I Want to Crawl Inside / by Amanda Gentry

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A few years ago, as my work began to push against the edges of my kiln, I began to feel constrained. I wanted to build bigger. So I bought a new kiln that afforded me a couple more inches all around. The bigger kiln had no answer for me, however, when I found myself looking at my work and saying, I want to crawl inside.

I have recently been fascinated with eggs. An object we encounter daily yet fail to see the magic and mystery of. That a creature can be contained within it and break itself out to emerge into a new world amazes me. The simplicity and elegance of the form itself holds my attention. Such that breakfast has begun to take longer on savory days with each egg that is cracked first being experienced by my hand and my eye. A dozen eggs. A dozen variations on a form. A dozen beginnings.

After dreaming and sketching and ideating I now find myself in Star, North Carolina, at STARworks Ceramics, where I have been generously accepted as a resident artist. It is here that I will build a piece large enough to crawl inside of. And in crawling out I will find myself Born Again.