my long time friend Dawn Ellis came today. Do you think they are just checking in on me to see if I lost my  balance? Oh contrare!

 I just signed up for a fall course in Fundamentals of Perspective in Drawing at a good art college in London. This will help my work. So why didn’t I sign up for the “Fly fishing” course. I’d like to fly fish but I spend enough time solo I don’t need a hobby that gets me out alone some more.

I made these bud vases/candlestick holders today. I wondered about balance. Should I leave them alone to be adorned by a perching song bird? Should I put one handle on and have the bird perch at the front. Andrew and I stayed up talking last night and put a dent into a bottle of Woodford Reserve. I was slow off the mark today and had a wee nooner on the couch after Dawn left. I stared at my Jeff Payne outsider art painting which I love for it’s ultimate excess. What would J. Payne think about balance I thought? He wouldn’t give a fiddler’s fart was my answer. So thanks Jeff for the mentorship.  I went to the workshop and put two ribbon handles on each and perched the song birds all over Gawd’s creation.

“The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.” Oliver Wendel Holmes Harvard Professor.