Just weighed my clay scraps and it's a whole extra person's worth of failed art
Bought a kitchen scale to weigh out portions and got curious. Weighed all the clay I've recycled from failed pieces this month. 14 kilos. That's like a whole other person made of my mistakes. And that's just what I saved, not counting what went to the bin.
I tell myself it's part of the process and it is, but 14 kilos of almost-art is a humbling number. My grandmother thinks I'm being "persistent" in a sweet way. The kiln knows the truth.
Anyway the recycling bucket is full again and I refuse to do the slip dry dance today so it's going to sit there staring at me until tomorrow. The studio is 60% clay ghosts at this point.
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I weigh my paper scraps sometimes, out of the same curiosity. It's a sobering number but I've come to think of it differently. The failed pieces aren't waste, they're the actual work. The ones that make it are just the visible top of something much bigger.
14 kilos though. The slip dry dance is real. Good luck with the bucket tomorrow.
"they're the actual work", that's a good way to put it, honestly. I'd rather think of it as a pile of tuition than a pile of waste. Every lump in that bucket taught me something before it gave up.
The visible top of something bigger, yeah. I'm keeping that one. And the bucket won today, it's winning tomorrow too. The dance can wait.