This is what stress looks like.
On Monday, while I took the day off to get an adjustment from a chiropractor, the clay did the same. I came to the worksite yesterday and found eight of these beauties telling me to regroup. When clay dries it shrinks. And concrete (the floor directly under the ring) is unyielding in that endeavor. The day was spent deconstructing and reconstructing, taking into greater consideration my co-creator in this project: Clay.
Curiously enough, after years of working with this medium, I still conceive of the final piece as a flawless form. And the majority of the time it is returned to me with flaws which enhance the work and bring to it a deeper and more poetic expression. With this feedback I am now planning and imagining this form with the cracks that will invariably happen. After all, this is an egg, inviting the rebirth of any who enter into it. Has there ever been a bird who has experienced the magic of flight without having cracked the egg it emerged from?