They play something of God sitting at the wheel,
these potters. The deft touch of their hands
and the steady rhythm of their feet on the pedal
seems to work some kind of arcane magic
on the red stained clay of this mother Earth,
molding and working the breath of life
into these creatures, until they take on
something of the fantastic and animate.
They spin off the wheel, a parade of figures
contorting themselves into our humble servants:
an upraised arm twisted into a handle,
a curved lip forming the mouth of a spout,
jug heads with pinched faces
and these vases, like dancers
caught listening to a strange music.
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Author Notes
Pottery is one of those things North Carolina is famous for and my trip to Seagrove to see the potters served as the inspiration for this piece of the landscape here. I wanted to capture something of the mysterious magic of imagination coming to life, of the creative process. Again, this is in the conversational style of Land, with a simplified language meant to stay close to the heartbeat of folklore and folk culture, the language of the people. The images are the real stars of this. I wanted them to stand out against the simplified background. estory
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