After recently reading a series of comments about whether what we create is “new” or not, it occurred to me that this is a very ego centered way of approaching our work.

If we think of the pottery that has, from an aesthetic standpoint, endured through the ages, almost all of it is pretty egoless.  The Kizaemon Tea Bowl is a perfect example.

In the interchange of comments, the argument centered around the issue of “new and creative; individual and contemporary,” and the possibility that one’s perception of their work as revolutionary may only be due to a lack of knowledge of what has previously been created.

Who cares?.........everything, just like every sunrise, is new.  What we make is the result of the causes and conditions that we as individuals, and the entire universe, have manifested in the moments of creative activity.  Where else can the work come from?  New/old/original/contemporary/revolutionary are all just words.  Reality is the pot as it exists moment by moment….always changing and always new.

First you have a hunk of clay, then forming starts, then all of the activities leading up to the “final” pot are enacted.  But, the pot is not really “final.”  It changes when you put a flower in it, when you eat from it, when you look at it in changing light.  It is never really finished, even when it breaks.

It seems that the point of making pots is the joy that one gets from seeing this ever changing object, not from the naming of it.  Pots change just like we do, and there is nothing that can be done to stop it.