It is said that man walked the land, one day realising the impression they left behind on wet soil instilled an imagination that the moisturised sediments could be shaped and dried. On whether this occurred before or after the discovery of fire, I do not know. If it is to be of the former, I wonder if just by leaving it for dry would do any good. If not made a vessel, perhaps a decorated ornament of sorts. Did our ancestors only figured mud as functional storage after settling down, having enough of a nomadic pursue in certain regions? Hunters to store meat and fat, gatherers to preserve and ferment. I am getting ahead of myself here discussing clay from an anthropological approach. 

     "Too wet cannot, too dry cannot. Too fast cannot, too slow cannot.", was a phrase I jokingly came up with while wedging on my second week of pottery apprenticeship. A crude phrase that I believe encapsulates every element that would make or break the clay in my then-not-so-sensitive hands, still clueless from each touch. The weather, the sense of humidity, table surface condition, the direction a huge single-speed industrial fan is blowing. Each curve and fold applied with gentle or forceful gestures pressuring across the surface of a slab, through fingertips still naive from detecting the right amount of moisture. It all intertwine with a dance of both hands managing the material, creating a multiverse of possibilities and outcomes by a difference of mere seconds, sometimes milliseconds.

               At the beginning, it felt as if no amount of water is sufficient. In the end, any amount of water is too much. Ironically it wasn't entirely about water, it was pressure on moisture. Coming into contact with clay every day for months left a lasting impression, that this material remained mysterious no matter the times I repeatedly work on it. If clay has a facial expression, it would be speaking back to me with a stillness of indifference, a reminder that it can be forgiving yet brutal depending on its mood of that day. I would nickname clay a 'merciful emotionless gangster'. Perplexing, I admit.

     Peel and lift a slab corner from a table top to face you and wrap it into the shape of a cup by overturning it, tiny surface cracks appear on the clay wall instantly if not later. Shape it further on the edge while it dries after losing moisture, cracks might form only a matter of time varying from an hour to a day leaving you to wonder if it is worth the risk. To be fair, these are hand-builds. An entirely different set of risk awaits from the once deceivingly simple wheel-pulls.

     Then comes a point of no return: Bisque Firing. "If you sense it is going to fail, do not get emotionally attached by firing a greenware that risk ending up in the trash.", I was told. This is realistically true if one is paying for kiln-firing by the weight. Risk the cost, or risk the time. Either is valid as the determining factor has no definition of a guarantee.

"The beauty of clay? It remembers how it was treated.
When it fails, it is mendable, reclaimable, and recreatable.
Then it shines in glaze after periods of high-temperatured fire.

Such is also the beauty of life."

"Day and night, with a twist from an accidental creation to a squarish 'mame-zara'.
As a designer, I borrow ideas from nature and surroundings. Having to wedge both White
and Purple clay from sunrise to sunset during apprenticeship, I wonder if I took for granted
the daily transition of day (白天) and night (黑夜), in relation to both clays I hold in my 
hands every day. Through trial and errors, refinements and guidance from people at the
co-op, it was partially happenstance how my first functional ware came to be." 

               A week later I returned to the co-op with tingling discomforts of not touching clay for days. Unbisqued greenwares made by apprentices for the bazaar were left to oxidise on shelves. There is a notion that it should all be reclaimed and reused, yet I guess the sense that 'it is already created just not fired' is the one reason that it remains untouched. I wonder how could someone allow their crafted works to be destroyed in the hands of others. If it is to be broken into pieces, it should be done by the same hands that crafted it. Staring at shelves still with our names written with markers on tapes on it, it has been a bittersweet feeling whenever I come back to work on clay. Writing about clay is a struggle, as to me an unfamiliar territory comparing to writing about design. It is similar to that of wedging on the first day, coning on the first wheel, or shaping the very first cup. It takes time, just ain't how we ever foresee it to be.